Their debut album Heroes, Saints and Fools with its powerful brand of hard edged Pomp Rock became an instant classic on its release in 1981. The follow up Change of Heart with its more commercial approach failed to capture the spirit of their debut and the band split soon after its release. Coaxed out of retirement by Bruce Mee of Now and Then Record in 2003 Saracen have gone on to create another four impressive releases more in the spirit of their fabled debut album. Mick Burgess caught up with lead singer Steve Bettney and keyboardist Paul Bradder ahead of an ultra rare live show at the BroFest NWOBHM festival in Newcastle to talk about the making of the debut album and why the band reformed again after so long away.
Mick is a reviewer and photographer here at Metal Express Radio, based in the North-East of England. He first fell in love with music after hearing Jeff Wayne's spectacular The War of the Worlds in the cold winter of 1978. Then in the summer of '79 he discovered a copy of Kiss Alive II amongst his sister’s record collection, which literally blew him away! He then quickly found Van Halen I and Rainbow's Down To Earth, and he was well on the way to being rescued from Top 40 radio hell!
Over the ensuing years, he's enjoyed the Classic Rock music of Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple; the AOR of Journey and Foreigner; the Pomp of Styx and Kansas; the Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, and Symphony X; the Goth Metal of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica, and a whole host of other great bands that are too numerous to mention. When he's not listening to music, he watches Sunderland lose more football (soccer) matches than they win, and occasionally, if he has to, he goes to work as a property lawyer.
After a short break away, Brofest made a very welcome return to Newcastle on this rather chilly Leap Year weekend bringing an intriguing mix of NWOBHM veterans and the current crop influenced by those classic …READ MORE
It may have taken a while but Derbyshire Pomp Rockers Saracen finally made their first headlining appearance in Newcastle almost four decades after the release of their cult classic, Heroes Saints and Fools album. The …READ MORE
Summary Escape Music Release date: July 21, 2006 Sending User Review 0/10 (0 votes) Saracen is a band that has been around for a long time, originally forming in the late 1970s. However, they have …READ MORE
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