BRITISH LIONthe side project of IRON MAIDEN bassist and founder Steve Harrisperformed this past Thursday night (October 3) at Brick By Brick in San Diego, California. Fan-filmed video of the concert can be seen below.
The San Diego show was part of BRITISH LION‘s three-date US tour, which will continue on October 7 at the Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles, California and conclude on October 10 at the Aftershock festival in Sacramento, California. TONY MOORE’S AWAKE is the special guest on all dates with the exception of BRITISH LION‘s performance at Aftershock.
In a recent interview with Australia’s Heavy, Harris was asked if he has begun work on the third BRITISH LION album. I responded: “Yeah. We’ve got two new songs already in the set anyway. We did a lot of new songs before ‘The Burning’ album. We played them live quite a lot — probably two-thirds of the album, actually, we played live before we actually recorded it. So we’ve got two new songs now in the set and we’ll just keep adding new songs as they come along. So that’s the idea anyway.”
In a separate interview with Spotlight Report, Harris talked about the differences in the musical direction of BRITISH LION compared to that of IRON MAIDEN. He said: “The songs in BRITISH LION are driven by [singer Richard Taylor] and the guys, so it’s just going to be different. Then I come in and get involved with that material in different aspects. Since it’s driven by them, it’s going to be different anyway. I mean, this sort of started off as a bit more UFOwhich MAIDEN was also influenced by, but MAIDEN also had a lot of more prog types and all sorts of other influences as well. BRITISH LION is just more like a rock band with very strong melodies, and Richie‘s style of singing is very, very different from Bruce‘s [Dickinson]. I think he is a great singer.”
He added: “BRITISH LION is not really a metal band, you know? I mean, it’s just an exciting band. I enjoy playing in BRITISH LION as much as I want to.”
Last summer, BRITISH LION completed a 15-date tour throughout Europe. It included 13 headline tour dates, as well as festival appearances at hellfest and Sweden Rock Festival.
BRITISH LION‘s second album, “The Burning”came out in January 2020 in digipack CD, double gatefold vinyl and digital download formats via Explorer1 Music (E1). The LP was recorded, engineered and mixed at Barnyard Studios by Tony Newton and produced by Steve Harris.
BRITISH LION‘s first US tour took place in January and February 2020.
BRITISH LION understands singer Richard Taylorguitarists David Hawkins and Grahame Leslie, Harris on bass and keyboards, and drummer Simon Dawson.
Asked by the Tampa Bay Times what the itch is that BRITISH LION scratches that he doesn’t get in his job with MAIDEN, Harris said: “I suppose playing small clubs and being close and personal with the audience. I love playing big places as well. I enjoy them all, and I’m very lucky that I can do them all. But also, it’s clubs that I never played with MAIDENeven in Europe. There’s a famous club called the Milky Way in Amsterdam, which I managed to play with BRITISH LIONbut I never did that with MAIDEN. There’s places that I’m playing on [the U.S.] tour that I’ve never played before. So it’s all new ground. It’s a challenge. It’s nice. I like a challenge.”
In a 2020 interview with Bass Player magazine, Harris He said that he loves playing small clubs. “I’m very lucky that I can play all types of gigs; massive gigs and small ones as well,” he said. “It’s a change. I’m not trying to conquer the world with this band; there’s not enough years left in me to do that anyway.”
Asked if the different venues present a different set of challenges, steve said: “I actually think it should be the same, whether you’re playing for 200 or 200,000 people, you know. To me, there’s no difference. You still give 110 percent wherever you’re playing. We had one gig where the promoter just didn’t do [anything]. I think we had, like, 95 people in there, but it was still a great gig, one of the best of the tour. It doesn’t matter. We’re still going for it, and I was proud that we went out there. It was fantastic.”
