Long-running metal act Saxon is a San Antonio favorite.
So much so that on the band's 2017 tour supporting UFO, the lineup was flipped so Saxon had the top slot for the Alamo City date. The following year, when supporting Judas Priest, Saxon got an extended time slot for its stop here, making the show something closer to a co-headlined performance.
Part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal that included Iron Maiden and others, Saxon are known for fist-pumping anthems such as "Denim and Leather," "Wheels of Steel" and "Princess of the Night." While many contemporaries broke up or drifted in a more accessible direction, Saxon stuck to its metal guns riding out changing tastes and trends.
Now, enjoying a creative renaissance that's included well-reviewed albums such as Sacrifice (2013) and Carpe Diem (2022), the band has dropped its second covers album, More Inspirations, which includes its takes on material ranging from rock classics like the Animals' "We've Gotta Get Out of This Place" to obscurities such as "The Faith Healer" by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
The Current caught up with Saxon frontman Biff Byford via Zoom to discuss the album, tour plans and the retirement of longtime guitarist Paul Quinn from touring.
For a lot of bands, a covers album is a sign they've run out of creative juice, but that doesn't seem to be the case for Saxon. You guys have been amazingly prolific lately. Why put out not just one but two covers albums?
Well, we did the first one in the big lockdown. We really didn't want to release a studio album then because we thought it might get lost. We just had an idea of maybe releasing this covers album, which was quite good fun to make, really, and it was well received. The thing is — with these songs on both albums — they're not just songs that we like. The songs have really influenced us in lots of ways. We could have called the album Influences, but I think Inspirations is a better word, so we went with that.
I just think that people were interested. I think the first album was a bit more of the great bands that everybody knew. I think this album's a little bit more focused on deeper cuts into those albums. Each song is connected somewhere to Saxon. For instance, we wouldn't cover an Iron Maiden song because we were around the same time as them, so they didn't really influence us. ... We're only covering bands that inspired us back in the early days.
Before the pandemic, Saxon went out on high-profile tours such as Judas Priest and UFO that I assume have introduced you to new fans and reconnected you with old ones. Is this album an effort to show those new followers where you came from?
I think these covers albums are just good fun. I don't think you have to read too many reasons into why we did it. They're just bloody good fun. And I'll give you some examples. We do "From the Inside" by Alice Cooper. Well, people wouldn't know that one off the bat unless they're a super-duper Alice Cooper fan. We had an American car in the '70s, which we called Wheels of Steel, obviously. That's where the song comes from. When we bought it, in the glove compartment were three 8-track cassettes. One of them was Fandango by ZZ Top, the other one was Lou Reed and the other was From the Inside by Alice Cooper. On one of those tracks, he sings a line saying, "We fade away like denim and leather," and that just stuck in my head. Later on, I used that title for probably one of our best known tracks.
That's why the song's on there, because for me it was quite an important song. Nazareth, on the other hand, we did their song "Razamanaz." We used to go and see them in the early '70s in the city hall and the theaters in the area where we used to live. We toured with them in 1980, one of the first tours we did.
My understanding is that Paul Quinn is going to be continuing as a member of the band but not as a touring member. Is that correct?
That's pretty much it. Yeah. He's been saying he wanted to retire from touring for quite some time, so it didn't come as a shock. It's just a bit sad that he's not going to be touring with us anymore. But we'd already covered this over the last few years anyway, so we knew that he was thinking about retiring from touring.
How much longer are you prepared to keep Saxon going? Obviously, you're still capable of putting on a great show, still creating, but you've been at this for almost five decades now.
Yeah, we don't really think in those terms. We don't really put any limits or anything on anybody, really. I'll just finish when I feel like finishing, just like Paul. That's how it'll be. It'll be one day I'm doing it, and the next day I'm not doing it. You can't really say when you're going to stop, you know what I mean?
Is there a U.S. tour in the works right now?
Well, there are lots of future plans. I can't really tell you them, though, because we're sort of sworn to secrecy, as you are in these things. But there's going to be some good tour packages going out next year, I think. We're trying to get something together for the U.S. We have a lot of people in Canada who want to see us as well. We'd like to amalgamate it all into one long tour, and maybe do South America as well. That would be great. We've just had to cancel some shows there, so it would be good to put them back in. So, we are working things definitely. And the profile in America is much higher now than it has been in since maybe 1984.
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