Along with his guitar-slinging partner Paul Quinn, Biff Byford has been part of New Wave Of British Heavy Metal pioneers Saxon since way back in 1976. Now into his third decade of fronting the band, Biff well and truly belongs alongside the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson in the small, select group of British metal vocalists who can truly be referred to as legendary. With Saxon preparing for yet another worldwide trek in support of their ninetieth album, the fantastic Call To Arms, we caught up with the singer to find out all about it.


Marcus Jervis: Call To Arms is probably your best album in a few years. You have to be pretty pleased with it?
Biff Byford: Yeah, we like it. It’s a bit of a gamble in some ways, because we wrote it and recorded it slightly differently. It’s not as heavily produced as some of our recent albums with all the choirs and keyboards. This is more getting back to the idea of five guys playing together in a room. You can’t do it quite like that in the digital age, but it’s a case of less is more for sure.

It seems as if the album has more of a classic, '80s Saxon sound in some ways.
It does have quite a retro sound, and that mainly comes from Toby (Jepson - producer) who encouraged us to get back to that classic type of Saxon sound. You know, there’s no samples on the drums, the songs are played all the way through and it’s not all done with studio jiggery-pokery. I think it comes across in the first song “Hammer Of The Gods,” which just jumps straight out.

Is it perhaps as raw as an album can be in the modern digital age?
I think it’s a fine line between keeping that raw edge and digitizing it all away.

It’s not quite like a garage band thing, but I think the Foo Fighters have done a similar thing on their new album in keeping that live feel. It’s a mental thing as well; you never know quite what it’s going to sound like until you’re at the end of the process.

When you’re using all the digital technology, you’ll have all the reverb on the snare and all the effects from the start so it sounds great from the beginning, but with this one we sent the album away to be mixed by a guy called Mike Plotnikoff, so you’re not sure right until the end. It’s a risk and not everyone in the band was sure about it, but it’s worked out.

Lyrically too, the album seems to be once again exploring some classic Saxon themes. “Ballad Of The Working Man” for example seems to recall the band’s working class roots.
That particular track was inspired by Toby, so I have to thank him for that. “Ballad Of The Working Man” is more like poetry or verse, it’s written in that way. It’s about how the working man – or working woman – does build the country and the spirit of the country. It can be miners, firefighters, judges – when everyone is working the country feels good. It’s written about an older, traditional type of working, but the feeling is the same in any country and people can relate to that.

A number of other songs are about the importance of standing your ground and being strong in the face of adversity.
When you look at our songs, things like “Never Surrender” and “Stand Up And Be Counted,” the theme of the underdog has always been there in Saxon and I think you’re right, we’ve gone back to that a bit. You can get too carried away with all the historical stuff!

“Back In 79” is a natural successor to “Denim And Leather.” Do you still get the same buzz and the same thrill you did back in '79?
It’s difficult to find that same resonance as, say, the first time we played Monsters Of Rock at Donington in 1980, or doing Top Of The Pops for the first time, or your album going straight into the charts. But it is still really exciting, especially touring on a new album and you see people going crazy. It’s that bond between band, audience and music that makes the metal scene so special.

When the grunge and nu-metal scenes were really huge back in the '90s, Saxon never did anything other than continue to play heavy metal. If anything, the band got heavier and darker. Was there ever any temptation to go chasing the trends?
We did go a bit more commercial on one or two albums, but we were never comfortable with writing that kind of arena rock. Def Leppard were always better at it than us, so best to leave it to them. We just went back to writing heavy metal songs and it wasn’t really a conscious decision to write heavier, darker songs, it was just that the days of the big single had gone and these songs were competing with the newer bands like Machine Head and Pantera.

The scene in mainland Europe seemed pretty important during that time.
Germany kept us alive during that period. It was the same for Maiden when Bruce left and thankfully there was at least one country that dug its heels in!

Some singers seem to lose a little range and scope over time, but your voice seems to be getting better with each album. How do you explain that?
I’m probably a slow learner! No, I wasn’t subjected to too much substance when I was younger which probably helps. But I’m lucky I can do two types of singing; I can do diaphragm and throat singing, so I can sing like Dio or Bon Scott / Brian Johnson, so that could be why.

Have you noticed your audience changing over time and are you picking up younger fans?
We are picking up younger fans and I think that’s due to the press and also to bands like Metallica naming us as a major influence, so we have to thank those other bands for that. It seems to be cool to name your influences again. Now it’s a matter of motivating that new audience to come out and see us. The UK has always been good, but in America we’re more like a cult or underground band except in some cities where we’ve broken through. I get the feeling that a lot of musicians know Saxon, but maybe not the average guy on the street.

You are scheduled to be out on the road until the end of the year. What can fans expect from the live shows?
A lot depends on how long we can play as some of the curfews aren’t good. There will probably be five or six songs from the new album, but the American set list will be different than the UK as we don’t tour there with every album and it wouldn’t be fair to just play stuff from the last five or six albums. There’s also the fact that some albums sold better in the States like Power And The Glory and Crusader, which has taken on a life of its own it seems. It’s exciting to be touring on the release of the album. It’s been timed to start within a couple of days of the album coming out and that hasn’t always been the case before.

Do you have any final words for Saxon fans reading this?
We’re always quoting song titles, and “Never Surrender” seems to have been the theme of Saxon’s career, so that has to be the message. Keep the faith.