Inspirations

Description

Saxon showcases its “inspirations.” The British Heavy Metal legends will deliver a full set of covers with their latest album Inspirations. The album brings together some of the rock classics that influenced Biff Byford & the band. From the crunchy version of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” to the wild take on Jimi Hendrix’s “Stone Free,” via the driving melodies of the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer,” Saxon show their love through a series of faithful and raw tributes. Recorded in old-school fashion at Brockfield Hall near York, in the UK, with Marshall amps and a real drum kit, Saxon tackle tracks like Motörhead’s “Bomber,” AC/DC’s “Problem Child,” Black Sabbath’s “Evil Woman” and Deep Purple’s “Speed King” with refreshing, warm, unfiltered and “vintage”-sounding interpretations. Byford takes on new vocal challenges, which he pulls off brilliantly on Thin Lizzy’s “The Rocker.” “We wanted to make an album that showed our influences, the songs and the bands that inspired us to write exactly the Saxon songs we wrote and are still writing. It was interesting to see what else my voice could do because I had never sung some of these songs before,” adds Biff. Byford certainly took on new vocal challenges. For example, how he properly nails Thin Lizzy’s The Rocker. Another heavyweight is Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song, followed by AC/DC’s Problem Child. Saxon do an incredibly good job here not only of entertaining themselves, but also of keeping the audience on Inspirations at the same time. “Inspirations” was recorded at Brockfield Hall near York in the UK, which was built in 1804 and holds the largest collection of paintings by Yorkshire impressionist artists - the Staithes Group. For Byford, recording all the inspirations in such a historically rich environment was a major ingredient of the project. “The warmth and feel of Inspirations has so much to do with being together in that beautiful place and doing it the ‘old school’ way,” explains Byford. “It’s the number of bands back then - including some of those discussed here - that made such great albums, so it was really nice to be able to do that somewhere like Brockfield Hall.” The results speak for themselves.