Biff Byford – Saxon – Interview Exclusive 

Written by Matt Phelps
Thursday, 23 June 2011 05:00

Biff Byford….names don’t come much bigger. Along with the likes of Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson and Lemmy, Biff has been a rock solid cornerstone of the British Metal scene for well over thirty years. With new album ‘Call To Arms’ having just hit the streets Saxon are in the middle of touring their way through Europe with a near constant blitz of promotion and live shows. Biff took a few precious minutes out of his never ending schedule to talk to Uber Rock about the new album and this is what he had to say…

 

Hi Biff, Thanks for taking the time out to speak with us today, I know you’re in the middle of quite a gruelling schedule.

That’s alright.

Let’s kick off with the new album then, ‘Call To Arms’, a blinder from beginning to end. How pleased are you with the way it turned out?

Yeah it’s been good actually, we’re really pleased with it. There’s a few things a bit different on it and it’s a bit less over produced. We really like how the album has turned out. Plenty of other people seem to love it too now they’re getting a chance to hear it.

You mention the production there, co-produced with Toby Jepson. A departure from your normal producer Charlie Bauerfeind. How did you decide to work with Toby on this one?

He’s just a good old friend really and we had this idea to do things a little bit differently this time for this album. Keep everything a bit more real, less digital jiggery pokery if you know what I mean. We just concentrated on the band, playing everything straight and giving it everything we’ve got really, performance wise, that’s really the main difference.

So with making some changes did you approach the writing for the album any differently than for the previous ones?

Um, I approached the lyrics a little bit differently. I went back to a little bit more of an Eighties feel. On the new songs there’s not a lot of choirs and harmonies, it’s just me singing it. That’s different. I quite like it really, people get to hear my voice again.

There’s a couple on there like ‘Back In 79’ and ‘Ballad Of The Working Man’ that have a real sort of “classic” Saxon vibe from the days of ‘Strong Arm…’

Yeah, yeah. I think people have been waiting for that a little bit. So yeah, this album’s a lot less “Power Rock”. It’s far more sort of British Metal than what our last two album have been. Although I think those albums are fantastic this is a lot different really.

You turned 60 this year, how does it feel reaching such a milestone?

I don’t think about it really. It doesn’t change the way I view anything, I just take life day by day really.

You’ve spent well over half of those years looking out from the World’s stages. What changes have you seen crowd-wise in those times?
 
Well it went from not many people to millions, I remember that (laughs). You know I think these days people are quite excited to see bands like Saxon cos we’ve been around quite a while, Whitesnake, we’re all about the same age. Generally there’s a lot of the older bands around and I think it’s a good time at the moment. You see lots of generations of fans you know, both young fans and older fans. Fans bringing their kids. It’s a great time at the moment.

You’ve got the Epitaph tour coming up, a handful of shows with Judas Priest and Motorhead, a fan’s dream line-up. You looking forward to that?

Yeah yeah yeah, that should be good, yeah. We go straight to Japan after that as well so we’re quite busy. I don’t think we stop touring until the eighteenth of December.

Busy year then?

Yeah, a very busy year. It’s a very good album so we just want to get out there and keep playing until we drop (laughs).

You’ve just finished quite an extensive UK tour too, how did that go for you?

Great actually, A few of them were sold out which was perfect.

How were the new songs being received since the album wasn’t out then?

Great. People are patient but the album’s out now so they’ll know a few more of the new songs. We’re actually coming back to the UK, gonna be doing four or five more shows after summer, so look out for that on our website www.Saxon747.com

Live-wise the first time I saw you guys was at the old Cornwall Coliseum, a place that’s been sadly shut down for a long time now. How have you seen the changes in the UK gig circuit over the years?

Ahh The Coliseum, right. The gig circuit? Well…..it’s not too bad at the moment, is it? There’s quite a few Academy venues around. If you’re talking about the West Coast and the South West, um, there’s still a few venues around there still but it’s not like it used to be.

It all went through a bit of a dry patch didn’t it during the Nineties?

Yeah, well live music went down a bit but now it’s come back. Live music is relatively strong now. A lot of venues are creeping back in, a lot of leisure centres are putting on shows so it’s getting better definitely.

Well I think our time’s up, so thank you again for giving us some of your time today. I know you must be inundated with requests for interviews.

That’s no problem, I like doing interviews and yeah we’re getting a lot of press at the moment because the album’s out, it’s always the best way of letting people know what you’re doing. Thank you too and nice talking to you.