Date sent: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 08:51:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Hanspeter Niederstrasser Subject: getsigned.2001-07-03.txt Getsigned.com Presents A conversation with Def Leppard's Joe Elliott ©2001 Getsigned.com. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. http://www.getsigned.com/redef1.html As detailed in what is perhaps the quintessential episode of VH1's 'Behind the Music', Def Leppard has had a career fraught with more drama than a soap opera, marked by extraordinary success and devastating tragedy. For every multi-platinum Hysteria or Pyromania, there's been shattering loss--as the decline (from alcoholism) and death of guitarist Steve Clarke, or the near-fatal car accident that cost drummer Rick Allen his arm. The fact that Def Leppard survived such catastrophic misfortune, not to mention survived at all in the grunge and alternative-dominated '90s, is worth noting---and dramatizing. VH1 has turned the band's triumph over adversity story into a made-for-TV movie, which will premiere on July 18 at 9 PM ET/PT. A cast of British newcomers will portray band members past and present in the film, aptly titled Hysteria. Calling from his home in Dublin, Ireland, vocalist Joe Elliott discussed the movie, Def Leppard's current activities, and his side project Cybernauts (a mostly Bowie cover band also featuring Leppard guitarist Phil Collen). He also shared some very strong opinions about his career and various aspects of the music business. G: Your life story-at least the part about Def Leppard-is about to be portrayed on TV. Have you seen a preview? J: No, nobody's seen it yet. It's not finished until the 16th of July. G: That's two days before it airs! How involved were you in the creative process? Did you have any say in the casting? J: Not at all. If we were to be involved to that extent it would have been our film. What they did was bought the rights to the story. I acted as script doctor for them. The deal was, "You can say what you like but we might not take any notice of you." They have a story line to deal with, and we were just concerned with the fact that they kept it as truthful as possible. I don't mind bending the truth because movies-Titanic, Pearl Harbor, whatever-aren't totally accurate. If anyone thinks this one is going to be different, they're fooling themselves. What we didn't want to happen were things like Phil being in the band for the 1981 High 'N Dry tour. I said, "You can't do that, you'll get ripped to shreds on every Web site on the planet." G: So they made changes that you suggested? J: Yeah. I don't know exactly what changes they made but I went over and over the script with them. They'd ask how it was done and I'd tell them how it was and they'd read me the bits back and I'd go "OK, that's pretty close." But until I see it I don't really know. I can't give my blessing until I've seen it. But they were very enthusiastic about getting it right. The kids that they got to do it, they're not look-alikes but they're actors, which is how it should be. The guy who plays me, Orlando Seale, was in Sleepy Hollow. G: Are they singing or using your music? J: They're lip-synching to the records, as far as I know. G: You're working on music for a new album now? J: Everyone's doing their own thing right now. We're kind of getting ready to start an album, we're still writing. G: You haven't collaborated yet? J: Only me and Phil, back in April. We got three songs I think and we've got things pending, we're getting together again next month to work on things. G: You were quoted recently as saying that the next record would be a mix of Euphoria and Slang. J: Again, everything gets taken out of context. I think I said that six months ago. I was asked what direction it would go in and I said, "I have no idea. It could be a bit like Euphoria, it could be a bit like Slang, it could be a bit like both." I don't know. Every album we've ever made, there was never a direction till halfway through. So until we start, who knows? G: I've heard that Mutt Lange would be involved in some way, along with Pete Woodroffe and Marti Fredericksen. J: That's correct. Marti has been involved already, Pete's definitely involved and Mutt has one of my songs at the moment. He won't be producing it because he's working with Shania [Twain, his wife]. But I sent him a demo of a song that he really liked and he's gonna work on it if he gets the time. We have plenty to be getting on with. G: Will you work at your studio, Joe's Garage? J: Everybody's got Pro Tools now so we can work anywhere now. You don't need studios anymore--we've proved that fact 10 years ago. You can't write a whole album like that, it would be pretty incoherent. But we can do bits and bobs. There's no reason why when comes to overdubs that we can't split into three different studios. I've got two studios at my place and we always use both anyway. G: Have you given any thought to lyrical themes and subject matter? J: Well, we won't be trying to be Bob Dylan or Mark Slaughter-we won't be "up all night" and we're not gonna be "blowing in the wind" either. We always try to go for the slightly more serious stupid lyric and the slightly less serious serious lyric. The songs have always focused on a lot of relationship things, which is what a lot of people understand. I don't see any point in changing the way we've done things in the past. Of course we like to spread our wings a little bit. For every "Dogs of War," which gets ignored, people focus in on the banality of "Let's Get Rocked." That's just one tenth of an album. Instead of listening to the opposite of that, "White Lightning." But nobody talks about that or "Gods of War." They talk about "Let's Get Rocked" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me," not "Die Hard the Hunter," but "Photograph." G: Does that frustrate you? J: No, it's just an observation. You can't educate people if they're not willing to be educated. So it gets to the point where you get tired of going over the fact and saying, "all you've heard are the singles. Why don't you listen to an album and maybe you'll see that there's some depth." G: Are you influenced by what fans want and expect from you? On one hand there's the sound you created and on the other you have your own desire to grow and evolve. Is there a tug of war? J: There's always a tug of war. There's a tug of war with yourself, never mind your fans. But it's a common ground when you get in the studio and someone writes a great song. No matter what direction it's going in, if it's a great song we will use it, simple as that. If the five of us think it feels right, that's what's important. You can't stick to limits of what fans expect of you otherwise you end up like AC/DC. As great as they are, everything they do sounds exactly the same as the thing before. I'm not knocking that, it works for them, but we like to be a little more varied than that. G: Do you think you'll get the album out early next year? J: I don't know. I stopped putting time constraints on our albums long ago because we've never really delivered one on time. We'll deliver one when it's good, and that's much more important. G: Are you able to put the success of the past out of your mind when you're working on a new album? Or does it loom over you, creating pressure? J: It never has loomed, to be quite honest. The only time we felt a bit of pressure was when we were doing Hysteria, because Pyromania was the first one. But when we were doing Adrenalize we were following an album that was bigger than Pyromania and musically there was no pressure on us. The only pressure was what was going on with Steve [Clarke] at the time. G: Do you think this album will have an "ia" title? J: That's something people focus way too much on. It doesn't really matter. The fact that the word ended in "ia" was not designed, it was just that we thought Euphoria was a great word and a great title for the album. It fit the music. G: How did you and Phil get involved in the Cybernauts project? J: We've actually been involved in it for a long time, though it's only come to fruition now. It started back in '94 so it's going back seven years. Maggie Ronson, Mick Ronson's sister had asked us to get involved in the Mick Ronson memorial tribute show. We knew Trevor [Bolder] from Uriah Heep, that tour they did with us on Pyromania, they opened up for us. I've been friends with Trevor for over 15 years. He was one of the original Spiders from Mars and he and Woody [Woodmansey] were doing it. So it made sense to get involved. It was wonderful. We played for 35 minutes amongst about four hours of other musicians, including Steve Harley from Cockney Rebel, Bill Wyman, Andy Taylor, Roger Taylor, Roger Daltrey, Ian Hunter-a huge collection of people that touched or had been touched by Ronson. Three years later, when the Mick Ronson memorial stage was being built in his hometown of Hull, Maggie asked us if we'd christen the stage. Rather than just play those two shows we decided we'd do three other shows as well. Five was comfortable. We recorded the Dublin show; I brought my gear down. It sat on the shelf for three years. I only brought it out last summer when we were on a break and I had a listen to it. I'd remembered it as being good but I didn't remember that it was as good as it is. It was too good to never see the light of day, but being realistic I didn't think it merited a massive major release. G: So you decided to sell it over the Web. J: Yeah. Hey, this is here if you're interested-we're not ramming it down your throat. If you're a Leppard fan you might want to check out where me and Phil came from, and if you're an old Bowie fan you might want to hear what Trevor and Woody sound like working with the two of us. G: Is it selling well? J: We did really well the first day but I haven't heard since. It's all word of mouth at the moment. We're keeping it fairly low profile, but we're letting people know the Web site address because that's the only way they can buy it. www.cybernautsruleok.com G: Will there be any more Cybernauts performances? J: It's the type of project that's timeless. We could do a Cybernauts tour in two year's time. The songs are already old. It could only happen if all of us weren't doing anything and were available. To get the five of us on the same page at once there would have to be quite a coincidence. It happened this January when we got to do the four shows in Japan. The album came out on Universal there because they went nuts for it. They have the exclusive release and for the rest of the world we're doing it ourselves. Like I said, I think it would be unfair to have it next to Celine Dion's Greatest Hits. It's more something you'd give to a friend as a gift. It was too good to not put out, but we're not making a big deal of it. It's got a very limited appeal so we're keeping it limited ourselves, rather than push this thing in a big way and have it become a major failure. Everyone who wants it can get it but there won't be loads of them in a warehouse waiting to be melted down. It doesn't make a difference to me whether 2,000 or 20,000 buy it. I believe in it totally, it's great value for the money-you get over two hours of music, a live album and a studio album. There are great songs on it: "Life on Mars," "Jean Genie," "Ziggy Stardust." And the studio session, we do "Manic Depression" by Hendrix, three Bowie songs that aren't on the live album, a great version of "All the Young Dudes," which we know as a hit for Mott the Hoople but Bowie wrote the song. G: Does this experience feed your desire to do any other side projects? J: I don't want to be going out there as some kind of plug in karaoke machine. We were such big fans of Ronson. We knew Mick. I'd worked with him on the Heaven & Hell album. He died before it was finished and I finished it for him because I knew what he wanted. Then we were involved in the tribute show and just kept going. It was done with all the right intentions. So when people talk about great guitar players, they know that there's more than Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Mick Ronson is as good as any of these guys, but somehow he got stepped over. He deserves a good listen. Phil plays so differently from his normal style [on this]. It's mindblowing. And what a trip to play with Woody and Trevor, who played on the originals. G: Is it a kick for you to play with other musicians outside your own band? J: It's different. You don't think about that while you're doing it, you only think about it when people ask you about it afterward. Yes, it's not Rick [Allen] or Sav [Rick Savage] or Vivian [Campbell] but it's three other guys and you communicate. It's interaction with people, we were just doing something a bit different. But you're only thinking about what you're doing now. We had such a good time doing it. We didn't have to write the songs. We grew up listening to them so they were in our DNA. When we got up to play them we didn't need the lyrics, we just stepped into the shoes of Ronson and Bowie to the best of our ability and went for it. Everybody had a big smile on his face. G: What do you think of popular music today and where do you think it's headed? J: I don't know. I never knew the answers in the '80s and I don't know the answers now. I don't mean to sound negative but the music business has a life of its own. The strangest of bands sell loads of records and the ones that you think will sell loads of records don't. Which is why I knew I'd never make a good A&R man. I do like the new Train album, I think it's fantastic. But a lot of [today's music] goes right by me. G: What's your take on the girl band/boy band phenomenon? J: It doesn't mean anything to me. It's just musical moneymaking, manufactured pap. It's no different from somebody buying an orchard and selling the apples. It's product, that's all it is. They pick these people because they have a six pack. They bleach their hair blond, they teach them a few dance steps and then they mime their way through a five-year career. G: Does it bother you when these acts sell millions? J: it doesn't bother me; people have been saying that rock 'n' roll is a poor man's jazz for years. There are loads of bands out there that can't play their instruments and sell millions and I love them. But they at least try to play instruments. I grew up on a very healthy diet of bad musicianship: the New York Dolls, The Sex Pistols, Pink Fairies, The Clash. These guys couldn't play. They had soul, and I don't mean soul as in Motown. I mean soul. They went for it and tried to say something at least. The Clash had "White Riot" about the racial problems in London. I don't see that coming out of Boyzone's mouths or The Spice Girls. It's just more pap and it was a lot better when it was done by The Temptations or The Four Tops or The Supremes. G: Given the current climate, what does that say to you about the future of rock and what you're doing? J: It just makes it difficult for a band to get anywhere. Unless you have the kind of momentum like Fred Durst's got or Kid Rock, you're really elying on your reputation to get anywhere. Unless you've got slam dunk hit singles you really don't have much of a chance. And to have hit singles now you've got to write songs in a certain way to fit the format, unless you can slip through onto the playlist. It's extremely limiting but until they stop doing surveys that say, "Only this kind of music sells advertising" I didn't realize we were making records to sell advertising space. I thought we were making records for people to listen to. In the '70s and '80s to some extent you could do 20 minute epics or three minute rock songs but it all got played. Nowadays it doesn't fit. What it will do, it will end up spawning a bunch of independent stations and more on the Web sites, people will do alternatives to radio. In Dublin, these kids have a transmitter from their attic and they play B-sides from the Kinks and Rush album tracks and Travis. They're making a statement that there's more to life than the manufactured pap that's masquerading as music right now. G: Nowadays a lot of bands are doing what you're doing with Cybernauts, marketing over the Web, bypassing the record companies. J: Smart move. But you have to have a certain amount of momentum and good will. I think for someone starting out at the very beginning it's going to be hard to get something going because no one's gonna know who they are. With us, there's always that modicum of interest. This is a Def Leppard side project, for the first time ever, with two guys from David Bowie's group. But if Joe Smith from Texas who's 17 years old and puts out a record he recorded in his attic, it could be the next Van Halen--but without a label to push it. G: So you still need the labels? J: They're selling as much. Despite all the manufactured stuff, there's still Dave Matthews and Santana and Alanis Morissette. But there's always been rubbish. All we've got now is this year's Bananarama. It doesn't bother me or frighten me. I'm not limited or intimidated by it. I'm just making an observation. Some of these bands can sing. 'N Sync are very good. But some of it is absolute garbage. We all know the Spice Girls couldn't sing for shit. But I take my hat off to them that they actually manufactured that whole thing themselves. Every band is manufactured, even the Who, but they did it themselves. We came together because we were a bunch of guys who went to the same school or the school next door. We came together because we had an interest and worked at it. So did U2. The Ramones couldn't play in the grand scheme of things; they weren't musicians' musicians, but what a band! They were anti-establishment but they were cool, they did their own thing. Oasis is about the last band I can think of that came along kicked the industry in the face. They were on the front page of the newspaper every day for 18 months. They had all the bad attitude that kids love. Music to piss their parents off. So the kids go out and buy it. Music needs that every now and then. As good as Train and Matchbox 20 are, they're not the kind of artists that you end up talking about like we did with Axl [Rose] and Slash, that dysfunctional soap opera that Guns N' Roses are. But there was substance behind it. They had it all, the attitude and the songs. We never had the attitude that Guns N' Roses had, we were never the bad boys of rock 'n' roll but we had the substance in the songs. G: Which of your songs do you think will still be played in 30 years? J: I shouldn't dare presume to think, but right now "Sugar" seems to be lasting in many different forms- covers, movies--it was in Coyote Ugly and is another film coming out soon. G: I know you have several in the 'Rock Star' movie. J: Yeah. You go to any strip bar, someone's taking their clothes off to "Sugar." Used to be, anyway--I haven't been in one in a while. I'm sure things like "Love Bites" and "Sugar" and "Photograph" will be played at least on the classic rock stations the way "Free Ride" and "Stairway to Heaven" and "Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo" and "Sweet Home Alabama" are. I'd rather see our songs in the same category with "Whiter Shade of Pale" and "Something" and "I am the Walrus" and "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Satisfaction." It's nice to be in any category but we'd prefer in the premier one. Whether we ever achieve that could be irrelevant but if you don't go for number one, there's no point in being in it. If you don't plan on at least trying to win, why enter the race? What's the point? As long as I can say, "I really did try to win," if I come in last fine, but I gave it my best. But I don't go in with the intention of coming in last. If in 30 years time they're still playing our records I'll be 71 years old, and I'll be chuffed as f*ck. John Lee Hooker didn't have his first number one album till he was 71 years old. And between him, Aerosmith and the Stones, if that doesn't inspire you to keep going and maintain or re-achieve what you've achieved, that's the way to do it, you know? G: What are the most important things a young artist should know about the music business? J: There's really no cut and dried rule of thumb. The best advice I always give people is don't listen to advice. Follow your own heart. G: Did you get bad advice? J: Not particularly. We were a bunch of stubborn little bastards and we knew exactly what we wanted. We told our management what we wanted. We knew. We were pushy and arrogant and wrong most of the time, but it worked. You have to believe in what you're doing. Don't listen to what anybody tells you. But if you are going to listen to somebody, listen to somebody who's been there and done it--someone who's had success lost it, and achieved it again, who's seen every side. You can't learn anything from somebody who's stayed successful who's never failed. You can't really learn from someone who's failed all the time and never had success. The perfect person to talk to is Steven Tyler, who had success and had an addiction, who lost his success and his addiction and re-achieved his success. There's no better person to ask what to do to avoid the pitfalls. To achieve success you have to go down a few wrong avenues to get all the right things in your head and know where to go. G: You've certainly had your share of ups and downs as well. J: Oh, we've seen everything. But we're babies in comparison to Aerosmith. But bring it on, that's what I always say. When anyone says, "The pressure must be terrible," I say, "What pressure?" You can't tell me anything I haven't seen already. You can't show me a problem we haven't already overcome. We lost one member to alcohol, one was fired, one of them died, and we have a one-armed drummer. Show me something else that will piss me off! We've had albums we re-recorded because we weren't happy with them. We've wasted millions of hours on albums. We've put a lot of hard work in everything that we've done. G: With all you've been through and knowing what you know now, is there anything you'd have done differently? J: That's very difficult to say. There are probably a few things I'd have done differently. I am who I am now because the humble side is humble because I realized the arrogant side of me needed taming down. The side of me that can go on stage and can be an arrogant bastard, I have the ability now to do it in such a way that everybody knows that I'm not really like that-that's the stage persona. It's acting, playing the part. I don't live offstage the way I live onstage. We are blessed by being in an industry that I can swear whenever I want, wear whatever I want, sleep where and as long as I want, depending on the schedule. I don't have to get up in the morning and clock in and answer to an asshole boss, and I'm forever grateful for that. I don't take it for granted. And that's why I work as hard as I do because I don't want to go back to that. Yeah, there are a few things I wish I'd never done. I wish the whole El Paso incident never happened. But I learned so much from it happening that in a way I'm glad it did happen. This was way back in '83 when I made a bit of a racial slur. It was not intended toward a nation of people but toward a few pricks down front who were throwing shit at us. And being 22 years old and completely inexperienced, I didn't know the barriers between the Mexicans and Americans were as diverse and wide as they are, as well as the problems that there are, so it was a stupid thing I did. So to stand up on stage in El Monte, California and say I'm sorry and explain what I did, I went from a boy to a man overnight. In many respects it was a great learning curve for me. But other than that, for all the times I've f*cked up on stage, we've done 2,000 or so gigs and I've probably done it wrong a dozen times--that's a pretty good average. Every time you have a bad gig or you do something wrong, you click out of it and become better for it. You have to go down to come up. I totally believe that. In a nutshell, I really wouldn't change much. How can you find fault in 50 million albums, unless you say. "You could have sold 51." G: You can see the glass as half full or half empty. J: My glass is totally full. G: What's your opinion of Napster? J: If I walked onto a farmer's land and stole one of his cabbages he'd probably shoot me and he'd be in the right to do it. Why should I let people have my music for free? I shouldn't be allowed to walk onto anyone's farm and take their property without their knowing about it and that's what I think Napster is. If you want to give your music away as a budding artist, fine. But I totally believe that what Lars is doing is right. I don't think that people should be able to get what we spend years trying to achieve for free. It's just wrong. I can't walk into McDonald's and get a free hamburger. Why should I get one for free? It's theft. G: There will be a Napster subscription service soon. J: That's fine. Just like radio. I get paid when our songs get played on the radio. Napster's great when they start paying the artists. Up until then it's theft, and they should be shut down. G: How much of a factor are luck and timing in success, being in the right place at the right time? J: It's probably the biggest ingredient of the lot. You and I know some wonderfully talented artists who can't sell records. King's X never sold records. Bad record deal, bad timing-who knows what it was? There are a lot worse bands that sold a lot more records. It's all down to fate. I wouldn't be in this band now if I hadn't missed a bus once. I came out of work when I used to work at a factory and tried to catch a bus but missed it by two minutes. So as I was walking home I ran into Pete Willis, and we started the band. If I'd caught the bus I'd never have seen him and it wouldn't have happened. It's all good fortune and good timing. We've never been shy to say, in the early days, MTV were a major, major part of our success. And in the later days, MTV were a major part of why we didn't have any. They played our videos, we sold records. They stopped playing our videos, we stopped selling records. That's the way it goes. I still have a career. We still sell records--not as many--we still sell tickets. And I've moved from MTV to VH1. They've done the Storytellers, the film, Behind the Music, they play the videos. And that sells copies every week. There are a lot of people out there that like this band. G: How important is image in building and establishing a career? J: It's very important. Again, the word image, people take it literally and think Marilyn Manson. Of course it's an image, but so is having no image. You have to attract attention in whatever way you feel comfortable. Marilyn Manson went for it in a big way and it works great. I totally understand and If I were 16 years old I'd think he was the greatest thing. But I saw Alice Cooper in '71, the original Marilyn Manson. Then I see him looking like Bowie. Who is he going to look like next year? David Johanssen? Iggy Pop? The 16 year-old kid doesn't know who Iggy Pop is. But that kid doesn't need to have that reference, and there's no reason Marilyn Manson needs to put up with someone like me saying those things about him because he's not targeting us as a market. From my point of view, I've seen it all before but I've not necessarily heard it all before. I think what Marilyn does is great. His image fits the music. Image is important. Whether you decide to wear pink suits and look like the Four Tops or dress up like women like Hanoi Rocks or the New York Dolls did, or Guns N' Roses with headbands, of course it's important because it gives a visual addition to what you're making musically. For certain people it's a lot easier to do. Guns N' Roses made an instant connection with the visuals that they had. "Sweet Child 'O Mine," how they looked [in the video], got them an audience right then. But the problem is, it falls away very quickly. It becomes Spinal Tap all too soon. You can get trapped by it and you're stuck with it forever, and all of a sudden that's all you are. Alice Cooper always has to wear the spider makeup. Even as much as KISS must love the paycheck at the end of the day, I don't believe that Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] can actually look me in the eye and tell me they're enjoying putting that makeup back on. I was happy that we had a pair of ripped jeans and a T-shirt--that was our image. It was designer ripped jeans, but it wasn't Calvin Klein and it wasn't makeup! Our image came out of our pores, it was sweaty. And I'm really glad it was the kind of thing we had. We wanted it to be secondary to what we did musically. The records were so much more important. Everything else is part of the pie--the icing and the candles. The important part is what's underneath. The substance is the music. [The End] Gerri Miller has been a music journalist for 20 years, most recently as the executive editor of Metal Edge magazine, a post she held from its inception in 1985 until the end of 1998. Concurrently and since, she has edited and written six special-issue magazines on KISS and one focusing on the 1998 OzzFest. Born and raised in New York, she now lives in Los Angeles, where she contributes daily news reports and video interviews to the Metal Edge Web site, features to KNAC.com and Japan¹s In Rock magazine, writes bios and liner notes for bands, and is collaborating on two book projects. She has contributed to Getsigned.com since 1999. ©2001 Getsigned.com. All Rights Reserved.