STEVE HARRIS Says IRON MAIDEN Gets More Radio Airplay Now Than It Ever Did

In a recent interview with Katherine Turman of "Nights With Alice Cooper", IRON MAIDEN bassist Steve Harris discussed the differences in tastes between his native United Kingdom and the United States, where he is currently touring with his BRITISH LION side project.

"It's very different," he said (see video below). "U.K. is such a small country. You can drive 50 miles to another venue. Here, you drive 500 miles to another venue and still keep going. It's a vast, vast country, so it's a whole different thing going on with how you get things across to people. Obviously, radio is important to all of us. Having said that, MAIDEN never got much radio play, but we still had some things like that for the tours, but we never really got much play. We probably get more play now than we ever did, because we've been around for a long time and they tend to play old stuff. It's difficult, I think, for even new bands to get played anywhere as well. If I got played with BRITISH LION, I'd take it all day long because it's nice. It's quite funny in a weird way if we did actually get some sort of play because we never really had it with MAIDEN. That would be quite ironic."

Harris was then asked whether he discusses BRITISH LION with his MAIDEN bandmates. With the exception of Harris and BRITISH LION, the members of MAIDEN have not been recently active on the side-project front. The status of vocalist Bruce Dickinson's solo career remains uncertain, while guitarist Adrian Smith dabbled in the short-lived PRIMAL ROCK REBELLION with SIKTH vocalist Mikee Goodman, releasing just one album, 2012's "Awoken Broken".

"We don't really talk about it, really," Harris said. "We're all so busy doing our different things. I think the things that people are doing outside of it, don't really talk about that stuff. It's just private stuff and everyone else is doing their own thing. If we wanted to talk about it, I'll talk about it, and if you want to come to a gig, that's fine, too. It's not something we really discuss."

BRITISH LION kicked off its first U.S. tour on January 18 at Ace Café in Orlando, Florida. The trek will hit a number of cities, including San Antonio, Dallas, Memphis, Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale, before concluding on February 20 in New York.

BRITISH LION's second album, "The Burning", was released on January 17 in digipack CD, double gatefold vinyl and digital download formats via Explorer1 Music (E1). Recorded, engineered and mixed at Barnyard Studios by Tony Newton and produced by Harris, "The Burning" is crammed with powerful hard rock melodies.

BRITISH LION comprises vocalist Richard Taylor, guitarists David Hawkins and Grahame Leslie, Harris on bass and keyboards and drummer Simon Dawson.