iron maiden
17:20 Sunday, 18 June 2023
Iron Maiden recently played "Alexander the Great (356-323 BC)" for the first time ever, which begs the question – what else should they finally break out live? Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris tells Metal Hammer he'd love it if the band would play their 1988 song "Only The Good Die Young" from Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son more.
"There's a few tracks that would be nice to dig out once in a while, I suppose. I think 'Only The Good Die Young' is a really nice song that would be nice to play."
"We did play it a couple of times. It would be nice to play that, maybe. It's a bit more, one of those obscure songs. But it's just… what do you drop out?! That's the problem. So many songs, so many albums."
Harris later admits in the same interview that Iron Maiden really only picks their setlists to please themselves, and doesn't pay too much attention to what's actually popular. Which is fair – dudes have been doing it for damn near 50 years. Gotta keep yourselves entertained at a certain point, right?
"This might be blunt and brutal, but we don't do it for the audience. We do it for our own thing first. We've gotta feel comfortable with what we're playing and enjoy it, and then hopefully they'll like it. That's always been our stance all the way through. We don't do a census of, 'Oh does everyone like this or like that?', or whatever. We don't do that."
