Don't know if this is for real. But if it is, it's pretty sad...
It might be him and with the amount of jumping around he does on stage and and maybe the 115th night of another Maiden World Tour, I doubt I would do better.
The thing is: Harris was never a metronomic "throbber" like Ian Hill of Priest or Cliff Williams of AC/DC (who were both initially different bassist, but adjusted their playing to stadium walls). Harris still plays like he did in that pub where Maiden started their career, he never adjusted. By metal or even rock standards, his playing is overly busy, yet repetetive, extremely pentatonic and for all its swiftness filled with little timing inaccuracies/idiosyncracies that make it sound lively, but also cluttered. Plus he's always jumping ahead of the already hasty Maiden beat. His bass playing is also what makes Maiden sound a little punkish at times (and their NWOBHM phase albums with DiAnno sounded real punkish, not just for his singing either). But I grant Steve H. an individual style that he has kept undeterred by what people perceive as "proper" heavy metal/heavy rock bass playing. He has also influenced countless kids to take up bass playing and that is a good thing.
Are Maiden heavy metal? Good question. They label themselves as such and most of their fans consider them to be, but their music really isn't that brutal and hammering, they never recorded a song as shrieky-heavy-frantic as, say, Priest's Painkiller or Freewheel Burning. While most Maiden songs are faster than the 120-140 bpm that rule most traditional heavy music with an iron fist, the typical Maiden gallop (at least in the studio) never reaches speed metal margins. I tend to consider Maiden a heavy rock band - had they existed with their music in the 70ies (as the NME always claims they do!), I don't believe they would have been branded as heavy metal. There is even a good deal of prog content in their sprawling compositions and a lot of Maiden guitar interplay sounds like a 33 rpm Wishbone Ash album played at 45 rpm. Steve Harris probably wouldn't disagree with that as he is a great Wishbone Ash fan.
Why are they so continuously popular though their music was never really current at any given time and they never had single hits? Sheer preseverance, relentless touring, the fact that they are truly a people's band (and that is not an act, they are sincere in that, their concerts are holy communions of audience and band) that throughout its success has managed to retain an underdog and outsider image (it never was and never will be cool to like Maiden), a certain naffness/very Brit bloke-ishness that makes them accessible/likeable and the fact that - by mere chance, but then they doggedly stuck to it - they created with their shrunkhead mascot Eddie a trademark that (like all good trademarks) has long transcended their own market. Edith knows next to nothing about Iron Maiden and wouldn't recognize a single song (she's by now much better at recognizing Judas Priest, let me tell you!), but she knows that "they make all these covers with that disgusting, creepy figure".
