Peter Rodney "Biff" Byford (born 15 January 1951) is an English singer best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Saxon. Byford was born in Skelmanthorpe, West Yorkshire, the youngest of four children to Ernest Charles and Irene Byford. He joined a youth club band at 14. When he was 15, in 1966, having left school to work as a junior carpenter. He was taught to play guitar by his best friend's brother, who led a local blues group. Byford switched to bass, and passed through various bands in the Barnsley area. His first appearance on an album was in 1971 when he played flute and wrote a few of the songs on the self titled debut album by psychedelic rockers Jumble Lane, a Holyground Records release. He started singing backing vocals when he joined the Iron Mad Wilkinson Band, named after a local industrialist Byford sang and played bass with a local power trio called Coast from around 1973 to 1976 along with drummer Al Dodd and future Saxon guitarist Paul Quinn, when he formed Saxon with guitarists Graham Oliver and Quinn, bassist Steve Dawson and former Glitter Band drummer Pete Gill. The band was originally called Son of a Bitch, but changed to Saxon in 1978. In April 2007, Byford released his autobiography, entitled Never Surrender after the Saxon song of the same name. Gigwise.com reported on 18 January 2010 that Byford was launching a campaign to have Britons declare heavy metal as their religion in the United Kingdom Census 2011, inspired by the Jedi census phenomenon (where 2001 Census results suggested that Jediism was the UK's fourth most popular religion). Byford released his first solo album, titled School of Hard Knocks – featuring guest appearances by Phil Campbell, Alex Holzwarth, Nick Barker, Dave Kemp and Nibbs Carter – in February 2020. On 23 July 2021, Byford released the album Red Brick City under the band name Heavy Water. The album features Byford on bass and vocals, his son Seb on guitar and vocals, Tom Witts on drums, and Dave Kemp on keyboards and saxophone. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Biff+Byford">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.