http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/Interviews05/philcolleninterview.htm

Classic Rock Revisited presents an exclusive interview with...

Def Leppard's Phil Collen

One day I received an email telling me about a new band in London called
Man-Raze.  I get emails like this all of the time and to be honest, finding time
to check out all the bands people tell me about is not an easy thing to do due
to time restraints.  Often the next interview, CD review or giveaway page must
be set up, leaving little time to actually surf the net in search of more
potential work.  Instead of just shooting this over to the deleted file, I
opened it up to read the words the gentleman took the time to write, with every
intention of then sending it to the deleted file.  Right away, however, my
curiosity was peaked.  The man mentioned his new band had two familiar members. 
One named Paul Cook and one named Phil Collen.  Could this guy really be telling
me the truth?  Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols?  Phil Collen of Def Leppard?  Well,
this surly made the entire thing worth a click on the web link included on the
email.  I went to the Man-Raze site and saw pictures of the band and a short
bio.  It was true.  The site was still under construction and it was obvious
that this band was brand new and the news was not even out in the media yet.

I told them I would be very interested in setting up an interview with Phil.  I
could not have picked anyone with a busier schedule.  Weeks went by and then a
month or so and I corresponded with the bass player of Man-Raze, former Girl
bass player Simon Laffy.  Emails bounced between his PC in London to Phil's in
Los Angeles to mine in Kansas but we can't find a time that would work. 
Eventually, I told Simon to have Phil contact me directly.  A few days went by
and I got an email.  Without the middleman involved we moved much quicker
getting a date established.  Within a week the time and date was set and the
interview was done.  Phil called on his cell phone as he was picking his dog up
from the veterinarian and within a minute we lost the connection.  After this
happened a few times, it was decided to wait a half an hour for him to get home
and do the interview on a land line.  In the meantime, my wife informed me that
we had a dinner date so I called Phil and we postponed until till later in the
day.  Perhaps now you are seeing why I don't have time to check out all of the
web links for new bands that are sent to me.  I went and had a lovely dinner. 
Phil got his dog home and a couple of hours later we conducted this grand
interview you are about to read below.

In the meantime, news of Man-Raze slowly began to leak into the public eye. 
Rolling Stone even gave the band a small write up and Blabbermouth.net even
mentioned a few quotes of Phil's on their popular news site.  However, this is
the first in-depth interview I have seen on the band.  The delays actually came
in handy as in the meantime Def Leppard's new two-disc career retrospective Rock
of Ages made its way to my doorstep so Phil and I were able to discuss what is
going on with Def Leppard as well.

Read on to discover who Man Ray was, who Man-Raze is, as well as hear news on
the upcoming Def Leppard covers album.  The new Rock of Ages gives us a sneak
peak as it includes a great cover of a Badfinger song titled "No Matter What You
Do."  Phil also talks about what really went on under the round on the Hysteria
tour and how being from London is much different than being from Sheffield.

We also had a serious discussion on the loss of Def Leppard's guitarist and
songwriter Steve Clark and how Collen almost left the band after Steve's death. 
Phil's honesty and emotion on the subject were evident even a decade and a half
down the road from the tragic day Steve Clark died.  We go back to the day that
Phil was first asked to replace guitar player Pete Willis, who was sacked for
his alcoholism.  We discuss how Phil's first two Def Leppard albums, Pyromania
and Hysteria have each sold over ten million copies.  In the end, Def Leppard
has survived several interpersonal band tragedies and somehow, Phil remains
positive proving Def Leppard will remain back in our face for as long as they
want.

Jeb Wright, May 2005

----------------------------

Jeb: I want to focus on your new band at the very beginning of this interview. 
I get a ton of emails from a ton of bands I have never heard of asking us for
coverage.  I got a message about a band called Man-Raze.  I had never heard of
this band and I didn't even know they existed.  At first I started to delete it.
 But for some reason I clicked on the link and I saw your name.  I checked out
the MP3s and I loved them.  I usually know what is going on in the classic rock
scene but I didn't even know this was happening.  You must have kept this pretty
secret.

Phil:  We kind of did.  We just got together and we just started recording.  It
was great - especially the rehearsing part.  It just worked.  Now we are ready. 
We have 12 songs that are in different stages of mixing.

Jeb: You live in the USA now but you recorded these songs in London.

Phil:  I am from London originally.  I was over there last year for several
months before my dad passed away.  I went over there to hang out with him for a
couple of months before he went.  We had a great time, by the way.  I was
hanging with my dad and I ran into Simon, who I was in a band with 25 years ago
called Girl.  We always liked the same kind of stuff.  We both liked The Police
a lot.  We liked everything from Stanley Clark to the Sex Pistols.  I always
loved Paul Cook's drums.  When we were doing records with Mutt Lange, we would
always reference him.  We would say the drums have to sound like Paul Cook.  We
wanted exciting drums.  I had these songs that were ideas for this kind of stuff
and I got together with Simon and we started writing.  We didn't write like this
when we were in Girl.  We were like, ‘Wow this is so different."  We are now two
experienced grown men writing together.  We had Reggae stuff and then we had
punky stuff and then we had stuff that sounded like Nirvana.  We rehearsed and
we started to sound like Jimi Hendrix because we would just go off on tangents. 
I thought it would be great if we could get Paul Cook to play on the drums for
us.  I was just coming back from the hospital where my dad was at and I ran into
Paul in the street.

Back in the 70's in London, you would run into people who were in bands all the
time.  You would run into Billy Idol, the guys from the Pistols or guys from
rock bands like Iron Maiden.  There were a ton of people around.  We said hello
and went about our business.  I finally got on the phone with him and said,
"Fuck it would be great if we could play."  He came down to rehearsal and it was
really cool.  It took us about a year going back and forth.  We have been doing
other things as well but it as just been so much fun.

Jeb: Where did the name of the band come from?

Phil: At first we were going to call it Fay Raze- you know the girl from the
King Kong movies.  Simon wasn't into it and he was right as it was a bit limp. 
We kept the raze and called it Man-Raze.  Man Ray was a photographer from New
York.  He died and was buried in France.  It fit us really well.  He was very
surrealist.  One of the great things about London is the great culture that is
there.  I never took advantage of it when I lived there.  I just started getting
into it the last few years.  I went to a gallery and the first thing I ran into
was a Man Ray exhibit.  He would have some really surreal stuff and then next to
it he would have a shoe.  It was really weird stuff.  It is debatable if that is
really art.

Jeb: There are three songs on your website that can be sampled.  You have "Skin
Crawl", "Low" and "Every Second of Every Day."  Each song is sonically different
from each other.  You have a sound but the sound is very expansive.  Most bands
have a sound theme for an entire album.  Def Leppard certainly does.  You guys
seem to be just playing from the heart and playing only for what the individual
song calls out for.  It leads to a certain kind of diversity in your music.

Phil:  That is one of the great things about what we are doing.  You can't
really do this in Def Leppard.  I have tried to in the past but it just doesn't
work.  In 1996, we put out an album called Slang.  I loved the album and I loved
the recording process on that album.  We played totally live on that record and
we used real drums the whole time.  We recorded it in a villa in Spain and we
just went for it.  If a song sounded R&B then that was great and if the next
song was grungy and dark then that was okay.  We had a blast doing it but no one
received it.  It may have been the wrong time or something.  With Man-Raze it is
more that kind of approach.  We have no limitations.  If you want to go off on a
Hendrix tangent then that is fine.  It is really cool and it was so much fun.

Jeb: Are you going to get a label or are you going to go to release it yourself?

Phil:  We actually have not decided.  We are going to put out an EP first.  I
got the first mix and I was like, "Fuck this is really cool."  We are going to
have three songs and we are going to have three remixes.  We have a dance remix
of one of the songs.  It is really trippy and wide open and out there.  We are
doing whatever the fuck we want and it is so much fun.

Jeb: Are you looking at any pressures of commercial success or does it matter to
you?

Phil:  It would be nice.  Some of the songs are really catchy and commercial
sounding.  It is just great to release this stuff and get it out there.  People
ask me what it is like singing and playing the guitar and I tell them it really
great.  There are not a lot of places anymore that you can decide in a split
second if you are going to sing the next verse or just jam out a little bit. 
You just can't do that with a really structured five piece or four piece.  With
a three piece you can just go nuts.

Jeb:  You stole my next question which was about you singing the lead vocals.  I
think a lot of Def Leppard fans want to check it out because you are singing the
lead vocals.

Phil:  You hear my voice in a lot of the background stuff and with the odd line
here and there so a lot of people are familiar with it but this is different.

Jeb: You had no fear about stepping up to the microphone.  I interviewed Joe
Perry who did all the vocals on his solo album and he was frightened about it.

Phil:  I was not fearful at all.  That is kind of strange for Joe.  You have to
be confident.  I have a friend who plays acoustic guitar and is a songwriter but
he told me that he had to work on his voice. I told him the main thing you have
to have is confidence.  Even if you have the shittiest voice in the world but
you have confidence then someone is going to like your approach and your
honesty.  My son is 15 and he plays bass and his buddy plays guitar.  They are
into Korn and that kind of stuff.  I introduced them to Cream.  I said, "Eric
Clapton is not a great vocalist and neither is Jack Bruce.  But together they
are.  It doesn't matter who is singing because when they do it together they are
getting their point across."  They were like, "This is really cool shit" and
they dug it a lot.  The fact is that is was quite honest from that point of
view.

Cream just played live again.  Joe Elliott went to see them last week.  He said
it was unbelievable.  He said he has never seen as many bald heads in one place.
 He said it was stunning.He said the thing that freaked everyone out was that
Ginger Baker, who had been disappeared forever, was the star of the show.

Jeb: I had the same experience with my daughter, who is 16.  She likes Simple
Plan and Blink 182 and these little punky bands.  So when Billy Idol came to
town I took her and she was blown away by it all.  I think that is important for
us as music loving parents to do with our kids.

Phil:  It is because it gets lost otherwise.  A lot of kids don't know where
this stuff comes from.  It is nice to see that they didn't worry about if they
were going to be accepted.  In fact, the cool thing was that they didn't give a
shit.  I think the last band that really said, "Fuck it.  This is what we are"
was Nirvana.

Jeb: Are you a Sex Pistols fan?

Phil:  I am a huge Sex Pistols fan - huge.

Jeb: When you are jamming and you look back to the drum kit and see Paul, what
is it like?

Phil: It is really great.  I loved the Pistols.  When the album came out I was
living in London and it really changed everything in music.  It was so raw.  Up
until that point all the bands were kind of just getting boring.  The music
scene was really dull and then they came along and had such venom and vibe. Even
bands like Def Leppard and other rock bands said they didn't want to hear
fifteen minute songs like Genesis and Led Zeppelin were doing.  We wanted to
hear a three minute song with vibe and integrity.  I love the guitar and drums
sounds they got.  I also think their subject matter is really cool.

Jeb: If I were in your shoes and Paul was behind the kit, at some point I would
have to grab my guitar start playing and run up to the microphone and go, "I am
the anti-Christ.  I am an anarchist."

Phil:  You know, I have thought about that but I have not been able to get
myself to do it.  I did this thing a few years ago that was a benefit for David
Bowie's guitar player Mick Ronson who had passed away.  Joe Elliott and myself,
along with Roger Taylor from Queen and Roger Daltrey from the Who and Ian Hunter
were all there singing Mick's songs.  It was really special.  I got to do "Baba
O'Reilly" and "Summertime Blues" with Daltrey.  I thought to myself, "I am not
going to do a windmill or jump around."  I actually do those moves occasionally
but there was absolutely no fucking way I was going to do that with Roger
onstage.  As for the Pistols, I have thought of that - yeah.

Jeb: It is good to hear you still think like a fan.

Phil: Absolutely but you do have to know when to tell yourself that you just
can't do that.

Jeb:  The first day you sat down and played with him - you are a pro who has
sold millions of records - but was that kid still in you going, "I'm playing
with a Sex Pistol!"

Phil:  The great thing was that I was in London and I didn't have all my shit
there.  I had my guitar and my little combo amp.  No one could hear it so I had
to really crank it up.  It was really exciting.  It is very different than what
I do with Def Leppard where I have my really big ass fucking expensive guitar
rig and in ear monitors.  I can hear everything perfectly.  With Man-Raze we
rehearsed in this gritty little room where people were stealing the rims off our
car outside.  It was so London.  Even though Def Leppard is British, they are
from Sheffield.  London is a different vibe.  I am not patriotic by a long shot
but I kind of tip my hat to the fact that I am from London and the other guys do
too.  The band sounds really fresh and cool.

Jeb: Explain to an American the difference between London and Sheffield.

Phil: The closest comparison would be people from New York - even if they hate
the place, they like the fact that they represent that place.  I think London is
nicer than New York because you have got open space.  I lived in New York for a
year and it drove me fucking nuts because everything is right on top of each
other.  In London you have wide open spaces and it is more spread out.  The Sex
Pistols could not have existed outside of London.  It was a very London based
band.  It is kind of a nod to that - I don't really know why but it kind of is.

Jeb:  How long had it been since you had jammed with your bass player in Girl?

Phil:  We hadn't played together in 25 years.  We stayed in touch.  He came over
to see my dad because we went back a long way together.  We were just sitting
there and then we started playing together and writing songs and it all just
started clicking.  Just before we left, we actually wrote some of the coolest
stuff yet.  We were over there recording drums in this awesome studio.  But we
had to stop writing to get this album done so I think there is a lot more cool
stuff to come as well.

Jeb: I wondered if you had a problem with him or I should say if he had one with
you.  Girl was actually in the States and was on its way to making it and you
jumped ship to Def Leppard and we never heard of them again.  I wondered if they
held resentments or if you got along.

Phil:  Simon's brother, Jerry, was the guitar player in the band.  Their mum was
left on her own so they came back to London and stayed with their mum.  I
thought that was really sweet that they did that.

Jeb: Just from the three tracks I heard, I have to say you playing is less
condensed and more fluid sounding than some of Def Lep's music.

Phil:  We try to do everything first take.  With Def Leppard, I can honestly say
that when we recorded Hysteria it actually took two weeks to do one guitar riff.
 Actually, when Mutt Lange got involved it only took a year.  A lot of people
think he is what took forever.  A lot of that time we were just sitting around
with our fingers up our asses.  Jim Steinman was the one who was involved at
first.

Jeb: I just got a copy of the new Def Leppard album that is coming out.  Rock of
Ages is a ‘best of' package and I know every song on it but one.  I want to
start out talking about the cover song included, Badfinger's "No Matter What You
Do."  Def Leppard was supposed to do a covers album.  What happened to that?

Phil: We did it.  It has not yet been released.  That was one of the tracks of
it.  The European version has "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks.

Jeb: I thought you scrapped the idea to do this album.  When is the plan to
release it?

Phil:  I think it will come out in September.

Jeb: Has Def Leppard, as a band, every released a cover song?

Phil: We have done some B-sides.  We did the Stones "You Can't Always Get What
You Want" and we did "Little Wing" acoustically.  They were just little extras.

Jeb: I forgot to ask you if you have played any Man-Raze for Def Leppard and
what the reaction of it was.

Phil:  Joe and Sav really dug it.  They thought it was really different enough
that they were into it.  I think they thought it was kind of neat.

Jeb: You have not released anything since the album with "Promises" on it.  Why
the long wait?

Phil: We had the X album out.

Jeb: Oh I am embarrassed to have forgotten that one.  Actually, Phil that was
the album that was not very well received.

Phil:  Right.

Jeb: That one had "Now" on it. That was a great song.  Why do you think that
album got the cold shoulder?

Phil: It could be a lot of things.  The easy thing is to say that it didn't
promoted enough.  Hopefully the people you are working with should get that
rolling and it just didn't happen for whatever reason.  Maybe they could not get
it on the radio or something.  For whatever reason, it didn't really cut it.

Jeb: Tell me who came up with the idea to do a covers album?

Phil:  Joe has always wanted to do an album like Bowie did with Pin Ups. 
Someone from the British record company said that we should do a covers album so
we just decided to start recording it.  We got it all together and it is pretty
much good to go.

Jeb: Did you each get to throw a few songs in to the mix?

Phil: That is what we did but it had to be something that really got us into
music.  We tried to avoid the big songs.  We are all big Queen fans but we were
not going to do "We Will Rock You."  We also said no Stones, Beatles or Zeppelin
songs.  We like T-Rex, David Bowie and Mott the Hoople a lot. There is a big
time Glam edge to Def Leppard.  I loved all those bands when they first came
out.  I was 14 and I knew this was our generation's music.  It was not your
older cousin's music or your mum and dad's music; it was the new shit.

Jeb: I know people ask this to you all the time.  I love DIO.  Vivian Campbell
is an awesome guitar player.  I love watching the two of you trade licks but I
have to admit that Viv has kind of quietly taken on his role in Def Leppard.

Phil:  Yeah, he is very tasteful.  In DIO he was really a major part of it but
no one ever knew about him because Ronnie James makes it all about him.  Viv
just did a blues album where he is singing.  He did it all live.  It was
something that he wanted to get off his chest.  It is really, really cool. 

Jeb: How did you get invited to join Def Leppard?

Phil:  I was in Girl but I knew the guys in Def Leppard a year before he asked
me to join.  The band was on the road with Ozzy and Joe phoned me up and said,
"Oh fuck, we are having problems with Pete.  It is just not working out."  His
drinking problem is well documented.  Joe says, "If this all goes upside down,
pear shaped and weird would you come out and help us out if he isn't able to
play."  I said I would do it.I told him I would just need to learn 16 songs and
jump on a plane.  The next day he called and said he thought they would be
alright.  Two years later he called back and told me that it had happened again
and he asked me to come down to the studio and play some guitar solos.  I went
down and the first song I played was "Stagefright" from Pyromania.  I passed the
Mutt audition with that one.  I did it in only one or two takes and it was
really unheard of for the guys to nail it that fast with Mutt.  I went on and
played all these great songs like "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages."  I got into
it because I was just playing lead guitar to all these really awesome backing
tracks.  Mutt would say, "Here are 16 bars, just go nuts."  I didn't actually
get asked to join the band.  I was just helping out.  Before we knew it, we were
out on tour.

Jeb: Most of the songs on Pyromania were recorded but were not finished.  Was
Pete on any of that album at all?

Phil:  A lot of rhythm guitar was Pete.

Jeb: I was a huge fan of High ‘N Dry.  I still love that album.  Over a year
went by and then you heard that Pete was kicked out of the band.  Then you heard
he was being replaced by some Glam rock guy from an all male band called Girl. 
Now, Def Leppard may have had Glam roots but the first two albums were pretty
much straight ahead hard rock.  They didn't look Glam and you did.  I remember
thinking that the new guy is slicker looking and that he is more accomplished of
a guitar player and I worried Def Lep might lose some of their edge.  Was that a
concern to you or did you know the new stuff was so good that it wouldn't
matter?

Phil: The first time I heard the songs I thought, "Fuck, this is some amazing
shit."  It had bits of Zeppelin but it was more commercial because it had real
choruses.  Steve Clark was just writing some killer riffs like I had never heard
before or since.  I have got to say that it was very unique.  He was very
Zeppelin-esque without ripping them off.  He was actually putting his own take
on Jimmy Page.

Jeb: At one point did you go, "This is it.  I am going to make it."

Phil:  Somebody just asked me that in Starbucks today.  I was the oldest member
of the band and I was only 25.  We went from being an opening act to a
headliner.  MTV had just exploded and it all just lined up.  It went beyond our
wildest expectations.

Jeb: You knew Steve Clark before you joined the band.  I understand that you two
were friends.  Just as Perry and Tyler were known as the Toxic Twins, you and
Clark were known as the Terror Twins.  How did you earn that nickname?

Phil:  We used to get into all sorts of trouble - there was usually drink
involved.  We were just being kids, really.  We were like kids with a new toy.

Jeb: When you are that young and you get money and fame, how do you ever grow
up?

Phil:  I think some people don't and that is when you have the problems come in.
 Steve is an example of that.  When he began having problems it was just awful
to be around that.  He would say, "I don't like this.  I need some help here." 
He just couldn't get out of the whole drinking problem.  The whole thing is
still not addressed much; it is still glorified in all aspects of society.  It
is actually frowned upon when someone can't handle that aspect of it.  It is a
bit of a weird one.  You have to be a drinker and you have to cool but when
people actually can't deal with it, they are really shunned and that is the
really sad part about it.  That is really what happened with Steve.  Fuck, it
was the most awful thing.  It was a weird one for all of us but obviously it was
a weird one for Steve.

Jeb: You were partying too.Why didn't you end up with the same problem?

Phil:  I think it was actually a chemical thing.  At one point, Steve went into
a coma and went to the hospital.  The doctor explained it was a chemical thing
with him.  He told us that you could have two twins and one can have this
reaction to alcohol and the other one won't have it.  Some people can stop and
some people really, really can't.  The more they get into it the less their
chances are of ever recovering.  There are all these great programs out there
but they don't always work for some people.

Jeb: You said the stigmatism is that an alcoholic is viewed as having a weakness
and not a disease.  You were young men when this was going on within Dep
Leppard.  Looking back, did you as a band have the maturity to handle Steve's
alcoholism correctly at the time?

Phil:  At the time, it was actually quite pathetic.  As a teenager and a young
man there is still that philosophy that if you can stay up all night, fuck all
these woman and hold your drink then it is all great.  The minute you can't do
that or you have a problem with it; people have a totally different reaction to
you.  It is almost like when you see a new born baby, everyone goes gaga over
it.  When that same person gets 17 and sweaty, stinky, hairy and funky, he is
still the same kid but now he is like uhhg.  It is how people view him now.  I
have not drank for 18 years.  I think it is really a bit of a problem that
people tend not to address these types of problems.  It tends to get swept
underneath but people really need a bit of help and guidance to understand the
whole problem.

Jeb: Seeing as you had already quit drinking a few years before his death, did
Steve seek you out for guidance and to confide in you?

Phil:  He actually did. We were recording Adrenalize in Amsterdam and we were
sitting downstairs - we had separate apartments in the red light district. 
There were tons of bars around there.  I actually loved it as it was quite a
vibrant place.  Steve phoned me up one morning at 8 o'clock in the morning and
he goes, "Can I come to your apartment?  I have got to show you something."  He
came in and he was really shaking and sweating.  I asked him if he was all right
and he goes, "Phil, I am like this everyday but you guys just don't see it.  My
drinking has now got to this stage."  It was scary because he hid it so well. 
Most regular people don't know that this stuff goes on unless it happens to
them.  Real alcoholics are great at hiding it.

Jeb:  I have heard that during the making of Adrenalize you actually thought of
leaving Def Leppard.

Phil:  After Steve died I knew it was not fun anymore.  I didn't enjoy that
period at all. The reasons we were a band in the first place was because we were
kind of a gang - we were tight and we would hang out and all that stuff. 
Everyone gets married and has kids and all that and it changes things a bit but
at the time I was not sure about it at all.  Joe came and talked with me and he
sat me down and told me, "We have written all these songs with Steve.  We
started this and I think we should see it out."  I decided to stick it out and
it became a very popular album.  It shot straight up to # 1 in the States and it
was all over the radio.  A lot of times you dedicate things to people but that
record we truly dedicated the whole album to Steve.

Jeb:  Had he begun the recording process?

Phil:  He had done his demos.  I had to play all the guitars on the record.  I
had to learn his stuff - that was really weird.  It was like he was a ghost in
the studio.  It is cool as well because here we were in the studio; he was on
the left and I was on the right side of the headphones.  Looking back, I am kind
of honored that I got to do that.

Jeb: How did you hear Steve had died?  

Phil:  My manager, Cliff Bernstein, gave me a phone call.  I wasn't surprised
because I thought I would get that call one day.  All he said was, "They found
Steve."  I was shocked but I wasn't surprised. 

Jeb: Def Leppard was no stranger to tragedy with Pete's alcoholism and then
Rick's tragic accident where he lost his arm.  This, however, was something that
could not simply be fixed or overcome.  Pete and Rick were alive and Steve was
not.

Phil:  The real difference with the whole thing associated with Steve is very
tragic.  The whole thing with Rick ended up such a positive thing.  Rick was a
guy overcoming a full blown, fuck your life up and commit suicide kind of
tragedy.  Instead of doing that, he came back and said, "What is this then? 
This is going to be like playing with one arm tied behind my back.  No arm?  No
problem."  It really turned into a great human story of a person overcoming a
really shitty situation.

Jeb: Now that your career spans 25 years you have the aspect of retrospect.  In
a short time your band overcame two of the biggest tragedies in hard rock
history that most bands never have to deal with it.  How did Def Leppard survive
without breaking up?

Phil:  Look at Lynyrd Skynyrd.  What happened to us is really a walk in the park
compared to them as they have been really unlucky.  They had a plane crash and
half the guys got killed and when the drummer -who was all banged up from the
crash - went to get help, someone took a shot at him!  Afterwards, Allen
Collins, who survived the plane crash, gets crippled in a car wreck and
eventually dies - that is a bad story.  The remaining members are still out
there touring.  Those guys are pretty tight with each other.  They grew up
together and that is very inspiring.  The Allman Brothers are amazing as well. 
Duane died and then Barry and then Greg had all the drinking problems but the
remaining ones are still out there and they sound great.

If you pack it up it does not mean you are weak.  What else are you going to do?
 The Allman Brothers were literally brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd were named after
their high school teacher so they grew up and went to school together.  So I
think that is the difference.  If a band is thrown together by a record company
and they don't really know anything about each other and they just play music
together then it is different than a bunch of guys who are already together and
decide to play music.  I think we just had a stronger bond.
 
Jeb:  Getting back to the new record, why is now the right time for a
definitive, two CD best of Def Leppard collection titled Rock of Ages?

Phil: We are reintroducing the band.  Bands that stay for the long run have
periods where their popularity goes up and down.  In the mid 90's we were hated
but then we came back around where people thought we were cool again.  The
record company wanted to reintroduce these great songs to the kids out there. 
There is a whole generation of people who may know Def Leppard exists but do not
know our songs.

Jeb: You are touring with Brian Adams.  That is an odd pairing.  Who is opening?

Phil:  We are going out with him.  We have played with him before.  We both did
albums with Mutt Lange.  We played a benefit show with him in Madison Square
Garden so we are looking forward to it.  I think it will be a lot of fun. We are
flipping nights and taking turns opening every night.  The tour was based on the
Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan tour.  They started out doing separate tours but
ended up on a package together where they went and played all these minor league
baseball stadiums together.  They got to share the cost of trucking all of the
shit around and in the end everyone was happy.

Jeb: I have heard there will be dates with Tesla as well.  They are a band who
were very influenced by Def Leppard.

Phil: When Brian is not around they are going to be doing the same thing.

Jeb: Last one: Who came up with the Under the Round idea?

Phil:  Peter Mensch, one of our co-managers, came up with the idea after he saw
Frank Sinatra in the round and he thought that was really cool.  Yes had done
something similar because their stage moved.  He said that it would be better to
put the stage in the middle and have us move.  I had like six microphones and we
were running around all night.  It was really a work out because half the time I
was running to another side of the stage.  Half the time you couldn't even hear
the guitar you were playing onstage but it really turned out to be cool.

Jeb: I wasn't asking about what went on onstage but rather the legend of under
the round - what went on below the stage.

Phil: You know what?  It is such a myth and I am sure you are going to go,
"Sure, sure it is just a myth. You guys were all having sex all the time."  It
really was just a bunch of photo shots.  There were girls under there - it
wasn't like that though.  As soon as Rick and Joe finished whatever they were
doing up there we had to get back up there and play.  It was just Sav, Steve and
me down there getting our photos taken with girls. I am sure there was a bit of
flashing going on but it wasn't a nudist camp.  I wish it had been.  All these
things come out afterwards and then nobody believes us.