For Saxon, 1980 was the most important year of the band’s career. That February, they dropped the album »Wheels of Steel« and took the torch from a freshly born phalanx of bands serving up, for the time, a combination of insanely fast and loud phrasing backed by enviable technical polish. The garrison of these new bands, who stormed into the spotlight of the world’s rock’n’roll ring at the turn of the seventies into the eighties, soon picked up the nickname »New Wave Of British Heavy Metal«.
Through the late autumn of 1979, Saxon pulled off an incredibly successful joint tour with Motörhead, and at the same time got a serious helping of attention from radio. The release of the single »Wheels of Steel« changed the whole situation for good, lodging itself at number 20 on the British charts. That placing earned Saxon a shot at the famous TV show Top of the Pops (a band had to get a single into the top 30 to land a slot). So through TV sets, even more Brits got to know Saxon. A new tour followed. First a European one, with Saxon opening for Scottish rock legends Nazareth. Every show was completely sold out. Nazareth treated Saxon more than decently. In the end, Nazareth -true to the style of Scottish big spenders- even gave them a bottle of champagne.
Popularity exploded overnight and, in the words of singer Peter Rodney »Biff« Byford, became overwhelming at times. Biff says: »My girlfriend went nuts and we had to move. People were jumping the fence and climbing up the drainpipe all the way to my balcony. One day about 40 people gathered on the garden lawn singing »Wheels of Steel«.«
Then the second single from »Wheels of Steel« came out. That was »747 (Strangers In The Night)«, which climbed to number 13 and beat the previous single’s chart position, while the album “Wheels of Steel” crawled up to number 5 and sold 250,000 copies. That’s the official number. Biff says the real figure is even higher and that the album sold just under 300,000 copies.
In 1980, after a few May shows where Tygers of Pan Tang warmed up the crowd for them, Saxon played two more massively important festivals. First, at the end of July in Stafford, where they opened the bill for Motörhead alongside Girlschool, Angel Witch and Vardis. That was followed by a slot at the Monsters of Rock festival (Donnington), where they sold several thousand copies of the new album in a single day.
So Saxon went back to Rampant studio, where they recorded the new album between May and August. Their partner behind the producer’s desk this time was Pete Hinton again. They walked into the studio with even more swagger, the very picture of the invincibility of their newly built heavy metal fortress. Biff recalled: »Back then every louder band was called metal, even if they weren’t playing metal. Plenty of bands didn’t like the label. What matters most is the music, of course. We latched onto the label quickly. That’s how »Heavy Metal Thunder« became the first song written for the new album. It was a reaction to everything unfolding at breakneck speed and putting heavy metal on the global music map. In my head, »heavy metal, heavy metal,…« was ringing nonstop at the time, and that’s how we came up with this phenomenal riff, which couldn’t kick in more metal if it tried. It’s a reflection of that era and the sky-high confidence that was driving our band back then.«
The title track was inspired by an incident that happened to the band while driving through central London along Whitehall. The police pulled them over. On London Bridge. It shook them to the core. No surprise there. They were right near Parliament and the government buildings, then run by Margareth Tatcher. “Dallas 1PM” was inspired by the assassination of President J. F. Kennedy. Both songs came out as singles. The album »Strong Arm of the Law« was released in Europe and the UK with a different track order than in the US and Canada. Yet another classic case of the label testing the market.
In the span of just a few months between the releases of »Wheels of Steel« and »Strong Arm of the Law«, the band matured at lightning speed. It showed especially in the songwriting. The new material kept all the basic ingredients of its predecessor and even topped it in consistency. Even though picking among the »holy trinity« of classic Saxon albums: »Wheels of Steel«, »Strong Arm of the Law« and »Denim And Leather« is always a brutally tough job, Biff says: »Denim and Leather has two really strong singles and a few excellent songs, but »Strong Arm of The Law« delivers granite-solid songwriting from start to finish, so that’s the one I’d pick as my favorite album. It was made very quickly and with zero pressure.«
Although it’s not the fastest, the song »Dallas 1PM« deserves a special place on the album. It’s the album’s dark closer. Its lyrics deal with murder, a theme that rarely showed up in any music genre back then. It also boasts one of the most striking riffs of the whole classic Saxon era, at least on a par with the riff of the single “747 (Stranges in the Night)”. So it isn’t the album’s fastest track, but many of the band’s fans -precisely because of that piercing, unmistakable riff and the drama of tragedy embodied in the song’s very atmosphere-, love to crown it their personal favorite on »Strong Arm of the Law«. No wonder it was picked as one of the album’s two singles.
At this point Saxon were the ringleaders of the N.W.O.B.H.M. movement. They held that position in 1981 with yet another album from their cult era. That was »Denim And Leather«. They kept the scepter and the throne until early spring 1982, when Iron Maiden released their third studio album and introduced a new singer.
The shows kept getting bigger and bigger. Even the little eagle glued together from cardboard boxes was replaced by a proper metal construction packed with spotlights. The band, who knew all too well what it meant to »be your own roadie«, was soon joined by a crew of technicians who’d been left without work when Slade went on a longer break. In the fall the band toured the US and Canada, opening for Rush, AC/DC and Black Sabbath, then played around the UK until the new year. On British soil, Limelight opened the shows as support. In spring 1981, Saxon took Judas Priest along on their »British Steel« tour.
Biff always wanted the album »Strong Arm of the Law« to be called »Heavy Metal Thunder«, which would have captured the time it was forged in even better. The legendary singer is also convinced it would have sold even better under that name. The folks at Carrere thought differently. But the singer isn’t wrong. Even picking »To Hell and Back Again« as the album title feels more renegade, cheeky and ruthless. Add the first track on the B-side – »20.000 Feet« – to the two opening A-side songs mentioned above, and »Strong Arm of the Law« starts oozing a properly hellish attitude, crystallizing the image of the prototype speed metal album.
Listening to »Strong Arm of the Law« in 2020 is still a thrilling experience, because even 40 years after its release the album sounds incredibly inspired, fresh and evergreen. Saxon kept the winning formula of “Wheels of Steel” and carried it over to “Strong Arm of the Law” without sacrificing an ounce of their piercing, sneering (for the time) early-metal form. A form shaped by growing up on the blues and The Beatles, yet also inspired by the then-current moves of Judas Priest and AC/DC, except that in Saxon’s hands it wanted to squeeze even more devastating speed, bristling noise and thunderous flash out of the speakers. With »Strong Arm of the Law«, Saxon triumphantly confirmed on the N.W.O.B.H.M. front that 1980 was definitely theirs.
You can read RockLine’s piece on the 40th anniversary of Saxon’s “Wheels of Steel” HERE.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
