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 All Guns Blazing |
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By Dale Lammers |
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 Things are jumping in the Saxon camp. With new album Into The Labyrinth being one of their very best and a soon-to-be-finished film documenting the band’s career in the works, they have more momentum going right now than they’ve had in over twenty years. “It’s nice,” confirms Saxon leader / singer Biff Byford. “We’re busier now than we’ve been in a very long time, and things are definitely moving in the right direction. Not to sound cocky, but Saxon’s been on a creative roll for two decades. Sure, we encountered some slips and setbacks in the ‘80’s. Who didn’t? But I can honestly say, we are one of the very best metal bands in the world right now.” With a string of solid albums starting with ‘90’s Solid Ball Of Rock and continuing today with Into The Labyrinth, it’s damn tough to dispute Byford’s claim. It’s a streak only one other band can match. “Let me guess… Motorhead, right?” Biff laughs. “Yeah, I agree with that. Lemmy’s been a great friend for about thirty years, and its funny how our careers seem to mirror each other. We still laugh about that.” “I don’t know why things are going so well, but why question it?” he asks. “Into The Labyrinth recently entered the f#*king US Billboard charts! That’s f*#king fantastic.” Byford elaborates on Saxon’s current good fortune. “We’re also filming a documentary about Saxon’s career, which is looking fantastic. A trailer for the film can be viewed at www.saxon747.com and clicking on the YouTube icon. We’re also getting more touring interest than ever – especially from the US. In fact, we’re already confirmed for the Rock Gone Wild Festival (www.rockgonewild.com) in Iowa in August, so we’re scheduling 15 – 20 US dates around that. We may be playing at Rocklahoma too, and we’re going to have a track on a very popular video game. I can’t say any more right now. It’s still a bit hush-hush, but it’s really exciting.” Back in ‘04 when Saxon was preparing for a US tour, Byford’s home burned to the ground. “That was a total loss,” he relates. “We got the family, cats and dogs out with the clothes on our backs. It was a 350 year-old building made almost completely of timber, and a spark from some bad wiring or something ignited it. We barely survived. We’re not certain what happened, and we lost a lot. But we’re alive, so everything’s good.” “I can’t explain it,” he responds when asked about Saxon’s growing momentum. “But we started to get popular again when we stopped trying to be successful and just decided to write the music we wanted to hear. That’s when we started to gel, and people got excited about Saxon again. Strange isn’t it? We decided to stop caring about popularity, and more people started liking Saxon,” Byford jokes. As it always does with Saxon, the subject turns back to touring. “Right now we’re touring Europe for four weeks with Iced Earth. Then we go again in April and will return to the US in August and September. You said you were in Dallas?” he asks. “Ahh, Texas. Saxon has a stronghold in Texas, more than anywhere in the US because of “Dallas 1PM,” from the Strong Arm Of The Law album in ’82, which we wrote about JFK’s assassination. No matter how many or how few shows Saxon plays on our US tours, we always schedule a few Texas shows, especially in Dallas. I think the fans would probably kill us if we didn’t play “Dallas 1PM” in Dallas,” he laughs. “We just can’t get away from that song, period.” |
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