Nicko McBrain

harrisdevot said:
I have the magazine. I shall try to scan it (it's a large format) and I shall post it. He was very specifically adressing people from Pakistan.
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Am I right in saying that in his very young days, probably early teens, Steve was a skinhead?
 
I've known about both Nicko and Steve's questionable comments for some time- while both sets of comments are obviously 100% not ok, the Steve stuff caught me a bit more off guard. It's one thing to get carried away thinking you're a funnyman in front of an audience, but taking a hardcore segregationist position in a printed interview is pretty shocking.

Suffice it to say, Nicko's toned it down since then (his banter is always a bit off color or "adult", but never racist anymore), and apparently (as @harrisdevot said above) Steve has also seen the error of his ways. At the end of the day, it's possible to love the artist for their art, even if the artists have some failings and shortcomings in their worldview. **Not that this excuses anything that's been said in any way**, but they're imperfect humans subject to the societal groupthink and biases of their upbringing, just like the rest of the world.
 
You have 20ish years, it's late 1970s and you're a working class Briton. You are being served BS about immigrants and jobs. You are not aware that your opinions will change, that's called growing up, and you're not aware that you're going to be a rock star. So you spit out some bullshit and few years after you remember it and facepalm yourself.

Edit : well I'm more perplexed that Bruce today has a 'balanced' opinion about Maggie T., more than Steve resorting to some hard-line positions while he was basically a kid.
 
I think we can all accept two things - one, that the band members are human and humans aren't always agreeable to other humans, and two, that for Steve's comments, that was a long time ago and he seems very much to have not repeated them or lived up to them in his modern doings.

It is incumbent upon us all to try to surpass those who came before us, which is something that I think most of us do pretty well based on the attitudes I know that people here have held, compared to what they do hold today. Everyone is capable of positive change. They sure are shocking comments though...especially if you don't ponder what's going on at the time and the distance in years between some of them.
 
Zare said:
Edit : well I'm more perplexed that Bruce today has a 'balanced' opinion about Maggie T., more than Steve resorting to some hard-line positions while he was basically a kid.
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I would say that having and sharing racist opinions is much worse than having a balanced opinion about Margaret Thatcher (someone whose politics in most aspects I strongly dislike, but who also made some relevant contributions to the resurgence of the UK), but I might be alone in this.
 
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Let's see the original NME source and then discuss the shock factor in detail. Anyways up to 1984 Maiden haven't touched 2nd or 3rd world and therefore they couldn't witness the living conditions that make the people emigrate. Second, Harris isn't exactly schooled, he devoted bulk of his time to his band. It's also possible that he just picked up this opinion somewhere and defaulted. I don't think he left much time for thinking about politics. If he were, it would reflect in lyrics. Interesting thought that he did this with Age of Innocence where he paints this same era in gold, safety everywhere and no trace of racial issues.
 
GhostofCain said:
I would say that having and sharing racist opinions is much worse than having a balanced opinion about Margaret Thatcher (someone whose politics in most aspects I strongly dislike, but who also made some relevant contributions to the resurgence of the UK), but I might be alone in this.
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Put like that, yes, but keep age in mind too. 60-something Bruce's "controversial" opinion carries more weight than 25-something Harris controversial opinion. 60yo "polymath" vs upcoming 25yo bass player who played football in the past. Who do you think gave more thoughts to what he's saying?

If Steve said something racist, it's because he didn't give it a thought and that makes him stupid and not racist. Because he isn't, and I don't think he ever was.
 
If that's what he said it's disappointing, if not entirely out of keeping with racial tensions in downtrodden bits of London in that era. I don't know about people being artifically fed aggro about immigrants that that time, there was plenty of grass roots 'us and them,' racism going on in areas where traditionalist white communities felt threatened by growing black and Indian/Pakistani communities.

As for Age of Innocence, I still see that more as Steve stepping into the role of the tabloid-esque Mr Angry, taking the piss slightly.
 
Zare said:
Put like that, yes, but keep age in mind too. 60-something Bruce's "controversial" opinion carries more weight than 25-something Harris controversial opinion. 60yo "polymath" vs upcoming 25yo bass player who played football in the past. Who do you think gave more thoughts to what he's saying?
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Probably Bruce, but his comments are nowhere as controversial as you are making them sound (and I am not a fan of Thatcher by any means!):

https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/8x5byp/bruce-dickinson-has-no-time-for-bullshit

Bruce Dickinson said:
But I would fit somewhere. I’m right of centre, but not very far. Put it this way. I’m not a socialist at all but I do believe in a nice humanistic approach to the way society should be run. I think there’s a difference between profit and greed. I think profit is a way of measuring how efficiently a business or a society is being run. Greed is just evidence of its corruption and fecundity. I’m not a fan of greed. For those reasons, some of the Thatcher years were appalling, but at the same time, what happened to the UK during those years was transformative. Because at the end of the 70s, we were toast. The country was washed up. At the end of the 80s, it was not. In between was a whole other thing, some of which I didn’t agree with, but every politician makes mistakes.
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Sadly Steve's 1982 views would probably have been fairly common around the time, for example, if you read anything written about Cyril Regis' death in the last few days you can see the attitudes of people from a similar background to Steve.
 
Age, lack of education and time/context can certainly explain many things, but you also have to take into account the area Steve comes from. When I went there (1988, 1989, 1990), I felt "racial" (I hate the word but I'm not fluent enough to find a fine replacement) tension everywhere. Certainly between some white people and the non-whites, but clearly also between blacks and people from the Indian continent. My father is black, and I've been clearly told that I shouldn't go to the "Pakies" shops. I didn't give a shit, but it was a very common opinion, and this is exactly what Steve told in the New Musical Expresss: that he doesn't (didn't) think that people from different origins can really cohabitate. This is a common thought in Britain, very different from French racism, that does not express its contempt this way. Have you read recent comments by Steve about the number of foreigners in England ? Basically, he said that the vast number of people from abroad has changed the atmosphere of the gigs, these being warmer; not really a bitter or harsh comment.
 
I still don't know where to find these comments. Would someone copy paste these (both Nicko and Steve) on this forum and post a link to the source? Without having read them yet, I'm already very surprised and not happy about this. Especially curious about the printed magazine. Why was this never discussed before? Scan please. Let's end these 36 years of "censorship".
 
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Black Bart said:
I thought I read it was Dave. Steve was a footie fan.
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I'm pretty sure it was Dave too. I think it was mentioned, if I'm not mistaken, in the 12 Wasted Years video....But like was said earlier, we're talking about the late 60s/70s working class subculture.
 
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Forostar said:
I still don't know where to find these comments. Would someone copy paste these (both Nicko and Steve) on this forum and post a link to the source? Without having read them yet, I'm already very surprised and not happy about this. Especially curious about the printed magazine. Why was this never discussed before? Scan please. Let's end these 36 years of "censorship".
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Which censorship ? All this was already available elsewhere. I will scan it when I will get my hand on a large scan, which I don't know where to find.
 
Black Bart said:
I thought I read it was Dave. Steve was a footie fan.
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Steve has described himself as a skinhead when he was young, which, as specified above, doesn't mean he was a far-right militant. He was just an hardcore West-Ham fan. And at the time, he listened to reggae!
 
@harrisdevot

Yes all albums have been available anywhere and they have been discussed. They are very known. These utterings are not widely known. Just a few out here, to be counted on one (two or three fingered) hand, knew this. Why was this never brought up here. Shame?
 
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harrisdevot said:
Age, lack of education and time/context can certainly explain many things, but you also have to take into account the area Steve comes from. When I went there (1988, 1989, 1990), I felt "racial" (I hate the word but I'm not fluent enough to find a fine replacement) tension everywhere. Certainly between some white people and the non-whites, but clearly also between blacks and people from the Indian continent. My father is black, and I've been clearly told that I shouldn't go to the "Pakies" shops. I didn't give a shit, but it was a very common opinion, and this is exactly what Steve told in the New Musical Expresss: that he doesn't (didn't) think that people from different origins can really cohabitate. This is a common thought in Britain, very different from French racism, that does not express its contempt this way. Have you read recent comments by Steve about the number of foreigners in England ? Basically, he said that the vast number of people from abroad has changed the atmosphere of the gigs, these being warmer; not really a bitter or harsh comment.
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I'd argue that immigrants are much more integrated in Britain than in France (or anywhere else in Europe), with 10% of Britons having at least one grandparent born abroad. Things have changed significantly since 1982. However, there is still quite a lot of segregation in some areas, with both parties guilty.
 
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