http://www.guitarist.co.uk/interviews/inter_page.asp?ID=490&PageNo=1

Def Leppard

The monsters of British rock are back in winning form. Roger Newell finds
out how they do it from bassist Rick Savage.

The launch of a new Def Leppard album is always an event, but when it
re-unites the band with "sixth Leppard" producer and co-writer Mutt Lange,
resposible for some of their greatest recorded moments, the prospect
suddenly become even more exciting.

Having spent much of the day at the TV studios running through their
performance for TFI Friday with transmission scheduled for the same
evening, Bassist caught up with Rick for a well deserved break to find out
how things were going with Def Leppard these days.

"We're playing better now than we've ever played in our lives," Rick
delights in stating, "I don't know whether it comes with experience but
we've honed the craft down to a fine art now. The biggest thing for us was
always playing and singing at the same time 'cos when you're in the studio
you do it seperately, but all the practicing and rehearsals we've done
have paid off and it's becoming second nature now. It should be after all
these years."

Def Leppard has always been synominous with good vocal harmony over a
heavy rock backing. "Right from the start our blueprint was having loud
rock guitars but not fogetting the melodic side," Rick confirms. "We end
up making a big production but that's the way we like to hear records. I
grew up listening to early Queen albums and hearing them made me want to
be in a band. Not only was it the metal guitars but the melody and harmony
on top. When we do, say a 3-part backing harmony, myself, Phil and Vivian
will probably sing 16 tracks each of each part.

So 48 tracks used there and if we want another two harmonies, I'll
probably take the low one and Vivian the high one, so you do end up with a
lot of tracks. Multi-tracking is the only way to get that and it's become
a very distinctive part of the Leppard sound. We actually talked to the
guys from Queen about this and they said 'We only do 4 or 8 tracks' but
that's understandable as it was a different era. Anybody can go in a
studio and bang a load of tracks down, the art is in keeping the character
between every take, otherwise it becomes like a blanket and very bland.
Every single track you sing has got to have the same intention and feeling
to it."

So how does the band get that over when playing live? "We take the three
main components of the harmony and stick them behind Joe. The sound guy
will heavily compress it and add effects to widen the whole thing.
Admittedly it doesn't sound like 120 voices but it's a fair representation
when put in context with the live performance. We record every show on DAT
to check. Live and recorded performancies are two very different things."

The title Euphoria fits neatly alongside two of their earlier albums,
Pyromania and Hysteria so we asked Rick if there was any connection
between the three?

"It's quite convenient really," he smiles. "The only connection initially
was deciding how we wanted the new record to sound. We wanted to get the
type of sounds we were making back in the '80s. Essentially a cross
between Pyromania and Hysteria, so if the title Euphoria conjures up that
image then at least people know what to expect. It was a conscious effort
to try and make it sound like an '80s record, because that's how we like
to hear records played. Good as many '90s records are, many seem low keyed
and lacking in charisma from an entertainment point of view, so we felt
that if we didn't bring out a record like we used to make some other band
would, and we'd be left behind. In fairness nobody knows how to do it as
well as we do with producers like Pete Woodruff and Mutt Lange.

"Mutt is amazing. If he was away for just a day you'd miss him, he's of
that caliber, an absolute genius but so likeable at the same time. He gets
the very best out of you at all times. When we started co-producing
records with Pete we tried to utilise everything we'd learnt with Mutt in
the past.

"In fairness he was a very big part in creating our sound in the first
place, we still kinda call him the sixth Leppard, and he's come back into
the fold a bit and co-written three songs with us on Euphoria."

The danger with using a producer like Mutt is the distinctive trademark
sound that is apparent on everything he records, be it Brian Adams or wife
Shania Twain. There are elements on their albums that are distinctly
reminiscent of Def Leppard so does Rick see this as a problem?

"You shouldn't necessarily critise Mutt for that." he says thoughtfully.
"Any producer wants to hear songs a certain way and isn't going to ignore
his instincts just because he's working with a different artist. If I was
asked to produce a band within the rock genre, I would make them sound
like Def Leppard..."

With rather more root pulsing from Rick's bass on Euphoria than we're used
to, is this a conscious effort to change his role within Leppard? "Well
maybe unconciously but the only time we really think about that is in
interviews! In fairness I've always seen the role of the bass in Leppard
as emphasising the guitars, if it does that then I've done my job. We've
never wanted the bass playing or the sound to over-shadow the guitars,
it's always about melody and the guitars carry that along with the vocals.
I'm quite happy to do that.

I started out as a guitarist 20 years ago but we couldn't find a bass
player, so I offered to play bass until we found one. We never did, thank
God, otherwise I'd be fucked at this stage!" he laughs.