Iron Maiden bassist and bandleader, Steve Harris, was recently asked by Mitch Lafon “whether it irritates him or makes him laugh” that Iron Maiden is still not in the Rock Hall.
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The musician replied :
“No, it doesn’t irritate me or make me laugh. I don’t really think about it, to be honest. It’s not something I really – and I don’t wanna sound blasé about it – it’s just, I don’t really think about it.
“I think awards are things that are nice to have when you get them, but it’s not something you’re really striving for – it’s not what it’s about it. It’s never been about that.
“It’s always been about just trying to make good music and go out and play good live shows, and that’s it, really. Hopefully, people will appreciate it.
“It’s probably nice when people give you awards – don’t get me wrong; I think it’s great -but it’s not something that you would lose sleep over if you didn’t get any.
“It’s the way that I am. I don’t know. Maybe the rest of the guys [in the band] might think differently to me, but that’s the way I think.
“It’s not that I don’t care about [awards]. It’s just… And it’s not that they’re not meaningful when you do get ’em – it’s nice. But I certainly don’t worry about it or anything like that. I think other people are the ones that make a bigger deal out of it than us, about whether we got one or not.”
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Harris, who turned 62 in March, also talked about a possible retirement, saying:
“I try not to think too much about it, because it’s not really [chuckles] a nice thing to be thinking about the end of the career. I mean, obviously, we’re at the ass end of the career rather than the beginning of it, so it is what it is.
“But we certainly think we could carry on for a while yet, but you just never know. I think you’ve just gotta take it as it comes, especially when you get to our age, I suppose. You never know what’s around the corner, especially after what happened with Bruce and everything [referring to singer Bruce Dickinson’s 2014 cancer diagnosis].
“So you’ve just gotta enjoy the gigs and enjoy life and be out there and just have fun, which is exactly what we’re doing – we’re enjoying it, probably more than ever, I think. But how long we’re gonna go on for, I don’t know.
“People have been asking us that from 20 years or more ago. We’re still doing it, and we’ll still do it while we can still do it. And we’re still enjoying it, and we’ll carry on as long as we can. But who knows how long that’s gonna be?
“Something else might decide something for us; you just don’t know. But, again, I don’t like to think about things too much, because we’re enjoying ourselves at the moment, and you don’t really sort of wanna be thinking like that, really.”