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IRON Maiden founder Steve Harris says he doesn’t agree with the band taking all of next year off.
After a extensive world tour this year which will include Australia, the British behemoths announced they would be sitting out next year.
Interviewed aboard the Monsters of Rock Cruise where he is playing with side project British Lion, 70-year-old Harris said: “It seems like next year Maiden are not going to do, if anything… anything at all.
“So I might go out and do some festivals next year with British Lion.
“When I get back with the lads, the Maiden lads that is, I just want to make sure that that is what everyone wants – to take the year off.
“It seems like it is but I just wanted to double check that everyone is up for that. I mean, I wasn’t particularly, so we’ll see if there’s any others that…
“I just think at our age you’ve got to keep going. I’m scared to stop, if I’m honest. But we’ll see.
“It looks like we’re going to take the year off and if that’s the case, I don’t want to sit around twiddling my thumbs.”
Speaking to Sirius XM, the bassist also theorised that if Maiden’s members had done solo projects earlier then singer Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith may never have left, as they each did for a period between two and three decades ago.
Discussing the number of solo projects in which the members are involved, Harris said: “We probably should have done that in the first place.
“We probably should have just taken a break in retrospect. Everyone’s wise in retrospect. I think now everyone’s got other things they can do…
“A bit older and wiser we probably would have talked something out. Maybe they needed to leave so they could come back and make it what it was.”
Harris also told host Eddie Trunk that he wishes it was made clearer to fans that a new film, Burning Ambition, was a documentary and and not an official release by the band.
“Well in actual fact it wasn’t us,” said Harris. “It’s about us but not by us. That’s the difference.
“It’s a documentary where they came to us with an idea that they wanted to do and it changed a little bit from the original idea.
“They were going to do it more about the fans and it is still to a degree.
“Even though they wanted to use our artwork and everything … it seems like it’s our documentary. It’s not.
“I think they should really have put up that it’s a documentary about Iron Maiden, not by Iron Maiden.”
Harris said he the band would not abandon UFO’s “Doctor Doctor” as their introduction song despite comments from Smith to that effect.
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