{"id":579399,"date":"2026-08-01T21:38:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T21:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579399\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T21:38:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T21:38:17","slug":"iron-maidens-steve-harris-defends-no-prayer-for-the-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579399\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Maiden\u2019s Steve Harris defends No Prayer For The Dying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is No Prayer For The Dying up there with your favourite Iron Maiden<\/a> albums? If the answer is \u2018yes\u2019, you\u2019re in a fairly select group. It would be a massive stretch to say the record, released in 1990, is as beloved as such nailed-on classics as The Number Of The Beast<\/a>, Powerslave<\/a>, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son <\/a>or A Matter Of Life And Death.<\/p>\n

But if you are willing to go into bat for the metal legends\u2019 eighth album then you\u2019re in good company. One person who really loves it is Maiden bassist Steve Harris<\/a> himself. Speaking to Metal Hammer<\/a> as part of a feature on supposedly rubbish metal albums that are nowhere as bad as people say they are, \u2019Arry leaps to No Prayer For The Dying\u2019s defence \u2013 and reveals the one thing he\u2019d change about it that would have cast it in a completely different light.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it\u2019s a really strong album,\u201d he says, pointing out that it came on the back of a run of increasingly ambitious albums and tours. \u201cAt the time, we had gotten so big, with all the grandiose shows, that we were trying to go back to basics a little bit.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I’m totally honest, I think it was slightly influenced by Bruce’s solo album, Tattooed Millionaire [also released in 1990], where he was trying to get a bit more basic,\u201d continues Steve. \u201cThere are a couple of songs on there where he sings a bit rougher. I was thinking I could write something where he could sing with that gruff delivery as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

This commitment to stripping things back extended to recording the album in a converted barn in the grounds of Steve\u2019s house. And the one change he would make if he could do it again? Well, it\u2019s a pretty major one.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe were trying to make it sound like a live album, which is why we got the Rolling Stones Mobile studio in to record live in the barn. We probably should have put audience noise on it, because it would have sounded more like a proper live album \u2013 we did that with the Tailgunner video, and it made a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, one of the more derided songs on the album is its most epic-sounding: Cossack-metal anthem Mother Russia. \u201cMother Russia got really slagged off, but I listened to it recently and I thought, \u2018This is really good,\u2019\u201d says Steve. \u201cI was going for a [20th century Russian composer] Sergei Prokofiev kind of vibe, which I felt I got, but it got slagged off anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Iron Maiden – Tailgunner (Official Video) – YouTube
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Not that Steve Harris is bothered by whether you like No Prayer For The Dying or not. \u201cI don’t care about that kind of stuff,\u201d he says. \u201cI remember when Jethro Tull’s album A Passion Play got slagged off, [Tull mainman] Ian Anderson didn\u2019t want to play the UK anymore,\u201d he says. \u201cIf it were me, I would have embraced it. I would have gotten all the journalists into one room, and piled into them \u2013 not physically, but verbally. If someone says they don\u2019t like something, that makes me embrace it even more. You\u2019ve got to believe in what do, don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

You can check out the list of albums that are nowhere as bad as people say they are \u2013 also featuring Judas Priest, Metallica, Machine Head and more \u2013 in the brand new issue of Metal Hammer, onsale now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"Electric\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is No Prayer For The Dying up there with your favourite Iron Maiden albums? If the answer is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-579399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}