In a new conversation with MusicRadar, Steve Harris said firing Paul Di’Anno and replacing him with Bruce Dickinson was a tough decision, and he worried it could hurt the band’s career.
“Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know but that’s the feeling I got with him,” the bassist said of Di’Anno’s party-heavy lifestyle. “I think singers tend to be a little insecure anyway. Not all of them, but a lot of them are, and they disguise that with bravado.”
Harris went on to say, “We were touring a lot and Paul was putting up resistance to a lot of it. He was pissed off half the time because we were getting him to do things he wasn’t that comfortable with. So there was a bit of that going on.”
Before firing Paul, Harris had already chosen Dickinson to replace him but had doubts when the change happened. He shared, “After all that hard work we’d done, I was thinking, ‘Is it all gonna go out the window, because we’ve had a singer change, no matter how good Bruce is?'”
With Dickinson, the band recorded ‘The Number Of The Beast,’ but Harris still had doubts as they prepared for their UK tour in 1982. The rocker explained, “We didn’t know if we were going to sell loads of tickets. So it was exciting, but worrying at the same time.”
In a talk with the Scars And Guitars podcast last year, Harris spoke about his bond with Dickinson. He noted, “Well, I’ve always encouraged whatever band I’ve been in or whatever I’ve done in the past, even before that, it’s always really the frontman that you wanna push as being the key focal figure, really.”
“I mean, it was only because, say, Paul [Di’Anno, former Iron Maiden singer] wasn’t really that active on stage — he had a great stage presence, but he wasn’t really very active on stage. So, you kind of, I would not say compensate, but you just fill in for whatever,” Steve revealed.2
The bassist also said, “When Bruce came along, he was a full-on frontman. And also Bruce does a lot of the interviews, and he’s out there speaking to mainstream media. I’m not so good with them.”
Di’Anno was fired after the ‘Killer World Tour.’ The band had already chosen Dickinson from Samson, who auditioned in September 1981 and was hired right away.
