Biff Byford feels people would rather see a singer at less than 100% than have the show cancelled

Biff Byford feels people would rather see a singer at less than 100% than have the show cancelled

Saxon frontman Biff Byford was recently interviewed by Yiannis Dolas for Greece’s Rock Pages. Saxon will be performing in Greece with guitarist Brian Tatler replacing Paul Quinn for the first time.

Dolas noted that Ozzy Osbourne recently indicated that it’s very difficult for singers because they only have their voice rather than an instrument to play. If a singer is having a bad day and can’t really sing, then they’re fucked. However, people prefer to hear a singer not performing that well or even really badly rather than having the band cancel the concert. Byford replied:

“Yeah, I think he’s right. Wise man Ozzy! Well, if you just got the voice… and you don’t have a guitar… I mean a guitarist can have a bad day… I suppose if they hurt their fingers or something… but, generally you can play the guitar with a cold or sore throat, that’s not some things that might think that stopped guitar playing.

Then, I think generally, the singing, it’s very rare to sing every night, that’s the thing. Some nights are better than others. So, would you rather see Ozzy not 100% or would you rather cancel to the show? I think most people would say, that they’d prefer to watch the show.”

In terms of Saxon covering KISS‘ classic song “Detroit Rock City” on their latest covers album More Inspirations, Byford indicated: Then, you got two surprises there, innit? You got surprised that we picked Brian and surprised we picked a KISS song! Hahah! Well, Nigel [Glockler, the drummer] was a big KISS fan when he was younger, and I think he was in the KISS Army, you know? So yeah, we put a song on for Nigel, and that is my favorite KISS song. I’m not a massive KISS fan, I do like them. I don’t dislike them, but I’m not like, a super fan of KISS, you know? But yeah, it’s a good song, right? So hopefully we did good. People like it, you know, it gets a lot of airplay in America that song, our version. But, KISS have so many versions of that song. So we had to make our own version. Yeah.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Biff Byford via Rock Pages‘ website.

Saxon‘s “Detroit Rock City” track: