Peter Rodney Byford
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Guest musician
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Personal information
Also known as: Biff Byford
Born on: 05.01.1951
Peter Rodney "Biff" Byford is a English rock singer, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band 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. Co-inciding with the 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.
Gigwise.com reported on January 18, 2010[3] that Byford was launching a campaign to have Britons declare heavy metal as their religion in the United Kingdom Census 2011, inspired by the Jedi census phenomenon (where 2001 Census results suggested that Jediism was the UK's fourth most popular religion).
In early 2005 Biff Byford had a serious tragedy at his home. Due to a fire at his home in France, his house was completely burnt down. Apart from a few bits and pieces everything was destroyed. Fortunately Biff was able to rescue his wife and their four small children. Almost everything that he had gained in the last 25 years including golden records, rare guitars, photos, souvenirs etc were burnt in the fire.
In October 2005 Biff stated: "First of all I would like to say thank you to everybody who sent messages after the fire it was a bad period in our lives but you have to go on and try and make something good from out of the bad. We are now in a new house much bigger than the last one and everybody is starting to put their lives back together. The fire started at five in the morning when we were all in bed [you may believe this or not?] But somebody or something shouted wake up really loud and I just shot up bolt upright, the room was full of smoke. I woke my wife and we got the children out of their bedrooms by this time the flames were dropping through the ceiling so we had a very lucky escape who it was I do not no I have lost both my parents and some good friends along the way anyway that's how it was."
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"
* 7 Sinners (2010) - spoken word on 'Who is Mr. Madman?'
with Doro
* Celebrate (The Night Of The Warlock) (2008) - vocals on "Celebrate" (track #2)
Bibliography
* Never Surrender, 2007
Born on: 05.01.1951
Peter Rodney "Biff" Byford is a English rock singer, best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band 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. Co-inciding with the 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.
Gigwise.com reported on January 18, 2010[3] that Byford was launching a campaign to have Britons declare heavy metal as their religion in the United Kingdom Census 2011, inspired by the Jedi census phenomenon (where 2001 Census results suggested that Jediism was the UK's fourth most popular religion).
In early 2005 Biff Byford had a serious tragedy at his home. Due to a fire at his home in France, his house was completely burnt down. Apart from a few bits and pieces everything was destroyed. Fortunately Biff was able to rescue his wife and their four small children. Almost everything that he had gained in the last 25 years including golden records, rare guitars, photos, souvenirs etc were burnt in the fire.
In October 2005 Biff stated: "First of all I would like to say thank you to everybody who sent messages after the fire it was a bad period in our lives but you have to go on and try and make something good from out of the bad. We are now in a new house much bigger than the last one and everybody is starting to put their lives back together. The fire started at five in the morning when we were all in bed [you may believe this or not?] But somebody or something shouted wake up really loud and I just shot up bolt upright, the room was full of smoke. I woke my wife and we got the children out of their bedrooms by this time the flames were dropping through the ceiling so we had a very lucky escape who it was I do not no I have lost both my parents and some good friends along the way anyway that's how it was."
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"
* 7 Sinners (2010) - spoken word on 'Who is Mr. Madman?'
with Doro
* Celebrate (The Night Of The Warlock) (2008) - vocals on "Celebrate" (track #2)
Bibliography
* Never Surrender, 2007