I respect religion and all people‘s ideas of it. I think everyone should be able to do whatever they want to do with their own life. I just don’t particularly like it when people try and force their ideas on others.

If you see a credit with just my name on it, that means I write absolutely everything: rhythm guitar parts, guitar melodies, vocal melodies… absolutely everything, really.

I have respect for anybody that has to go and do whatever they have to do to protect their country.

When you’re trying to create imagery, you’re trying to create a feeling or a mood.

Obviously, Iron Maiden is on a way bigger scale to British Lion, but as a musician playing live, it’s just the adrenaline rush of playing in front of an audience that gives you that rush.

When we started off, we weren’t even thinking of being a global band. We just ended up becoming that.

I still do get a little bit nervous at the beginning of Maiden tours but that’s mainly because of the new material.

Maybe that’s what makes my stuff different, ’cause I write it all on the bass. I can’t play but a few chords on the guitar, so the bass works just fine for me.

Recording at Compass Point was really fantastic. When you’re in the studio, you could be anywhere: It could be snowing outside or whatever. But it’s great fun when you come out of the studio and are greeted by nice weather and good bars.

We built up a hardcore following, but we were really still semipro, gigging over long weekends and the like. So after EMI signed us, we packed in the day jobs because we had to make an album.

I tend not to look too much back; I tend to look forward. So, I suppose, I know, I’ve had probably most of my life, and there’s less going forwards than there is going back, but I prefer to look in the future.

I feel like I’ve had a fantastic life and career with music, and I’ve worked very hard, but maybe I’ve had a bit of luck along the way.

I find it natural to write on the bass, and a lot of people find that really odd.

If you take care of the music first, and then add elements of a good show, then it makes for a good combination.

People get into metal and they don’t drift away from it. They might have families and move away a little, but they certainly don’t forget about it.

The Fender Precision is my instrument, my beloved Precisions.

It’s about the music for us. Always has been. The bottom line is the music.

Sure, some tracks are not as good as others, but we’ve written some really strong, classic stuff, like ‘The Number of the Beast,’ ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name,’ and ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’

The thing that annoys me is that I hate it when people charge bands to play with them. I hate that.

I think everyone knows that I’m always the one that’s the busiest in Maiden. When we’re not touring or recording, I’m still doing loads of Maiden stuff – video editing and god knows what else – so I get a lot less downtime than the others.

I grew up loving history.

I mean, the first two tours that we toured around the world, we were hitting every single bar there was, as you do when you’re young and you’ve got to find out all these things. But it got boring really quick.

As you get older it gets doubly hard to keep yourself fit and in shape.

Whenever we play new material, eventually some of the songs become classics themselves. They can’t become that unless you play them. Any new song is not going to go down as well as some of the old stuff, because obviously the old stuff the fans know inside out.

So when I started writing my own stuff, it was with a lot of combinations and time changes and power.

Personally, I’ve got too many ideas to use in my lifetime, probably. But that’s a nice problem to have, I think.

Once you start out, you are kind of finding out who you are, and then by the time you get to the second album or you’ve been touring a lot, doing live shows or whatever, the sound starts to shift slightly to something that is more the true essence of what the band really is.

I’ve tried lots of different guitars, including some Lados, and they felt great and were really well made, but the sound just seemed to lack richness in the bottom end. My main Precision is a ’71, and I also have a ’59 that I don’t use very often.

I think you just have to look after yourself, you know, when you’re doing long tours; you just have to. I think bands learn that pretty soon, really. And if they don’t, I think they tend to fall by the wayside.

The only thing I don’t write is the guitar solos, but even then I might suggest one or two things.