He is without a doubt one of the greatest and best-known bassists in Metal and he also a songwriter with supreme grace.
Let's read some facts about Steve Harris.
(Photo: Francesco Castaldo)
He was born in East London on March 12, 1956, as Stephen Percy Harris.
In his youth, he aspired to be a soccer player. He was spotted by a talent hunter and played for the youth team of West Ham United, the football team he is a fan of to this day.
In the early teens of his life, he began to take an interest in rock music and at the same time he realized that he was not interested in becoming a professional soccer player
Harris wanted to learn to play the drums but due to space constraints in his parent's home, he chose the bass guitar.
In 1971 he purchased his first bass guitar which was an imitation of the Fender Precision. Harris taught himself how to play it.
Just ten months after purchasing his first guitar, he had already joined a band called "Influence" and later changed its name to "Gypsy's Kiss".
In February 1974 he joined the band "Smiler" and began writing songs for them, but the band members rejected them due to the fact that they were too complex.
At Christmas of 1975, Harris formed "Iron Maiden". He got the inspiration for the band's name from the film "The Man in the Iron Mask", in which he saw a torture device named "Iron Maiden." Click the link to read more about Iron Maiden Formation.
Exactly three years after the formation of the first lineup, on December 31, 1978, "Iron Maiden" will release its first recording known as "Soundhouse Tapes". At this point the band included Steve Harris on bass, Dave Murray and Paul Cairns on guitar, Doug Sampson as a drummer and Paul Di'Anno as a singer.
Before being signed by EMI in 1979, Harris worked as an architectural draughtsman for a firm in the East End of London. Later he even served as a street sweeper.
Harris is the only original "Iron Maiden" member and the only one along with guitarist Dave Murray to appear on all 17 of its studio albums.
Harris has a very unique unit style. He is considered one of the best and most influential bass players in the metal world and is also the one who is identified with the "galloping" style he manages to produce through playing with his fingers and without a pick, a style familiar to us from songs like "The Trooper" and "Run To The Hills".
In addition to being a bassist, Harris also plays keyboards in some of the band's songs and also sings background vocals.
Harris is also the band's lead writer and he is influenced in his writing mainly by historical events, books and movies.
He is also responsible for mixing and producing some of the band's albums and even some of its music videos.
The musical influences on Harris were from the field of classical rock, hard rock, and Progressive rock.
In 1991, Harris collaborated with two tennis players John McEnroe and Pat Cash and released a single with them, that also featured his friend Nicko McBrain and singer Roger Daltrey. The single included a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" and was released as part of the "Life Aid Armenia" charity project.
In 2012 Harris released his first solo album "British Lion" and in 2020 his second solo album was released as part of "British Lion", called: "The Burning".
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