MM - Firstly
thanks for taking time out from what is I’m sure a busy schedule to take
part in this interview.
Biff –
No bother mate.
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MM - The band are due to release a new
double DVD with over 5 hours of material now that’s what I call value for
money.
Biff – Yeh it’s a good
package actually.
MM – You speak very fondly of the ‘Lionheart’ album
on the DVD.
Biff – We were going to put ‘Inner Sanctum’ on the DVD
but then we figured we’d leave that till later. This is covering from when we did
‘Lionheart’ right up to when we were starting to write ‘Inner Sanctum’.
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MM – There’s a lot of footage on it from Wacken and lots of
different European Festivals. The European festivals seem to be the bread
and butter of Saxon at the moment.
Biff – Yes well things are
changing now and even in
England things are starting to come on really strong now. The last album ‘Inner
Sanctum’ out sold the previous album ‘Lionheart’ by quite a bit. We also
have a new agent now and we’re planning to play some festivals here in
England again next year.
MM – You’re playing at the Hard Rock Hell
festival here next weekend aren’t you?
Biff
– Yes, that’s a good one. It’s being held in Minehead and it’s the first
one they’re doing and it should be good. I’m curious to see what it’s
like although I can’t be running on stage shouting … ‘Hello Butlins!!!’
MM –
With your red coat on?
Biff – I think I’ll just say … ‘Hello Minehead!!!’
MM - The band are also re-releasing the
‘Unleash The Beast’ album?
Biff
– Yeh the record company have basically bought all those older albums from
Saxon/Virgin and ourselves and they’ve been talking of re-releasing them
for quite a while now.
MM – It is going to be a straight re-release or
is it going to be a re-mastered version?
Biff – They’re going to do
all the albums like ‘Metal Head’ and all the songs like that. They’re
re-introducing them with new booklets and putting our music back in the
shops again, basically that’s what they’re doing. MM – There’s also two
bonus tracks as well ‘Cruisader’ and ‘Solid Ball Of Rock’. Biff – Yeh,
there’s loads of stuff we have in our cupboards that we’ve yet to release
so we’re just waiting till the markets right.
MM – Are you working on a new album at the
moment?
Biff – Yes we’ve
already started writing the new album.
MM – Can you give us any hints
on what the new album will be like? Will it be like the ‘Inner Sanctum’?
Biff – Yes it will actually. It will be a mixture of rock n’ roll
and heavy metal.
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MM – The DVD also includes a new version
of ‘I’ve Got To Rock’ with Lemmy, Angry Anderson and Andi Deris.
That’s a bit of a who’s who of metal really isn’t it?
Biff
– Yes well it is really. It’s more a who’s who of metal singers that have
been around a while. Obviously Andi’s been with Helloween as more of
junior partner but he used to be with Pink Cream 69 so he’s been around a
long time. I thought it was a good idea at the time and Lemmy and Angry
Anderson also recorded on it. It just gives it a different slant on the
song really.
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MM – Yeh it’s a really good version I have to say I
thoroughly enjoyed watching it on the DVD.
Biff – It’s better when
you can actually see the people singing live I think.
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MM – The band in it’s current form have
well established themselves as the true Saxon, has it been a long hard
road?
Biff – Well it’s like
the song isn’t it, it’s a long hard rock. I think the last 10 years since
‘Unleash The Beast’ have been really great as we’ve had a chance to
re-build ourselves. Bringing back the older band but feeling young again
and we’ve been working really hard to get people interested in what we’re
doing again.
MM – How do you feel now about that
infamous Harvey Goldsmith venture?
Biff
– Well the Harvey Goldsmith thing was only one small part of that whole
thing. I did so much TV and radio off the back of that actually that shot
our popularity way back up again. I can’t really knock it I mean you were
looking at the edited piece of Channel 4 garbage, but in actual fact if
you look at it more than once you virtually come up with the end result
that we couldn’t give a fuck anyway and we told him … You might think that
people change but in actual fact they are basically doing what they have
been doing forever. You’re a promoter, you’re not a fucking manager and
you don’t have a record company so … But is was after making him a star
wasn’t it?
MM – Well it acted as a double edged sword for the band it
had good things and bad things about it at the same time.
Biff – I
think there were more positives come out of it, I really do, although I
think that football match thing will go down in history. It’s no big deal
for us, we could have just said thank you and gone off, but we’ve had a
lot of loyal fans throughout that period who have followed us along the
way. I think the band were better afterwards actually. We were writing
‘Inner Sanctum’ while we were filming, so we did have a great album to
come out of it. The single was perhaps a bit overkill but we liked it.
The audiences all came out when we were on tour and we sold out across
Britain. I did lots of things from that that I wouldn’t have been doing
had we not done that.
MM - What do you think has been the
media’s biggest misconception about the band?
Biff
– I think there was maybe a misconception about the band but I don’t think
there is any more. I think people know what they’re going to get now.
We’re not playing musical chairs any more. I think you’ve got a full on
band who have loads of great songs, so I don’t think there’s a problem
with the media’s perception now. I think there are quite a few who still
have this concept in the media of thinking of us as these spandex boys
from back in the 80’s but I think we’ve all grown out of that. Well
hopefully we’ve all grown out of that! I think if there is any
misconception then it’s that some people think we are still trying to be
like the band we were in the 80’s, but hopefully what the film actually
told you is that this couldn’t be further from the truth. I think it’s
hard to loose that vision people have of us but we are ready and you know
we wrote some great songs in the 80’s and we’ve got a great campaign to
help us move on.
MM - I know everybody wants to hear the
classics when the band play live but when you have such a huge back
catalogue that’s never going to be possible.
Biff
– Well yes that’s right.
MM – Are there any songs that you haven’t
played yet but feel should be included in the set somewhere?
Biff – Well we always try to make the
shows a little different but it depends really, when
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we did the festivals and did ‘To Hell And Back Again’, which is a
classic example, we didn’t play that for 20 years. Then we
played it again and it went down absolutely fantastic and now it’s
back in the set. There’s also something on the first album that
we’re thinking of bringing back. |
MM – One question that I really wanted to
ask, and it's probably something a lot of your fans out there want to
know, will we ever see the Eagle land on our shores once more for a whole
tour?
Biff – Well they wanted
us to bring it to Minehead but there wasn’t enough room, the venue wasn’t
big enough. That is one of the problems with that thing it’s so bloody
massive! We would like to. There’s some really great things happening
nest year for us. We’re doing a one off gig at Shepherds Bush on
St George’s Day at the Shepherds Bush Empire and that could very well end up being
an eagle show. That’s only just about to be announced today so you’re the
first guy to know about that! I think we’re also going to try and do some
quite big festivals here in England again next year, just don’t ask me
when or where they’re going to be because I can’t tell you. They won’t be
eagle tours though. It would be nice to get to a position where we could
do a nice tour of England and bring
the eagle out with us when we play.
MM - When the NWOBHM took hold there were
a great number of bands that should have made it huge along with Saxon but
they seemed to fade away why do you think the whole Saxon sound ignited
when others fizzled away?
Biff
– I think when us and Maiden first started there were some great bands
around but I don’t think they had the songs, the ‘747’ or ‘Running Free’
for example. I just feel that perhaps they lacked that song that
basically all the young rock fans could latch on to. I do think they were
good band and they had some good songs but I don’t think they had these
types of songs. But you know it’s not just about having one or two goods
songs, you need to have more than two great songs on every fucking album,
that’s what it’s all about.
MM – Well on ‘Wheels Of Steel’ I don’t
think there was a bad song on that whole album actually.
Biff – Yeh
that was a really fucking good album that one. We could go on and on
about this. I just feel you need to have more of that in it and have more
that just fashionable rock songs to stand the test of time.
MM - Finally do you have any words of
wisdom for all our readers?
Biff
– Keep the faith and live to rock!
MM - We'd like to thank
Biff for talking with us today, it is especially appreciated as we know he
had only just returned from the dentist and was still in incredible pain
and having difficulty talking at all. Biff you are both a hero, a
legend and a true gent and we look forward to catching you back out on the
road again soon.
