Saxon frontman Biff Byford is featured in a new interview with Classic Rock, looking back on the highs and lows of his career and naming some of his favourite artists. Following is an excerpt.

The first song I played live

Byford: "'Paint It, Black' by the Rolling Stones. I was a teenager, and my band’s first gig was at a youth club in Scissett, a little village in Yorkshire. I played guitar – quite badly – and sang it as well. It’s quite an easy song to sing. And the girls in the audience liked it. That was the main aim back then."

The guitar hero

Byford: "Different eras have different guitar gods. The first one has to be Hendrix. When Hendrix came out he moved the goalposts. Gary Moore was another phenomenal player. Ritchie Blackmore, you can’t put down what he did. And then there was Eddie Van Halen. When we were recording the first Saxon album, in 1979, I saw Van Halen at the Rainbow in London, and the guitar playing had the same effect on me as Hendrix did."

The best record I've made

Byford: "I’m very proud of Thunderbolt (2018). That was as near perfect as we could get it. And of course, Wheels Of Steel was such a big record for us. We were going to get dropped after the first album didn’t do so well. It was a rough period mentally, but when we wrote those songs for Wheels Of Steel it was great. Everybody knew we were on to something."

The worst record I've made

Byford: "When we made Destiny, in 1988, the band was in a pretty lousy state morale-wise. The producer put a lot of keyboards on the tracks after we’d finished them. Honestly, we just let that one go. But I think we learned a valuable lesson from that album: don’t let other people steer your car."

Read more here.