SAXON's BIFF BYFORD completes first round of chemotherapy for bowel cancer treatment
15-09-2025
SAXON frontman Biff Byford has shared a new video message in which he offered an update on his battle with bowl cancer. He said: “It’s Biff here. Just checking in to let you know how things are going. Yeah, so I went through the first chemo. I’m feeling pretty good, actually. A bit brutal at times, but I had a week off, so I’m feeling good now.”
Referencing SAXON‘s upcoming tour, Biff continued: “Yeah, Belfast is sold out, by the way, so get your tickets bought for the rest of the shows. Everything’s going well. So, yeah, I’m gonna be out getting fit, exercising in a couple of weeks, getting ready for the tour. At the moment, I’m writing the new album. There’s a track playing in the background, actually. If you can listen, check it out.
“So, yeah, we’ll see everybody in November,” he added. “And I’ll give you an update later on, next month, to see how everything’s going. So yeah, keep the faith and peace and quiet. See you soon.”
Although Biff released a video message last month in which he implied that he underwent an operation to remove “a small tumor” from his “prostate gland”, he later clarified that he was actually diagnosed with bowel cancer, which is cancer that is found anywhere in the large bowel, including the colon and rectum. Byford is now being treated with chemotherapy for “a short period”, resulting in the cancelation of a couple of shows and the postponement of several others.
Biff would like to reassure fans that both the band’s special Hell, Fire and Steel UK & Ireland Tour this November will be going ahead as planned along with SAXON’s headline performance at Metal Hammer Paradise in Lübeck, Germany. The band’s Hell Fire and Steel UK Tour is currently close to being SOLD OUT, so fans are advised to grab the last few tickets quickly to avoid disappointment, as this will be the last opportunity to see SAXON this year in UK and Ireland and to hear the band’s classic Wheels of Steel album played in full for the last time from start to finish.
Upcoming Shows:
NOV 4 – Ulster Hall, Belfast (UK)
NOV 5 – 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin (Ireland )
NOV 7 – O2 Apollo, Manchester (UK)
NOV 8 – Octagon Centre, Sheffield (UK)
NOV 9 – O2 Glasgow Academy (UK)
NOV 11 – O2 City Hall, Newcastle (UK)
NOV 13 – Beacon, Bristol (UK)
NOV 14 – Civic Hall, Wolverhampton (UK)
NOV 15 – Hammersmith Apollo, London (UK)
NOV 16 – Great Hall, Cardiff (UK)
NOV 28 – Metal Hammer Paradise, Lübeck (Germany)
For more information and last tickets for all shows go to www.saxon747.com/tourdates
To mark the Eagles Over Hellfest release, out earlier this month, SAXON recently released the video for “Heavy Metal Thunder (Live at Hellfest)”. Eagles Over Hellfest is in celebration of the band’s fast approaching “Castles & Eagles” headline shows in September 2025 at the Zénith in Paris, Nantes and Toulouse and features the audio recording of the band’s sensational show from Hellfest 2024.
Watch “Heavy Metal Thunder (Live at Hellfest)” below.
Biff Byford, lead singer and founding member comments: “‘Heavy Metal Thunder’ is a classic that always goes down well live. It’s from our new release, Eagles Over Hellfest, which we recorded at the French festival on our Castles & Eagles show last year. It was great to close the evening after Metallica’s set!”
Watch the previously released “1066” below.
Saxon’s Biff Byford says – “A totally British themed song, the massive invasion… In fact, it was the end of the Saxons really, so I’m singing about the demise of the Saxons. I did a song with Amon Amarth a while back called ‘Saxons and Vikings’ which was about the end of the Vikings in England and the rise of the Saxons, so I thought I may as well do a song about six-seven hundred years later when William the Conqueror comes over and nobbles the Saxons.
We’ll be playing the song on the Hell, Fire And Steel tour next month, which is gonna be fantastic.”
The song was written by and credited to the band’s member Peter Byford and Brian Tatler.
Watch the previously released official lyric video for “Witches Of Salem” below.
“Hell, Fire And Damnation” is an album which sees SAXON investigate all areas of history and mystery amidst ten of their most confident and thunderopowerful songs yet. In “Witches Of Salem”, lead singer and founding member Biff Byford explores the unjust condemnation of the women victimized at the Salem witch trials and the sheer bigotry and mass hysteria prevalent at the time.
“This is an American story, but the witch trials started in Scotland, spread into England and across the sea to the colonies in America. Those poor women in Salem,” explains Byford, “they weren’t ‘witches’ more than just unfortunate women, really, blamed for everybody’s ailments… whether your horse died, or the milk went sour, they blamed women. Maybe because they were jealous of them, or maybe it was because some guy had made some advances and she’d told him to piss off, so he’d declare that she was a witch. And once a person was declared a witch, I don’t think there was any way back from that; very few of them were found innocent.”
Produced by Andy Sneap (JUDAS PRIEST, EXODUS, ACCEPT) and Byford, with Sneap mixing and mastering, “Hell, Fire And Damnation” strides the perfect line between confident, current power, and gloriously irreverent flexing of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal muscle which SAXON co-created.
“I think this album’s one of the best he’s done sound-wise, and he’s done a lot of albums,” Biff declared. “It has a really raw, vibrant sound… if you compress the total time making this album, it was four weeks tops… you can hear everything brilliantly, nothing’s overcomplicated, nothing’s over compressed. The guitar sounds are fucking immense, they’re just great, raw guitar sounds. And we haven’t done a lot of overdubbing on there, it’s just playing. I really, really like it.
SAXON will adavance through Europe to promote their new album this year:
04 Feb – Aladin Music Hall Bremen, Germany
06 Feb – Amager Bio Copenhagen, Denmark
07 Feb – Conventum Club 700 Örebro, Sweden
08 Feb – Valkyrian Norrköping, Sweden
09 Feb – Slagthuset Malmö, Sweden
11 Feb – Rockefeller Music Hall Oslo, Norway
13 Feb – Trädgår’n Göteborg, Sweden
14 Feb – Folkets Park Huskvarna, Sweden
15 Feb – Cirkus Stockholm, Sweden
17 Feb – Docks Hamburg, Germany
19 Feb – Lucerna Music Bar Prague, Czech Republic
20 Feb – STUDIO Kraków, Poland
21 Feb – Gasometer Wien, Austria
23 Feb – Progresja Warsaw, Poland
25 Feb – Muffathalle München, Germany
26 Feb – Live Club Trezzo Sull’adda Mi, Italy
28 Feb – Volkshaus Zürich, Switzerland
01 Mar – CENTRAL ERFURT | B2B Erfurt, Germany
02 Mar – Poppodium 013 Tilburg, Netherlands
04 Mar – Huxleys Neue Welt Berlin, Germany
05 Mar – Haus Auensee Leipzig, Germany
06 Mar – Mitsubishi Electric HALLE Dusseldorf, Germany
22 Mar – HELLS HEROES 2025 Houston, TX
06 Jun – Heavy Weekend 2025 Nancy, France
25 Jul – Öland Rock 2025 Borgholm, Sweden
30 Jul – Wacken Open Air 2025 Wacken, Germany
05 Sep – Santana 27 Bilbao, Spain
05 Sep – Saxon (Bilbao) Bilbao, Spain
06 Sep – Sala La Riviera Madrid, Spain
06 Sep – Saxon (Madrid) Madrid, Spain
07 Sep – Razzmatazz 1 Barcelona, Spain
07 Sep Saxon (Barcelona) Barcelona, Spain
04 Nov – Ulster Hall Belfast, United Kingdom
05 Nov – Olympia Theatre Dublin, Ireland
07 Nov – O2 Apollo Manchester Manchester, United Kingdom
08 Nov – Octagon Centre Sheffield, United Kingdom
09 Nov – O2 Academy Glasgow Glasgow, United Kingdom
11 Nov – O2 City Hall Newcastle Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom
13 Nov – Bristol Beacon Bristol, United Kingdom
14 Nov – Wolverhampton Civic Hall Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
15 Nov – Eventim Apollo London, United Kingdom
16 Nov – The Great Hall, Cardiff Uni Students Union Cardiff, United Kingdom
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