BIFF BYFORD Still Enjoys Touring With SAXON After Nearly Five Decades

During an appearance on the January 29 episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", SAXON frontman Biff Byford was asked if he still enjoys all the traveling that he has to do as a member of an internationally touring rock band. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, I think, I think it's great touring. You make, you make an album like this one, [SAXON's latest LP] — 'Hell, Fire And Damnation' is a great album, a bit of a magical album, this one, 'cause Brian's [Tatler, DIAMOND HEAD guitarist] involved with it. Yeah, we're gonna go on the road and promote it. That's our juice, that's our lifeblood — write a new album, go on tour with it. So, yeah, I'm pretty good. I mean, the traveling — it's not so bad once you land in the country. It's the flights that are pretty long, and you're sort of sitting in a little seat there for like 10, 15 hours, but it sort of wears off. Jet lag can be quite sort of exhausting, but you have to remember, once you're in the schedule and you're touring, everything's pretty cool, everybody loves you being there, the fans are great. They've traveled a long ways, paid a lot of money to see you play live, so it's all part of the vibe and all part of the juice, really."

Byford also talked about how keeps his singing voice in shape after all the decades of touring and recording. He said: "I just sing. I'm very lucky. There's a few singers [that are also like that]. Ronnie [James] Dio was the same. We just get up and sing. We don't really do any exercises. I mean, if we get the sore throat, then we have to sort of decide whether to do the show or cancel the show. That's the biggest decisions you have as a singer, because it's not like guitar strings; it's flesh and blood, so. But you're monitoring it all the time and you're sort of keeping an eye on your throat. But I don't do any exercising or special treatments to it. I just sing, really, and that's how I live my life, really — just do it."

He continued: "I heard [other singers doing vocal warm-ups] in the dressing rooms on festivals. It's all right if they wanna do that, if that works for them, that sort of gets their voice warmed up, but pretty much with me, first song is my warm-up, and, yeah, I go for it. If you need to warm your voice up, then that's fine — it's an instrument, when all said and done — but I've never really bothered with all that. I don't really get too paranoid about my voice. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. It's in the lap of the gods, really. I mean, I have a really powerful voice — it's still powerful. So we'll just do the shows. Whenever it's working, don't fix it. That's what I'll say."

SAXON's 24th studio album, "Hell, Fire And Damnation" came out on January 19 via Silver Lining Music.

Produced by Andy Sneap (JUDAS PRIEST, EXODUS, ACCEPT) and Byford, with Sneap mixing and mastering, "Hell, Fire And Damnation" strides the perfect line between confident, current power, and gloriously irreverent flexing of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal muscle which SAXON co-created.

2024 promises to be a great year for SAXON, with the European tour alongside JUDAS PRIEST and URIAH HEEP kicking off in the U.K. in March, the arrival of the heavy metal masterpiece "Hell, Fire And Damnation" and the recently announced co-headline U.S. tour with URIAH HEEP titled "Hell, Fire & Chaos - The Best Of British Rock & Metal".

Early last year, SAXON guitarist Paul Quinn announced that he was stepping back from touring with the band. As a result of his decision, SAXON canceled its April 2023 South American tour as well as the appearance at the Monsters Of Rock cruise. Quinn has since been replaced on the road by the aforementioned Tatler.

Brian has already joined fellow guitarist Doug Scarratt, drummer Nigel Glockler, bassist Tim "Nibbs" Carter and Byford for several European shows but will continue to be a member of DIAMOND HEAD.

Byford and Quinn are the sole remaining original members in SAXON's current lineup.

Originally from South Yorkshire, England, SAXON has gone on to sell about 23 million albums and has produced such classic songs as "Denim And Leather", "Princess Of The Night", "Wheels Of Steel" and "Power And Glory".