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Def Leppard: We made a record no-one had before
Friday, 05 Jun 2009 12:00 

Thirty-two years into their career, with brand new nominations at the premiere 
country music ceremony under their belt and a headlining slot at Download 
coming up, Sheffield arena rock titans Def Leppard remain part of a very select 
musical club.

Their songs might have ranged from the lascivious - Pour Some Sugar On Me - to 
the literal - Let's Get Rocked - but Joe Elliott and co are in very prestigious 
company when it comes to record sales across the Atlantic - they're one of just 
five bands to have two diamond records in the US (10 million album sales). Who 
are the others? Oh, no-one special. Just the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd 
and Van Halen…

Having sold more than 65 million albums worldwide and proved themselves as 
popular as ever having been nominated for four Country Music Television awards 
thanks to collaborations with Taylor Swift and Tim McGraw, the Yorkshire 
rockers are celebrating their remarkable career with the re-release of two 
classic albums, 1983's Pyromania - one of their diamond LPs - and 1992's 
Adrenalize, both out on June 8th.

Lewis Bazley talks to Joe Elliott about breaking America, the impact of grunge 
and hitting the road after 30 years.

The single success of Photograph helped Pyromania become a huge album in 1983 
in the US - was transatlantic success a shock or something you'd aimed for?

It wasn't shocking at all - what was more shocking was that it didn't happen in 
England. We couldn't understand why.

Well, at the height of Pyromania's success, you won a rock band poll that made 
you more popular in the US than the Stones and AC/DC - yet, as you said, the 
same success wasn't happening in the UK - did you have any inkling of why?

Quite simply, it was exposure and availability. In America, it had gone 
wall-to-wall MTV, everywhere from LA to New York, Toronto to Miami, everyone 
was watching it, because they'd never seen anything like it before. For that 
initial couple of years, people were glued to it until it turned into a 
gameshow channel! (laughs)

So everyone got to see the Photograph video?

Exactly - and kids who saw the video were then ringing the radio stations to 
request it. But that never snowballed in Britain because we didn't have music 
channels. If they didn't play your video on Top of the Pops or on the Old Grey 
Whistle Test, nobody knew who you were!

While your popularity in the US was soaring, were you battling to reach the 
same level in the UK?

No, because while we were selling like crazy in the States, we were touring 
like crazy too. We toured in the UK, did the whole 'city hall' and the album 
got great reviews, just not enough radio play for the song to be a hit. But in 
America it did. It went from opening up for Billy Squire in April 83 to 
headlining in front of 55,000 people in San Diego in September. We were 
breaking Led Zeppelin's ticket sales record in several cities in the US.

But that wasn't hard to deal with?

No, it was seven years after we'd formed, so it wasn't like we couldn't handle 
it. We'd done all the ground work and played in arenas opening up for the 
Scorpions and AC/DC so when we got to headlining we had a tiny bit more room 
and a lot more control. But the hard work was coming back from the US to Europe 
and going from 55,000-seater stadiums to 1,200-capacity clubs in Sweden! It was 
a good ego-check and a good lesson though.

How important was Mutt Lange's production to defining the sound of Pyromania?

Very - that's why we employed him. It's the difference between a good actor 
working on a low-budget film and then getting the lead role in Pirates of the 
Caribbean! Mutt was somebody we wanted to work with from day one but he wasn't 
available. We managed to get him for High and Dry, which was a great record for 
what it was but we hadn't really found our feet. It was on Pyromania that he 
said 'Let's make a record that nobody else has ever made'.

What did he mean?

He talked about using all the technology in the studio that rock bands are 
scared to go near and making the album the way the Human League would, for 
example, using samples, and synthesisers and textures. Queen were another band 
that weren't scared of using the studio, which they took from the Beatles and 
the Beach Boys, so we wanted to be more like them but also be a kickass rock 
'n' roll band live. We were like two different bands.

The next album, Hysteria, came about in much different circumstances - after 
Rick's car crash was there ever a point when you thought about getting a new 
drummer?

No, not at all. If he couldn't play drums anymore, he'd have been the first to 
tell us, as he's too proud to play badly. So once we realised it wasn't the 
morphine talking and he'd worked out a way of doing it, we just let him get on 
with it! We had enough work to do in the studio, we didn't need Rick to be 
playing drums, so we left him alone to re-apply his skills and teach his brain 
to forget about the arm, which doesn't happen overnight.

Are there benefits to having a one-armed drummer?

He's actually a better drummer now! He plays more to the song than the ego. If 
a drummer can do a complicated fill he will. But if he can't, you can prove to 
yourself you don't need it. People always joke about Ringo [Starr] being a s**t 
drummer - he wasn't, he was a simple drummer! (laughs) So was Charlie Watts. We 
encourage Rick to do simple fills. We're not trying to write Emerson Lake and 
Palmer! (laughs)

Adrenalize is also being released and then came out at an interesting time too 
- the LA riots were going on and grunge was beginning to take off - do you 
remember it having an affect on your sales or fans?

Not at all. Adrenalize was exactly what everybody expected - we'd nailed 
America twice and this time beat Springsteen to number one and had five weeks 
at the top - only about a dozen artists ever managed that in the 90s, really.

So the sales weren't noticeably affected?

No, grunge didn't really take root until late 92, early 93. It was like the 
rise of punk - in 1979, after the Sex Pistols had released their album and the 
Clash were heading to world domination, the biggest-selling record was 
Breakfast in America by Supertramp! (laughs) We were flying around the States 
in a private plane with an album that sold seven million copies - grunge was 
happening, and we were replying "So??" It didn't hurt us until 96. We need to 
go somewhere else with our sound and if anything, grunge gave us a kick.

Was going back to basics with Slang a risk in 1996?

We were looking at each other saying: "We are all aware that this is commercial 
suicide, right? Yep, we are? Ok… " But we were all really happy with that, we 
weren't doing it for the money - we didn't need it - we were doing it for the 
right reasons. We were trying not to be us, but another side of us. Every band 
does it, Kiss did it with The Elder, but that was actually a rubbish record!

You made a return to the 'traditional' Def Leppard sound on Euphoria in 1999 
though…

We realised it had been seven years since we'd made what people would class as 
a 'Def Leppard' record - that's longer than a lot of bands are together!

And you guys have been together for over 30 years. This year you've got the 40 
cities tour with Poison and Cheap Trick - after so long in the band can it be 
gruelling or is it still just great to be on the road?

We can do 40 dates for breakfast! What gets gruelling is doing the same thing 
year-in, year-out. At every venue, those tours can feel like you were only 
there a week ago. But what's great about these big tour is being on the road 
with different people - last year, it was Billy Idol and Joan Jett, the year 
before was Styx, Foreigner and REO Speedwagon, the year before was Journey and 
before that we were doing baseball stadiums with Bryan Adams. That keeps it 
fresh for the time you're not on stage - you get to drink coffee with different 
rock stars!

You're also playing Download this year - Will there be any big surprises in 
their set this year? What can the Download crowd look forward to?

We're not going to pretend that the re-releases are brand new and we've got to 
promote them, but we're not going to ignore them either! We are going to do 
exactly what every band should do at a festival - if you're going to be onstage 
in front of that many people, you try and indulge yourselves too much by 
playing your new album. Because they don't want to f*****g hear it! (laughs) 
Look at the back of a Rolling Stones bootleg and then you'll get your set-list; 
every 30 minutes they play a new song. But I'm really not sure exactly what 
we'll play at Download because it's one of 60 gigs we're playing. What we 
choose to do for the one-off UK show we haven't yet decided.

It's different depending on where you're playing?

Yeah. We don't play When Love and Hate Collide in America, because nobody 
cares, but if we don't play it in England, we can't get out of the building! 
Animal's a much bigger song in England than it is in the US - in fairness, Pour 
Some Sugar On Me is much bigger over there. We're a very territorial band. We 
change it around and it's fun for us, because we're not doing the same thing 
every night.

Photograph is an example of that and it's a song that propelled you to fame in 
the US but is known here by people who bought Pyromania a few years later. But 
you're nominated for two Country Music Television awards for your performance 
of the song with Taylor Swift -how did the collaboration come about, and is it 
bizarre to be nominated at a country music ceremony?

I hear you! (laughs) But we relish and welcome it - we weren't getting any 
awards from the rock fraternity, I'll take them from anywhere! It's current - 
if we get a nomination from Metal Hammer, it'll be an outstanding contribution 
prize, but this is for current work we did at the end of last year. We actually 
got two nominations for the Nine Lives song with Tim McGraw from Songs from the 
Sparkle Lounge as well, so we're up for four awards!

How did those collaborations happen?

We were very flattered for the attention Taylor and Tim gave us and we thought 
it would be great to do it because most people don't ask and they were begging 
us to work with them! It changes the dynamic and takes the boredom factor out 
of things. But if Lemmy asked me to do something with him next week, I'd do it. 
I can go from Taylor Swift and Tim McGraw to Lemmy or Slipknot! After 32 years 
of being in the same band, I love these guys to death and we love working 
together, but it's good to go on holiday!

Lewis Bazley

Def Leppard play the UK and Eire in June 2009. Dates as follows :

Friday 12th June 2009 O2 Arena, Dublin, Eire – Headline www.theo2.ie
Sunday 14th June 2009 Download Festival, UK – Headline 
www.downloadfestival.co.uk

© 2009