Saxon is a band that gets better with age and this year they just released what even may be the finest of a very fine run of recent releases in ‘Thunderbolt’. We caught up with Biff to talk all about the new album, the loss of old friends and some memorable festivals over the years.
Mark: Hi, Biff, its Mark from The Rockpit, how are you?
Biff: Very good!
Mark: I always love it when Saxon have got a new album out, because they just keep getting better and better these days! I enjoyed the last few, but “Thunderbolt” is the cream!
Biff: Yeah, it’s getting some great reviews actually, we were surprised, it’s pretty good.
Mark: it’s surprising to see such a great tour as well, Rock Goddess, Diamond Head, Magnum, and Saxon! It can’t get any better than that, surely?!!
Biff: Yeah, it’s good; most of the shows have sold out, so we’re pretty happy about that. The album’s been in the charts in Europe and the UK, it’s our highest charting album in the UK, since 1984, so we’re happy that we seem to have made a special album.
Mark: There’s been a few singles off it, but I think my favourite is the one you’ve just released “They Played Rock and Roll”, it’s a great tribute to some great musicians.
Biff: It’s a song about our first tour that we did with Motorhead, obviously it’s about them, but it’s also about where we came from, a working class background, that we had, and about the situation in England around 1979/80, the video sort of explains it all really. It stands out as a tribute to early Motorhead, since Eddie died a few months ago, so I was planning to do that song whilst Eddie was still alive actually, about that tour, but it turned out a bit differently as time went on. We’re very happy that people like it and understand who we’re doing it for.
Mark: That’s fantastic; we’ve lost some great musicians over the last few years, does that turn your thoughts to, and dare I say it, that horrible word, retirement?!!
Biff: I think it makes you think about things like being with Lemmy in 1979 and things like that, we were quite close to Motorhead, and Lemmy and Eddie’s death affected us more than say someone like Bowie, because we didn’t know him. So when someone goes on that you know really well, it’s always a shock if you know what I mean.
Mark: Yes, I know what you mean. It’s awful to think that those three, not original, but I guess the golden era members, have all left us in such a short space of time. Hopefully it makes people dig out those albums and remember what a great band they were.
Biff: Yeah, definitely, and it makes you a bit more nostalgic when something finishes, that won’t come back.
Mark: Last time we spoke I was delving in to the past history of the band, and one of the questions I missed, was, that you started off as a singing, bassist, a bit like Lemmy, yourself, I was just listening to “Rock The Nations”, the 1986 album, and you actually played bass on that, did you actually play bass out on tour?
Biff: No, I didn’t, but I have played bass on some tracks live, so I have done it occasionally, just to be able to do something a bit different. I’m not really a speed bass player at the moment, but more intricate bass lines, I like to play, I’ve still got my Rickenbacker bass, it’s more of a hobby now than a passion!
Mark: There are some great songs on the new album, and I think it’s worth talking about a few of those. I guess when it first bursts out of the speakers with “Olympus Rising”, which is a great song, and then we move on to “Thunderbolt” and then, “The Secret of Flight”, and for a moment I thought we were looking at some sort of concept album, before it starts to open up a bit more widely.
Biff: The only concept is to make a great album!! That’s the only concept with Saxon!! (laughs).
Mark: That’s fantastic!!
Biff: On this album I was a bit more focused on things because I wasn’t co-producing with Andy, so I could concentrate on the actual writing a bit more, and I was very focused on the sound, I wanted it to be as complete as we could possibly make it. The way we write albums, is that we treat each song like its own project, we write 10, 11, 12 songs and then we put the album together, and we put the songs together so it runs smoothly. I’m not really focused on the album; I’m focused on the songs, so I think that’s why the album’s quite interesting because, there’s a link through the song, which is actually the band, but, lyrically I can go wherever I want to go really.
Mark: I think last time we spoke you mentioned you take some of your inspiration from what you are reading, and I imagine that some of the songs come about that way, do you find yourself writing little notes here and there all the time?
Biff: Yeah, all the time, I’ll go on my phone and put down titles and lyric ideas, lines here and there, and just put rough stuff down, during a flight, I’m sat on the plane thinking how the hell’s this thing staying up here!! I don’t really think anybody’s done anything about flying before, obviously it would have been great to hear a Bruce Dickinson song about the secret of fight but I can’t remember anybody doing anything similar, writing about the Wright brothers and things like that. It’s quite interesting once you get rolling and you’ve got an idea in your head, it’s really good fun to roll with it and write poetry and verse around it, it’s a good feeling when you get a song going, and then you move on to the next song, and it starts all over again. I think for every good song that you write, there’s about six that don’t make it!
Mark: What happens to those?
Biff: Well, we sometimes use bits of things, and sometimes if I think the lyrics aren’t good enough then I throw them away.
Mark: Do you focus, I know some bands go in to the studio with a couple of dozen tracks and they’ll hone it down, But Saxon seem like a band to me that really focus on getting out those great tracks.
Biff: On this album, yes, we were really focused on… I didn’t want every song on this album to have a guitar solo in it, I wanted the boys to do lead stuff, I’m getting fed up with the same solo every time on every song, the boys had to do something different every time. As I said to them let’s do some twin lead stuff, and then when you do, do a guitar solo it makes it more memorable.
Mark: How do you decide what to play live? One thing that always intrigues me is how do you find the balance between the back catalogue of music everyone wants to hear and the new stuff?
Biff: Well the new album is obviously the priority, and we’ve just added a new song to the set, so we are doing seven songs off the new album, which is quite a lot actually, and most bands don’t do that many. And because of the connection of this new album, back to the eighties, this tour is mostly the new album and the eighties stuff, the set list at the moment is really intense. We’ve got “Battering Ram” in there and we’ve got “Dallas 1pm” so it’s a very interesting set list we’re doing, and we’ve just done eight shows in Europe and the UK, and it was great! I think that’s what people want, they want the old songs but they want the new ones as well. It’s the “Thunderbolt” tour, so we’re trying to give them as many new songs as possible. Also this album is getting fantastic reviews and people are buying it, so people know the songs already, if you know what I mean. When you go to a concert and people know the songs it makes a big difference.
Mark: It must be great feeling seeing people sing the songs from the new album.
Biff: Yeah, it takes some people a while to get the new album, but with this one, people seem to have got it really quick, so it works even better, live.
Mark: You are quite prolific these days; you’re putting out an album every few years, where’s this come from?
Biff: I don’t know really! I think we have to try and keep the fire burning; you have to keep the passion for the music and not let it slip. I think when you get older, I think you can easily lay back and get comfortable, and not push yourself musically or vocally, and just go through the motions, and for me that’s not the option. So, I’m pushing everyone all the time, to keep that passion and keep that fire, and keep the performances on the edge, that’s what I do, I don’t want to just lay back, it’s not me.
Mark: Well, that’s wonderful to hear, as sadly, so many bands do! You once famously wrote a song about playing a certain festival many years ago, and now you’ve pretty much played all of the big festivals around Europe, certainly, what are some of the most memorable ones for you?
Biff: Obviously the first Donnington was very memorable and the first big Wacken festival we played in 2004 there were 95,000 people that was a big one! We remember some small festivals as well, I remember we played a small tent at the Rock AM Ring, and we met the boys from Metallica after many years, and that was a bit special. We have memories going back forty years, which come back in waves as you’re reminded of them if you know what I mean. It’s like we’ve just done three shows everybody said we just shouldn’t do, because they’re off the beaten track and we wouldn’t sell any tickets, and they all sold out!! A bit of people power going on there, and you remember things like that, when you’re up against it and you’re back to the old working class mentality of “give it a try!” I’m not going to have you tell me we can’t play in Hull, or we can’t play in Cambridge anymore, so we did them and we sold them out, so we’re thinking maybe things are getting better, I don’t know, you have to follow what you think is right!
Mark: That’s right. Europe has a really interesting scene at the moment; it’s amazing to see young kids there getting in to decent music again!! Maybe it’s the parents taking them out to see these bands.
Biff: Yeah, that’s the thing with playing different venues, if you play somewhere where you can get in at 14; it’s a lot better than a venue where you can’t get in unless you’re 18 or 21 in some cases in America. I think there are young fans out there that are into bands like us, bands like Maiden and Priest, and it’s their legacy, they get in to the old albums, new albums and that’s all being driven by the fans that have been there for years.
Mark: We are obviously based in Australia, and there have been a few times when you’ve been rumoured to be coming over, is it just a case of the offers not making sense, or the timing’s been wrong?
Biff: The “Thunderbolt” album has done quite well in Australia, people seem to love it, and that makes a massive difference to the promoters who give us the gigs, you have to be fairly “happening” to get chosen in Australia, that’s the thing. We have spoken to management and agents, and said we’d like to come over, I don’t feel we’ve got time this year, because we’re touring right up to December, but January, February definitely, we could do that without a doubt, and it’s our fortieth anniversary next year. With the new album, and the anniversary there could be a special set list for that definitely!
Mark: You’d probably have to play double time for an anniversary like that, wouldn’t you??!!
Biff: (laughs) Two shows with a gap in the middle yeah? (laughs)
Mark: (laughs) That’s right!
Biff: We could do a Prog Rock show!! If somebody offers us a gig, we’ll go; we’re a bit like “they will come!” It’s like Bill and Ted’s adventure, they will come! We’ve said try and make it happen, we can do Japan, Australia, we’ve done it before then to New Zealand and round to South America, so it can be done. It’s always good to come in and do a big festival and then do a few small shows around it. I think there’s one in Australia in February isn’t there?
Mark: Yeah, we’ve actually got Download here for the first time, it’s in March this year, I think next week, and looks like it’s selling really well and it’s a version of the UK Download. Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you, as always, Biff, take care of yourself, and hope to see you down here sometime soon.
Biff: No problem. See you later, bye.
