SAXON
SEIZING THE DAY WITH THE EPIC CARPE DIEM Interview by Ken Morton - Photo by Jack Lue
Since their beginnings in 1977, Saxon has been seizing the day in nothing short of an epic way, delivering their own legendary brand of classic heavy metal. And now in 2022, the almighty Saxon has unleashed Carpe Diem, their 24th studio magnum opus via Silver Lining Music, and this recording is sure to enrapture music fans all over the world. Highwire Daze recently caught up with Saxon’s dynamic front man Biff Byford to find out more about thier standout new album Carpe Diem and discuss other topics from their vast and brilliant legacy. Let’s dive right in and talk about the new album. Is there any overall story or concept behind the Carpe Diem album title? It’s a very inspiring title for such a crazy time. I came up with the song a little bit later than some of them. Yeah – Carpe Diem – there’s a place in Northern England about an hour away from where I live where there’s an old wall that the Romans built 2000 years ago that stretches from coast to coast across England. And I was up there during the end of Covid looking around and looking at museums. And on one of the walls is carved Carpe Diem and it spiked my interest. It obviously means Seize The Day. I just thought that would be a cool title for the album and a cool title for the song. It’s very positive coming out of Covid a little bit now, so it’s a bit like “Seize The Day” “Take every day as it comes.” So yeah, there’s a positive vibe to it, I think. When creating Carpe Diem, how much did the pandemic and social unrest in the world influence your writing, if at all? I think it influenced my lyric writing definitely. I think as far as the music is concerned, I wanted it to be a high energy album – everything positive and looking forward – not too much backwards. I think it did have an effect on us because there were no real tight deadlines because they all kept passing by – and I was able to just think about it a bit more lyrically and put a bit more thought into the lyrics. So, I suppose in that way, it affected me, yeah. 14
Another major event that happened in your life prior to the recording was your heart attack. How did that affect the way you looked at your lyric writing and just life in general? It definitely influenced the title of Seize The Day without a doubt! But yeah, it was a strange time, only because it wasn’t like a Hollywood type heart attack – it wasn’t like something on a hospital soap show. It was a very steady, slow thing that was happening to me. I had a lot of time in hospital sitting around doing nothing really waiting for the team to make up their minds what they were going to do with me. I was writing a few lyrics and things while I was in the hospital, so yeah, it was a strange thing. They couldn’t May/June 2022
HIGHWIRE DAZE