In 2019 Saxon vocalist Biff Byford defined that if he’d had his method, the NWOBHM giants might have been a prog band, and the way the music of King Crimson blew him away – and nonetheless performs a job in his work at the moment.
“I used to be about 18 when In The Courtroom Of The Crimson King got here out. I believe me and [Saxon guitarist] Paul Quinn have been shopping via the vinyl at our native document store after we discovered the quilt with the face on. Earlier than that I used to be extra into pop rock, like The Kinks.
It actually caught me at a time when all the pieces was extra bluesy. It was actually inspirational, particularly twenty first Century Schizoid Man; my buddies who have been all musicians have been like, ‘Whoah, that riff!’ That and Black Sabbath have been the forerunners of heavy, darkish riffs, and lengthy tracks with a number of completely different time signatures in them.
I used to be enjoying bass on the time and we tried to study the time signatures however failed miserably. It’s fairly onerous stuff! I did have Larks’ Tongues In Aspic as effectively, however Crimson King was the one which blasted into my psyche. We nonetheless play it in soundcheck to at the present time.
If me and Paul had received signed as our early band Coast, we might have been a prog band. The first Saxon album had fairly a proggy really feel to it – however our producer chopped down numerous the songs to a few or 4 minutes, whereas the unique ones have been for much longer and stretched out into completely different signatures.
We did find yourself masking In The Courtroom Of The King Crimson on [2001 album] Killing Floor. Lots of people have performed twenty first Century Schizoid Man – I needed to do one thing completely different, and it got here out actually good.
Robert Fripp has written some nice music. While you consider King Crimson, he comes straight to thoughts. He’s nonetheless on the market and nonetheless doing it; he’s one of many nice survivors, like we’re.
Our different guitarist Doug Scarratt is a giant Fripp fan, too, and we all know [Fripp’s wife] Toyah from our first period with [drummer] Nigel Glockler. I’m a giant fan of Sure and Genesis as effectively. Proper now, I’m doing my solo album with Fredrik Åkesson from Opeth. We’ve written a few prog tracks for it too; I’m nonetheless into that music.”
