Although lately we already had a fantastic interview with Biff Byford on MetalBite, I took the chance to chat with Nigel Glockler, their long-time drummer, once again. With Biff the focus was more on the music, Nigel and I talked more about some general Saxon topics and also about him. I guess this has become a very private interview in a way but  it was very interesting and we had much much fun doing this. I hope you enjoy reading the interview as much as I did doing it!

Michael

Hi Nigel, nice to see you again! I hope everything's fine with you and the dinosaur?

Yes, all fine here, thanks!

How was the South American tour?

It was great, we did three weeks in South America. We played 4 shows in Brazil, and then we went to Argentina, then to Chile and to Columbia. And after that we did three shows in Mexico.

..and the last two shows you had Covid…

Yeah (laughs). When you're on the road you have to be so careful nowadays and with Covid it's going up again everywhere. I put a mask on all the time and even in Chile, they all were crazy to get their autographs and pictures – I don't know how they found that stuff out but they knew what flights were on, which hotels we were at, everything. So it wasn't like you put your arm around someone and take a picture, now it was you stand there and I stand here and once I had Covid I said, sorry I'm not taking my mask off for your own good.

Your new album "Hell, Fire and Damnation" was just released - what are your expectations?

We've had some great reviews for it. I'm very pleased with that. I think Andy Sneap has done a great job again with the production. It got some great sounds. I'm really happy with the album and the same with is the great reviews. It's great that people like it, that's just what it is all about.

So there will be some chart entries you think?

That would be nice, yeah (laughs).

So, what really happened in Roswell, Mr. Mulder?

Who knows! Are they ever gonna prove anything? It was just an interesting thing to write about, I guess.

Haha, yeah. For me as an X-Files fan this was a pretty cool title. So what do you think personally? I mean these days there are a lot of so-called disclosures and the UAPs are quite often in the media…

I don't know. I mean on one hand I think why should we be the only beings out here. The other thing is you see all these sort of camera shots from US fighter planes with these lights buzzing everywhere… There is a place here in Texas, I can't remember the name of it, but it is somewhere out in the desert and it's a well-known thing. There are some floating lights and they go to see them. I mean what the hell is that? I don't know.

So it's some kind of UFO hotspot?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look at the Area 51. We don't know what's going on there. Do they have an alien ship in there like in "Independence Day" (laughs)? All we've got to hope is that they're friendly, haha!! We don't want anything like in the book "War Of The Worlds", we don't need any of that like an invasion. It always reminds me of that Star Trek movie "First Contact" where they first meet the Vulcans. That's brilliant, haha!

So you're also into Star Trek?

Yes. Apparently they're working on a script for Star Trek 4. A lot of the actors have agreed to do it. And I love "Strange New Worlds". It's great. It's really good, the graphic is amazing. All the captions have their own thing, like Kirk says "take us out", Picard is like "make it so". Pike's one is "kick it" (laughs). And there is a scene where the guy that plays Spock is in the Captain's chair and they sort of look around him, waiting for him to say something and he just says "oh, make it go!" (laughs). It's brilliant.

You have a broad spectrum of historical topics – wouldn't have it been smarter just to focus on one or two topics because this hopping from The Battle Of Hastings in 1066 to French Revolution in 1789 and a lot of other stories like the Radio Luxembourg might be a little bit challenging for the people who are interested in the lyrics?

I mean the radio song is more a basic rock song really. It's a kind of  historical thing but not so much. But I know Biff likes writing about history. We got into that and for the last album we had songs like 'Pilgrimage' and stuff like that. We like historical stuff. It's whatever moves Biff when he is doing his lyrics. I think sometimes as well the music stirs him to make him think of something like that. Maybe the next album won't have so much history, who knows?

Biff said in the interview with Vladimir that he thinks that 'Madame Guillotine' has a pretty cool Alice Cooper-ish chorus – so is the title a little tribute to him? I mean he gets decapitated on stage and he chose his (female) name also to shock his parents….

I saw Alice Cooper actually on the Alice tour where he got hung (laughs). It was with the original band, it was great. But no, I think it's not a tribute to him. I think 'Madame Guillotine' is probably one of Biffs finest lyrics and probably my favorite song on the album. I love the groove of it and everything about it. What I find interesting is that Biff's singing it from he is Madame Guillotine. So it's Madame Guillotine singing to you, that's what I like about it. It's not like someone singing about her. It's an own personality.

When I read the album title announcement my first thought was that you checked my musical recommendations and go more into the black metal style, haha!! What is the intention behind that?

Haha, it's just the constant battle between good and evil. It's not, I bet you were sort of thinking of some death metal and every track is gonna be a 100 mph on the double bass. Quite finally enough the album is more groove-oriented than the previous two, actually. It has a lot more mid-tempo stuff which I actually like.

So this is the biggest difference to the previous albums, you'd say?

Yeah, I would say that definitely. From the rhythm section it's more groove-oriented. There's a couple of tracks that's rather on fire still with a 200 mph kick-drum but that's what we're known for anyway. But we're also known for straight-ahead rock. I love watching people in the audience when we play a song that night like 'Dogs Of War' which is a groove thing when the heads are going. I love watching it, it's great!

Although I also loved "Carpe Diem", but there were a lot of average reviews which I couldn't understand.

Well, I guess you can't please everyone all the time. The people that reviewed it preferred all that fast stuff, who knows. For me, all bias aside, it's a great album. And this one's a good follow-on from it.

So what would you say are the three strongest and the three weakest albums over the 46 years the band already exists?

Oh God, that's hard for me to say. I can only really go on how I feel about these sort of albums. A lot of people still love Power And The Glory. Productionwise with Jeff Glixman, that was a great album and for me it's got a special place in my heart because it was my first studio album with the band. So I felt I had a lot to prove to the fans, taking over from Pete Gill. So that's a very important album for me. Another album I love is Sacrifice. I think a lot of it has to do with the vibe when we were actually doing the album. We were having a great time, all the circumstances round – it sort of sticks in your memory which is a great thing. For me personally, Forever Free wasn't a particularly happy album around that time. Also the production could have been better. But people like the tracks on it and when we play any tracks from that live, they're still as powerful as anything else. It's like comparing the production of Crusader to Power And The Glory. I mean Power And The Glory smokes Crusader productionwise, I think. People have said that it's not as heavy as Power And The Glory but then again, when we play a song like Crusader, that is as heavy as anything when we do it live.

Early spring you are going on tour together with Uriah Heep and Judas Priest in Europe. Whom are you looking forward to meeting more?

Both! I said in another interview that Heep was the third ever gig I went to. I think it was either on the "Demons And Wizards" or "The Magician's Birthday" tour. I loved it. I bought their first album when it came out and I bought all the albums. As soon as they brought an album out I had it. I love them!

And you're going on tour with Uriah Heep in the USA.

Yes, it's going to be a co-headlining thing in some cities. When they're stronger, they're headlining, in other cities when we're stronger, we headline. The thing is that we're going to play the same length sets. About opening bands, I don't know. At the moment it seems that it's just gonna be us two but I can imagine there probably can be some local bands on in front I guess. I don't know, we have to see. I'm really looking forward to that because we've known them for a long time and they're great guys.

Can we expect some surprises concerning the set list?

You just have to wait and see! People are asking me what are you going to play and I always say "I'm not gonna tell you!". It's a surprise. I find it really annoying actually with social media someone who comes to the first gig puts the set list up. There is no surprise for people. It was the last tour where we had a section where we had a choice of three or four songs. Biff would say to the audience which one they want to hear and the one which got the loudest cheer we played. Sometimes we played all three of them. But we have to think again with this, particularly with Priest because both bands have limited time. So we gotta play some songs that people expect and we've gotta play some songs from the new album and then we'll see what just fits in. We're not sort of against changing things up in the middle of the set so who knows?

Is there a song that you would like to play live but haven't done for eons?

Not that we're gonna play it but the song I always used to enjoy playing was 'Iron Wheels'. I mean, there's a lot. Sometimes it's really refreshing to bring something else to the vault. We might play around with the arrangement a little bit but now that we have got Brian in the band as well we cannot inflict some kind of "you gotta learn these 40 songs"! (laughs).

Haha, I remember talking to Phil Demmel who told me that when he had to play with Slayer on their final tour he had to learn all the songs within one week.

The same thing happened to me when I first joined Saxon. I went and had a blast with them on a Sunday. Because I was doing a lot of sessions that time they thought I could learn things quickly. So the first time I played with them was that Sunday at the rehearsal place and the first gig was on Wednesday. Haha!! I took a lot of notes and so I had basically two days to learn the whole setting. It was a nightmare. I had this book alongside on a little table with a light on it constantly looking at it. The initial thing was I was gonna be with them for a week just to help them out. They had this other drummer that auditioned for them and the idea was that I would do the week and he would sit behind me and learn the songs while I was playing them. So he'd have another week to play them. After the first gig they sent him off (laughs). The manager said: "No, don ́t bother, but we're gonna keep Nigel". Not that I knew about it, I was wondering where he was. So we continued the tour and then Biff threw my book away (laughs).

Last question is a very personal one – you had a brain aneurysm 10 years ago, is everything still fine with that?

Yeah, everything's cool. I mean that brain aneurysm was a very frightening thing at that time. The actual surgeon told Gina, my wife, to prepare for the worst, that I might not come out of there alive. But I feel very lucky. We've discussed this. Gina is in the candle business and she did this candle for cool heavy metal drummer and which has this picture of me on the box from "Crusader" days. The thing we decided was that the actress, Emilia Clarke from "Game Of Thrones" who also had a brain aneurysm and started a charity, would get all the proceeds to go to her charity, too because she had the same thing as me. So there's a little bug – buy a Nigel candle, come on (laughs)!! But I was very lucky. I had to have two operations and in the end they went through my skull. They tried to do it through the vein but they couldn't get to the thing. I invited the surgeon next time we were in the town to come to the gig. So he came down and said to me that I was a freak because he was expecting that if I survived first of all, it would take me 18 months to two years before I could play drums again. I was back on tour again within three or four months. So it's no lasting thing, thank God.

The last words are yours!

We're really looking forward to this tour and to Priest. We love Priest. Go out and buy the new album, you'll love it, just with that name (laughs). Get what Michael said, we're not gonna sound like some Norwegian black metal band and as I always say – thank you to all the fans because it's you that put us where we are! We never forget that, we always appreciate that. Thank you!

British heavy metal legend Saxon doesn't need a further introduction here, I guess. They've just released their very strong new album "Carpe Diem" (read review here) and I had the chance to chat via Skype with their drummer Nigel Glockler. I must say that it was a very nice and funny chat with a lot of interesting answers to my questions. Enjoy reading!

Michael

Hi Nigel, how are you doing? Did you all come well through these strange times?

Oh God, yeah that have been strange times (laughs). We're all here on the other side of it at the moment, so fingers crossed!

You've just released your superb new album "Carpe Diem". It's a term that is often used here in Germany and I guess it means all the same, no matter in which language you use this term. Do you want to tell us to seize the day literally because life is too short to miss a thing?

Yes, I think so. I say this too, when I've done other interviews and it's some kind of philosophy of life. It's like enjoy and grab life. Go out and be happy because unless someone knows something else, this is the only time and chance we get to do it (laughs).

There are many different stories on "Carpe Diem". Is there a red line between all this or is it just a loose story collection? I find it quite hard to find some similarities between the Industrialization and a Super Nova somewhere in space.

No, every song is its own thing. It is not like a concept album at all. It's just every song separate. We write stuff and for an instant if Biff might hear something and suddenly thinks that makes me think of this subject or maybe he already has in mind a subject for the lyrics and sometimes he might like to do a song about things and then we write for that particular thought of it.

And the album title isn't connected to the song too, is it?

No, it's only the title song. That's about the Romans defending against the Picts or the Scots, I don't know it for sure and they built the Hadrian's Wall for defending.

It seems that Biffs historical interests have a pretty wide range. Is he always looking up for new topics to sing about? 'Dambusters' for example is quite an interesting topic and I guess that today not too many people know about that any more….

I mean, Biff reads a lot, I read a lot and we actually both of us like history, so quite often on the tour bus we're talking about things like that. We both watch a lot of movies and stuff and if he comes up with a story – I mean it's slightly the same thing with 'Crusader', 'Man And Machine' – all those things are like historical things. We like writing about this, we're not some sort of "I love you baby"-type band, you know? We never have been really (laughs).

Do you just want to entertain people with the stories, or do you also would like for people to get more into these topics after hearing about it?

Roughly I think it's a little bit of both. Always you want to entertain the people when you play a live show or whatever but if it makes people think: "Oh I didn't know anything about that" and they look it up online or read something about it, I think that can only be a good thing.

Another track that is really outstanding is 'Remember The Fallen'. Is this a big fuck off to all the Covidiots who deny the pandemic and spread some conspiracy theories about it?

I haven't thought about that actually. That's an interesting allegory, actually but I think it's more to remember the millions of people that have died. It's been awful and imagine the families that have lost these people and on the other side remember all the people like the doctors and nurses that have fought to save them. All I can say to those people who think it's a conspiracy is go and see the families of the lost people and then see what you think.

You have some reminiscences to older Saxon songs on "Carpe Diem". I just listened to 'Forever Free' again and guess that it has just the same riff as 'Carpe Diem'. And 'The Pilgrimage' reminds me a little bit of 'Crusader' (meets 'Hells Bells'). Was that intentional to back a little bit into your own past?

No, I think it's just the five of us musicians and we have a certain sound and stuff. Sometimes you can do an album that is all fast stuff. I think it's quite nice to get some sort of mid-tempo groove. Because we've been going so long, you're gonna get that sort of thing with us anyway because when you think "oh, that sounds like so and so" or whatever, all that is because we wrote that (laughs). That's how it's gonna sound. There was no sort of deliberate attempt, but I think quite honestly for instance with 'The Pilgrimage' an audience is gonna groove with that. For me every song has got to have a good groove whether it's fast or not – it's the groove that has got to be right as the most important thing for me as a drummer.

I think that "Carpe Diem" is a very heavy and focused album, much heavier than its predecessors. Was there a lot of fury you needed to get rid of while you wrote the album?

Well, it was just how things came about. We always write more than we need for now and those were the particular tracks that inspired Biff to write lyrics to. That's how it worked and another time maybe it would have been different tracks. I mean, I was full of fury when I was doing the drum tracks you know just like aaaarggh (laughs).

"Carpe Diem" sounds very powerful thanks to the awesome production by Andy Sneap and if one wouldn't know about your age one could say that they are playing some guys in their best age. What's the recipe to still be able to play such great music?

I don't know, maybe I'm lucky (laughs). I just love playing drums. I mean I don't practice that much really – I mean I do practice but I'm not one of these guys that sits on a drum kit for five hours a day. I'm really not interested in that. I just really enjoy playing and I think that's the whole formula to it, doing something you enjoy. Something you don't enjoy – stop! And luckily, I'm still fit enough to do it. I really love it; I really enjoy playing fast and sometimes I play so fast that I leave the others behind (laughs).

You've played some shows in England with Uriah Heep, Girlschool and Diamond Head lately which were postponed due to Covid-19. How was the feeling to be back on stage after such a long time?

We did two shows last year, we did the Bloodstock Festival and we played there just before Judas Priest, the day they were headlining which was great and we did the Metal Hammer Paradise Festival in Germany in November. It was indoors in a tent and both of them were great gigs, and it was really good to be back on. I love playing live, I mean this is it and it's been annoying that we haven't been able to do it. So hopefully this year they're all setting up tours and everything for a big UK and European tour for the autumn and some festivals throughout the summer, Graspop in Belgium and I think we got Sweden Rock, it's gonna be a busy year, thank God.

What about the audience? Were there also younger people or was it just about some mid-40s up to older people?

No, everything. All ages. This is the thing with us all the time, actually. Our audience, we always have a front. And the front is always full of youngsters. And the crazy thing is they know all the lyrics. It's great. You sometimes get fathers coming with their really young sons and at the front they're going nuts! It's brilliant. We get a cross-section of all ages, so we are constantly getting new fans which is great and really healthy.

I read not so very long ago a comment in a German magazine that a lot of those "dinosaur" metal bands will retire within the next few years and leave a gap in the scene. Do you think that there is anybody from newer bands that could replace e.g., Judas Priest or Iron Maiden?

Who called us dinosaurs, I want to know! This one is a dinosaur, haha!! (shows me a toy dinosaur which stood in the background)!!

Haha, I just thought about the correct term….

Well, for us it will as long as (laughs)…we'll keep going as long as people want to see us and buy the CDs and as long as we enjoy it. As I said earlier, if you don't enjoy it, don't do it.

I didn't want to say that you're going to drop it soon, don't get me wrong!! But maybe in some years, you know?

Oh yeah, it's not that we haven't sort of said that we're stopping. I don't think Maiden and Priest are doing this. Everyone's loving it and as I say, constantly getting new fans, younger fans which we do get now a lot. These two gigs we played in England, there were a lot of younger fans in the front. As long as we keep coming up with the ideas and stuff – why should we? Take Priest for example. What is it? 50 years now is it this year? People love seeing them and they're playing great, so why stop?

Before the interview is done, I do have one personal question – how much does heavy metal have an influence on you? Do you listen to that stuff personally?

Well, I listen to all sorts of music. It's more interesting what I don't listen to. I don't listen to rap! I hate it! Everything else I listen to. When I was at school, we had a choir at school, so I sang in it. I sort of loved what they called Russian Orthodox or just Orthodox chorus music. There is no instrumentation, only voices and some of them are just beautiful! Well, I can listen to that and the next minute I can listen to Rammstein. From an influence point of view, I'm not really sort of like a heavy metal drummer, my influence is more prog and fusion. I like more people like Billy Cobham and sort like this I've been listening to. I mean, I still listen to rock stuff, but I just go right across the border. There's lots of things I like – I like a lot of ambient music, some big band jazz like the 1940 stuff…good music is good music. And concerning metal I like bands like Evergrey or this band quite similar to Rammstein, Megahertz.

Thank you very much for the interview!

You're welcome, that was good fun!