Biff Byford

Biff Byford
Biff Byford
	Byford in 2016
Background information
Birth name	Peter Rodney Byford
Born	15 January 1951 (age 73); Skelmanthorpe, England
Genres	Heavy metal, hard rock
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instrument(s)	Vocals; bass;
Years active	1970–present
Member of	Saxon
Formerly of	Avantasia

Peter Rodney "Biff" Byford (born 15 January 1951)^[1]^[2] is an English singer best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Saxon.

Early life edit

Byford was born in Skelmanthorpe, West Yorkshire, the youngest of four children to Ernest Charles and Irene Byford. He has a brother, a half-sister from his father's side, Enid, who is 20 years older than him and a half-brother Michael from his mother.^[3]

Byford was just 11 years old when his mother died. "Being so young," he says, "it was a crushing blow. But that, I think, is when that will to survive was built in."

Only two years later his father, whom Byford describes as a violent alcoholic, suffered a terrible accident while at work at a textile mill, losing an arm after it was entangled in a piece of heavy machinery.

He joined a youth club band at 14. When he was 15, in 1966, having left school to work as a junior carpenter, his first steady girlfriend, Linda, fell pregnant. They were promptly married. But the marriage didn't last, even though the couple had two children.

At 18, in 1969, he was employed at the Shuttle Eye pit at Flockton, near Huddersfield. At six-foot-one, he was considered too tall to work underground, in tunnels only three feet high. So instead he worked in the boiler house, manning a giant steam engine that drew up the coal from a mile deep.

Career edit

Byford (left) and Steve Dawson with Saxon in 1981

He was taught to play guitar by his best friend's brother, who led a local blues group. Byford switched to bass, and passed through various bands in the Barnsley area. His first appearance on an album was in 1971 when he played flute^[4] and wrote a few of the songs on the self titled debut album by psychedelic rockers Jumble Lane, a Holyground Records release.^[5] He started singing backing vocals when he joined the Iron Mad Wilkinson Band, named after a local industrialist.^[6]

Byford sang and played bass with a local power trio called Coast from around 1973 to 1976 along with drummer Al Dodd and future Saxon guitarist Paul Quinn,^[7] when he formed Saxon with guitarists Graham Oliver and Paul Quinn, bassist Steve Dawson and former Glitter Band drummer Pete Gill. The band was originally called Son of a Bitch, but changed to Saxon in 1978. They released their self-titled debut album in 1979, and became part of what was known as the new wave of British heavy metal, which also included bands like Iron Maiden, Demon and Def Leppard. The band had commercial success as well, charting eight consecutive UK Top 40 albums and five Top 40 singles between 1980 and 1986.

At the end of the 1980s, the band declined in popularity, with 1988's Destiny being their last UK charting album until 2007. Oliver and Dawson left the band and formed a new band with the same name,^[8] though they were later forced to change it to Oliver/Dawson Saxon. (Byford's) Saxon maintained a recording and touring career centred on Germany for much of the 1990s, during 1998-1999, Peter took employment with a West Yorkshire kitchen furniture manufacturer as a salesman, before coming back into broader attention with 2007's The Inner Sanctum.^[9]

Byford at Hellfest 2010

In April 2007, Byford released his autobiography, entitled Never Surrender after the Saxon song of the same name. Gigwise.com reported on 18 January 2010^[10] 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).

Byford released his first solo album, titled "School of Hard Knocks" – featuring guest appearances by Phil Campbell, Alex Holzwarth, Nicholas Barker, Dave Kemp and Nibbs Carter – in February 2020.^[11]

On 23 July 2021, Byford released the album "Red Brick City" under the band name Heavy Water. The album features Biff on bass and vocals, his son Seb Byford on guitar and vocals, Tom Witts on drums, and Dave Kemp on keyboards and saxophone. Music videos were released for the title track ″Red Brick City″ on 7 May 2021 and ″Revolution″ on 18 June 2021.^[12] The album was recorded at The Big Silver Barn and Reel Recording Studio in York during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns.^[13]