Intervista Steve Harris British Lion (Richard Taylor)

Steve Harris‘s band starts its new tour today…Iron Maiden? No, we’re talking about British Lion, the first side project he has after more than 30 years of complete dedication to his band.

We used this occasion to interview the band’s singer, Richard Taylor. 

Hi Richard, how are you doing?

I’m doing good thanks, how are you?

I’m good thanks; so, I’ll start with a question which might sound a little weird: you’re sometimes called “the solo project of Steve Harris”, sometimes called Steve Harris British Lion, sometimes just British Lion, so…what’s the actual name? And is it a solo project or is it a proper band?

I know it’s a bit confusing, we started out 25 years ago when I was very young and Steve, Steve used to manage our band.

That was a long time ago, I was very young, naïve, the band didn’t happen; Steve was a huge part of that and we stayed friends for 25 years.
We’ve been writing songs together, he’s been saying for a long time that he would like to work with me and some of the original members of the band, but it’s been difficult all these years because he’s been busy, you know, touring the world, and then in 2012 we’ve had the chance to release the debut album and some of those songs were around from the beginning.
Steve, you know, it was Steve Harris British Lion originally on the record because if we just call it British Lion at first stage no one would have paid attention, you know what I mean? We had to kind of start that way so that people would take a bit of notice.
Now we’re gonna release a live record next year and a second album later next year.

We are…we’re just British Lion, you know, and it’s a band, it’s definitely a band.

You were saying you’ve know each other for 25 years, how did you get to know each other?

Myself and Grahame, he’s the original guitar player, we were writing songs and demoing songs and we managed to get one to Steve and unbelievably he got back to us, he liked what he heard, and he said “Can we meet up?”.
We met and then we used to rehearse at his house and his studio, you know, we started a friendship, that’s how it started, really, passing a demo to him.

What is your musical background? What are you inspired from when you write your music?

When I write I write about things that affect me, things that are going on which is, you know, things that are personal to me; I kinda draw inspiration from everything, really, what’s going on on the news…

My background, stuff that inspire me, I’ve got a really eclectic sort of taste, it’s not just one specific kind of music; I like all kind of music, I think you can find inspiration from all types of music.
I think this is how it has always been rather than just listening to one type of thing.

You’ll now go on tour very soon, will you be playing just the songs from the first album, maybe previewing some new material or maybe even some Iron Maiden songs?

No, we won’t do that, you know, doing other people’s songs, but we’re doing…I think there are about five songs in the set that aren’t from the first album, two of them are completely brand new songs.

I imagine that some people might have come to your shows expecting something like Iron Maiden and they must have been surprised to find a quite different sound, usually how’s the reaction to your shows?

It’s been really good, we’ve done three yours now and every gig has been fantastic, the audience has been great.
I think that the people that come to see us they know it’s not Iron Maiden, they’ve heard the album, it’s different you know, it’s very powerful; the people I’ve spoken to really got a shock from listening to the album and coming to see us live, it’s really powerful.
But the reaction it’s been fantastic, really, and they know the songs as well which is great for me being the frontman up there singing the songs.

What can we expect from the future, after this tour? You were talking about a new album…?

Sure!
All the songs from the first album have been around a long, long time, we were all a lot younger than now, and the second album is kinda where we are now.
It has got the British Lion sound, you know, it is moved one, I like to say we moved one, powerful, great songs, really, really good songs, I just hope people like it.

Well, that was my last question, thanks for your time Richard.

Thank you and I’ll see you all on tour!

Davide Sciaky