Metal Express Radio correspondent Mick Burgess recently caught up with SAXON frontman Biff Byford. An excerpt from the interview can be found below.

Q: Certainly from Saxon’s point of view you seem to be going through something of a renaissance. Your last album The Inner Sanctum was universally hailed as your best in years. What is it that reinvigorated you as a band?

Byford: "Well, we’re working on it. It’s good as there’s a lot of people behind us, a lot of magazines and media so it helps. We’re working really hard and we have been doing since our Lionheart album was released. I think our latest, Inner Sanctum is a great album and we’ll be hard pushed to beat that one. That album got fantastic reviews; I don’t think there’s a bad song or a filler on that album. I think it came out just at the right time."

Q: Inner Sanctum sounds like an album that YOU wanted to do rather than an album a record label wanted you to make?

Byford: "We’re doing what we like to do. We love our music and we’re not really experimenting anymore. We know what we are good at writing and I know what I’m good at singing and I know what lyrics I like to write and people seem to like that. We’re not really changing; we’re just trying to get better."

Q: Recently METALLICA paid tribute to you by covering 'Princess of the Night' and 'Motorcycle Man' at the Rock Am Ring. That’s a pretty impressive endorsement.

Byford: "Yes it is. They didn’t have to do that, it was very nice of them. We were backstage when they did that and it was nice to hear. I might give them a job you know!! We hadn’t spoken to them in nearly 28 years as we hadn’t been on the same festivals as them. They always say that we were a massive influence on them when they first started. It was nice getting to see them after so long and we talked about old times."

Go to this location for the complete interview.