Biff Byford

Biff Byford

Biff Byford (born Peter Rodney Byford, 15 January 1951, Honley, West Yorkshire) is the vocalist for Saxon. Byford formed Son of a Bitch with guitarists Graham Oliver and Paul Quinn, bassist Steve Dawson and drummer Pete Gill in 1976. Prior to this, Byford had been the vocalist with Blue Condition from about 1970.

In 1978 Son of a Bitch changed its name to Saxon and released a self-titled album in 1979. Coinciding with the so-called New Wave of British Heavy Metal at the turn of the decade, Saxon had eight UK Top 40 albums and five Top 40 singles between 1980 and 1986. After this Saxon declined in popularity, eventually leading to a split in 1995 with Oliver and Dawson forming a new band with the same name. Byford's Saxon maintained a recording and touring career centred on Germany for much of the 1990s before coming back into worldwide attention with 2007's The Inner Sanctum. In April the same year, Byford released his autobiography, entitled Never Surrender after the Saxon song of the same name. Since 2003 he has worked part time as the administrator of the Amadeus Orchestra.

Discography

with Saxon

Saxon discography

with Air Pavilion

• Kaizoku (1989) - vocals on "She's Hot Stuff"

with Fastway

• Bad Bad Girls (1990)

with Freedom Call

• Taragon (1999) - narration on "Tears of Taragon (Story Version)"

with Destruction

• Inventor of Evil (2005) - vocals on "The Alliance of Hellhoundz"

with Helloween

• Gambling with the Devil (2007) - spoken word on "Crack the Riddle"

with Doro

• Celebrate (The Night Of The Warlock) (2008) - vocals on "Celebrate" (track #2)

Bibliography

• Never Surrender, 2007