SAXON released Hell, Fire, And Damnation in January, the band’s 24th studio album (excluding their 2 recent collections of covers). if you haven’t heard the new album, it is one of the band’s best in the past few decades (well, their best since 1999’s Metalhead, for me). See my review elsewhere on this site. In this conversation, Biff discusses the band’s change in guitar players, the songs and artwork for Hell, Fire and Damnation, and the band’s upcoming US tour (co-headlining w/ Uriah Heep).
*Check out the links and tour dates below.
First of all, the new album if you can tell me a bit about the title where the what inspired the title and the title song obviously in that context. I posted a review the other day.
Yeah, the first song’s about the battle between good and evil, really, that’s been going on for 1000s of years. I suppose it’s based on the prophecy, you know like the Omen films, that type of thing. I suppose it was good to write a song about good and evil and just a lot of bands just write about devils and demons and things, or occult. And it’s a saying my dad used to use when he was upset – ‘hell, fire and damnation’. That’s where the title came from, the idea for the words, anyway.
You got Brian in the band now. Prior to, when Paul announced he was leaving did you have Brian in mind already, when that came up?
Paul’s been thinking about leaving for some time. I think when we were touring during that particular period, he was quite tired and not really into metal music anymore. So he just wanted to play blues music and relax a bit. So that’s what he wanted to do. So we asked Brian – Brian was the first guy we asked actually. And the thing about Brian, is apart from Metallica connection, you know, the songs that they recorded of his; He’s a bit sort of frustrated, writing great riffs and things and playing great guitar and not being able to play in front of a lot of people, so he jumped at the chance to join Saxon. He’s still in Diamond Head, but he’s really enjoying himself, you know, getting the sort of interest that he deserves.
Yeah, did that change kind of give you guys a bit of a spark with the new album, so I think it’s great album. It’s very consistent, the songs are really good.
Well he wrote the title track with me, we wrote that time together – “Hell, Fire and Damnation”, so he’s come in to the band and done some writing. So dynamically, we’ve changed a little bit, which I think is for the better really. The album sounds fantastic.
A lot of the songs you write are kind of history lessons or history topics. So I always find myself when I get a Saxon album I gotta go look up something that – ‘what is this moment he’s talking about or this event’?
Haha… A lot of people do Google, you know – if they don’t know what happened in 1066. Or the Salem witches, you can go on Google and Wikipedia it gives you a short story of what it’s all about. I think in that way it’s interesting you know. And some of the Maiden tracks are quite history based. I’m sure some people google and find out what the tale of the “Ancient Mariner” is, you know!?
What kind of inspires each topic that you come up with – is it reading or a book or movie..?
A lot of it’s documentaries and things you see on Netflix or something. I read articles and watch films and things, so I’m always looking for something to write about. I was doodling with a song called “Remember the Alamo” for this album, but it didn’t quite make it. So that might end up on the next album (haha); you never know!
You also had a change with the artwork on this album?
Again, it’s dark and light – good and evil. So I wanted to an album cover that basically mirrored what I was saying in the song really – the fight between good and evil. And I got my friend, the actor. Brian Blessed to do the intro for all sounds pretty precious metal to me. I mean, I do like it.
Now you got Peter Selye doing the artwork this time? That’s first person you’ve had somebody new for, I guess for quite a few years, I guess.
We do usually use our other friend Paul Gregory who’s done a lot of albums since Crusader. But he wasn’t able to do this album. So I had an idea, you know, an idea of a cover, and we sent my ideas to different artists. And he (Peter) came back straight away with that concept of you know, the super angel and the shield in the middle of the battle. And it looked really great to me, you know,
How involved are you with each cover from album to album? Is it your ideas?
Yeah, a lot of them are based on my ideas, yeah, and where I think they should from. The album can do what he wants, but it all comes back from an idea I have. They’re not always great, and don’t always work, so we might have to move on to a different cover. but this one is pretty much how I wanted it to be really.
Well it’s a great cover
Looks great on a t-shirt!
And the title is very memorable…
And you can buy a box set with a patch in it, and put it on a jacket, and that’s pretty cool. I’m going to be wearing one of them on stage, I think.
If we can touch on some of the songs, because there’s a lot that stand out on this here for me – “Madame Guillotine”, “Fire And Steel”, “Pirates Of The Airwaves”… Can you tell me a bit about a few of the songs and if you’ve kind of decided or have an idea what you might put into the live show?
“Pirates Of The Airwaves” was based on the ’60s really. When I was a boy listening to music on a little transistor radio because the BBC the British government, wouldn’t allow people to listen to rock music, like The Rolling Stones in the 60s, so we used to listen in our in our bedrooms late at night, midnight, listening to these tracks coming through from these pirate stations. That’s what that song is about. You know, it’s just reminiscing from my youth, really.
“Fire And Steel” is basically it’s about a city in Yorkshire England called Sheffield, and that was a very behemoth city. It’s the place I used to go when I was a teenager to see all the bands. You know I saw David Bowie there, and I saw Uriah Heep, and Deep Purple – all the big bands used to come through this city called Sheffield, and I used to go so that’s what the song’s about really.
And obviously “There’s Something In Roswell”, I think a lot of people know what that’s about already.
Well, I’m a believer. I don’t know about you, but I think there’s something in Roswell. I think something happened there. Roswell was ground zero for UFO enthusiasts. Really.
Do you follow a lot of that stuff?
It’s interesting. I like conspiracy theories. Like something happens and then the government tells you something else. It’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean from Roswell millions of UFO sites and people talk about UFOs, Investigate UFOs, and it all started from Roswell, really.
“Kubla Khan And The Merchant of Venice”?
Again, that’s a bit of a history lesson really. You know Genghis Khan was a big warlord in Europe who conquered most of Europe and some of the Roman Empire. And one of his great grandsons was the Emperor of China, his name was Kubla Khan. And the first guy to go there and write about it was a guy called Marco Polo, who was from Venice. He discovered the Chinese used gunpowder, this fantastic pottery that they used to make – a great story really. I think that’s the most historic song on the album, but you can google it again if you want to find out what it’s about.
You guys are consistently putting out albums, like yearly – even when we were off during the pandemic you still managed to put out the two covers’ albums. What kind of drives you and how important is it to keep putting out new material when there’s a lot of bands at this stage who are just content to do one every five or six years or whatever?
We still have lots of things to prove. And we’re still always trying to write that perfect song on that perfect album. And we’re songwriters basically, well you know, I mean I look at myself as a songwriter not just a singer, so I’m very dedicated to make and produce new material. And then tour with it. We could obviously tour and just do the big hits from the ’80s, but we don’t really want to do that you know; we want to want to make music that’s relevant – you know people like it, like this album’s getting good reviews from around the world. It’s a good feeling you know; it’s good feeling that we can still write great songs – in my opinion that are just as good as the early songs.
Yeah, I like following bands who have something new because it’s easy to fall off if there’s nothing new for a long time right, so yourselves and well Magnum, Uriah Heep… bands have that still put out albums consistently every year Or few years that are well worth having.
I think especially in the metal genre like Saxon, Judas Priest, and Maiden – we put out albums because you know we like to tour on those albums and that’s what really gives us the juice you know that keeps us alive, keeps us feeling young, playing music that’s new. It’s a really great feeling.
You’ve got a tour coming up in the US with Uriah Heep. So a couple things – when you go out on the road for these long journeys, like you’d be out here for a couple of months. What do you guys do? You know, what’s your kind of your routine as far as do you go visit a lot of historic sites yourself and or is it kind of all business?
Well we drink a lot definitely! (haha) And we keep ourselves busy really. And then we don’t have many days off, so, if we have a day off in a cool place then we’ll go off and visit the area or go shopping or something, just to break the monotony of traveling every day. We’re pretty much a family, it’s like a gang on the road. There’s a lot of fun, a lot of joking about, you know, it’s like being out with your friends really, like being out with your mates.
You’re touring with Heep, and you’ve mentioned them before, I know I read you’d picked Demons And Wizards as one of your favorite albums. And you covered “Gypsy” on the last covers album. How far back do you go with them as far as seeing them the first time?
The first time I saw them, I mean, they’ve been going on quite a long time. I didn’t see them in the late ’60s, I must’ve seen them on their second album tour, I think…and I think they were out with Purple. I’d seen them in Sheffield actually. So it must’ve been very early ’70s. But I didn’t need them until much, much later on. Because they weren’t really on our touring circuit, if you know what I mean, in the ’80s. I think they stopped touring the UK in the ’80s and had a bit of a hit in America in the ’80s with one of their albums. (Ed: Abominog, w/Peter Goalby). I didn’t see that band, but I saw Uriah Heep with a guy called John Sloman. Yeah, so I do like Uriah Heep, and I do know them, but we’d see them in restaurants and airports and it’s only in the last 3 or 4 years that we started playing shows together.
Metalhead was kind of my rei-ntroduction to you guys because I know you’d been over here in the ’80s, but when Metalhead came out, that really got me back into you guys and I’ve kind of picked up from there and been following ever since.
A lot of people got in to us on Metalhead. It’s kind of a dark album. It’s a great album, actually, I think it’s a really underrated album.
It now ended up in a lot of people’s like, you know, top 10 albums they play Saxon, so it’s getting the recognition, I think.
You did the King Crimson cover on the next album? Do you remember touring or sharing bill with a Canadian band named April Wine in 1980?
Yeah, we did some shows together. We did the Monsters Of Rock together, the very first big one in the UK. I remember watching them, they were a good band.
Yeah, because they had a bit of a radio hit with their cover of “21st Century Schizoid Man”? So, when you guys did “In The Court Of The Crimson King”, I thought that was a great connection there.
A lot of people do “21st Century Schizoid Man”, it’s such a hidden track, but I wanted to do something a bit more proggy, a bit more prog-rocky. which is why we used the other one.
What else do you have on the go as far as other projects you’d like to do or anything else you’re working on?
At the moment, we’re not really working on much. We only finished this album in October last year, so we’ve been working pretty hard on this album. No real plans yet, just to promote this album, tour this year and promote the album. We might do more videos, maybe I don’t know. Just to concentrate on the album. That’s the next thing.
I’m looking at the dates. And I don’t see any Canadian dates yet. So I’m hoping if there’s going to be dates added on, because there’s not really a lot of room in between all those shows that are listed.
We have some space after the summer to maybe come back and do some Canadian shows, and some West Coast; we’re not doing West Coast shows either.
It would be a good plan to do Canada, then shoot over to Vancouver and then on the West Coast and maybe go into New Mexico. So there’s a few areas that we aren’t playing on this part of the tour, but it’s just part one, basically. So we’ll see what happens.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/SaxonOfficial
https://www.instagram.com/saxon.official/
https://www.ticketmaster.com/saxon-tickets/artist/736050
Outsider Rock 