Saxon’s Biff Byford gives health update after heart surgery

Saxon's Biff Byford
Saxon's Biff Byford (Image credit: Francesco Prandoni - Getty)

Saxon frontman Biff Byford has checked in to give fans an update on his health after his recent heart surgery.

The band were forced to postpone the remaining dates on their 40th anniversary Castles & Eagles tour as a result of the operation which took place at the end of September, but Biff says he’s getting better every day – and revealed that work has begun on what will be Saxon’s 23rd studio album.

The vocalist says: “I want to thank everybody for all your great messages – they’ve cheered me up. I’m feeling OK. I’m really sore from the operation and breathing is still a bit dodgy sometimes, but apart from that I’m getting better and better every day.”

As for the follow-up to 2018’s Thunderbolt, Biff says: “Nigel Glockler has started drums this week in Germany. Next week, Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt start the guitars and the plan is for me to start doing vocals around January/February, and that will help me get into shape for the shows coming up.”

He adds: “I’ve got some solo album news coming soon – it’s finished, but I’ll not tell you about that today.

“So everything is great and once again thank you for all the messages and thanks to the NHS for being brilliant and getting me to the experts in time.” 

Saxon’s rescheduled tour will now take place in March, with the planned Scottish show at the Braehead Arena now moved to Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom.

Biff explains: “I am very sorry that we couldn’t reschedule the previously announced show at Braehead Arena with the full production we had planned, but after a couple of weeks of trying to get availability at Braehead Arena and other Scottish venues that could house the production we had drawn a blank. 

“We decided we had to play a show for all our fans in Scotland and the Barrowland stepped up with clearing the date we needed. 

“Unfortunately due to the Barrowland’s size restrictions we cannot put the Castles & Eagles production in and hope you all understand, but we will try to make this as special a show for you as possible.”

Girlschool will join Saxon as special guests on the new dates which can be found below.

Saxon rescheduled 2020 tour dates
Mar 07: Dusseldorf Mitsubishi Electric Halle, Germany, 
Mar 27: Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom, UK
Mar 28: London Eventim Apollo, UK
Mar 29: Manchester O2 Apollo, UK

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.