Christopher Mitchell
The Herald-Dispatch
Huntington, WV
September 9, 2000

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[CM] Well, as a fan, I was excited to see that "Excitable" and "Gods of War" 
were back in the set list.

[Joe] Yeah, they are on the average. There are certain times that we don't 
do them, and there are certain times that we do. We have a pool of songs 
that we're doing, and we're changing them around every night really. Some 
nights we're doing both of those songs, sometimes we're doing only one of 
them. Some nights we have "Let It Go" in the set. Sometimes, it's "Action" 
or "Stagefright." So, it's nice that we can change it around a lot. It keeps 
us fresh. And with the Internet now, once you do one gig, somebody at some 
website has plastered your set list everywhere. So, for those people who are 
inclined to read that set list and turn up to the gig expecting to know the 
order of the songs, we just want to be able to say "hahaha, it's not going 
to be that way tonight!" It keeps you fresh and it's kind of like being the 
stork again.

[CM] I was excited to see some of those that some of those set lists 
included "Wasted" as a matter-of-fact.

[Joe] Yeah, "Wasted" we've done on two or three occasions. Again, it just 
keeps it fresh. Ya know?

[CM] That song was another one of my favorites. To change the subject a bit, 
what were some of the thoughts going through your mind when you took the 
stage in Salem, Oregon recently?

[Joe] Oh, boy. Well, the whole issue was about whether we'd go on or not.  
That was the major concern. We tried to not let egos get involved in this 
decision. It would have been very easy for us to sit around in the dressing 
room and go, "eh, fuck that. We're not going on." But we were very aware 
that the show was sold out, and we knew of people that had traveled 300-400 
miles to see this gig. I even read one report where a girl had flown all the 
way from Lebanon. So, it wasn't an easy decision to make either way. We 
didn't want to go on and compromise our show, but we didn't want to cancel 
the show at the last minute and have everybody not know why.  You probably 
saw some reports where the Fair people said that "everybody else who played 
there didn't have a problem with it." Every other act was a country artist, 
and they mostly used acoustic guitars.  Santana refused to play there, I 
just recently found out.  Tesla pulled out of this gig in 1992. But we were 
threatened with jail if we turned it up. If it had just been a fine, we 
would have paid it, because it would have been $4000 cheaper than it 
eventually cost. We would have just turned the volume up and said, "fuck you 
and your ordinance. It's rubbish."  But, by the end of the concert, we had 
learned more about the situation than we did at 5:05 pm when we were 
thinking, "what the hell should we do?" We had a very short amount of time 
to think. And we couldn't get a hold of anybody at our offices, because it 
was a holiday weekend and everyone would have had their phones switched off. 
  We were kind of left high and dry on our own, really. Please excuse the 
pun.  And, as I said on the web site, it wasn't a unanimous decision. Some 
of us didn't want to do the show. But, at the same time, the ones of us that 
did were like, "there are 8000 people out there. There's going to be a riot 
if we don't go on." And we were also aware that there could have been a riot 
if we DID go on, because we weren't loud enough.  We figured the only 
compromise was to kind of ruin the show, by not starting it the way we 
normally do, and walk out and say, this is the deal. And I told them exactly 
what happened, and I told them what was going on, and it's not like we're 
the loudest band in the world. There are bands out there in clubs that are 
louder than we are. We always go for quality of sound, not volume, 
necessarily.  And I explained what happened to them. I said, "look, this is 
a compromise all around. We didn't want to leave people who drove 600 miles 
in the dark. So if you are disappointed by what you hear, leave now and get 
your money back." And for those who did, I can't say I blame any of them for 
doing it.  Because it was a terrible position to be put in and we had no 
option. I mean, what do you do? Do you pull out and make everyone mad, or do 
you do the show, and make them realize that this is being forced upon us by 
an idiot law. And like I said on the web, I was told by a lot of local 
people - who were all very nice, there was nothing wrong with the venue 
people, some of them were even fans of ours - that half of all the people on 
the panel live within earshot of the venue coincidentally.  I just figured 
that it was the typical abuse of power by politicians. It was pathetic, 
because we've done 150-160 shows on this tour -  some venues almost 
identical to that one - and we had never EVER been told to turn down.  So 
it's not like we had a problem. When Tesla pulled out, I talked to Brian 
Wheat about it recently, it was the only show they ever pulled. We just 
realized we had to take the safest compromise out. It's not the most 
rock-n-roll decision we have ever made. But it was the best one to be made 
at that time, because the people who stayed actually understood the 
situation and were still very receptive.

[CM] Were you nervous when you first walked out their to greet the crowd?

[Joe] I wasn't nervous. I was conscious of how they might react, but I 
wasn't nervous. I hadn't done anything wrong, I had just turned up to do the 
gig. It had nothing to do with me.  I'm just a singer.

[CM] I really like the re-design of the website.

[Joe] Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

[CM] Do you enjoy this new realm of communication? Being able to interact 
with fans and read show reviews posted just hours after the concert has 
ended?

[Joe] It's good. What's good about it is that you can read what everyone has 
to say. I think it's a great website now. The one we had before was pretty 
dismal looking. It was ridiculous. The one hosted by the record company 
still had the Slang wallpaper on the back of it.  But Mark does a great job 
with it and I think more and more people are starting to notice.

[CM] I think Phil made a comment after having seen the Behind the Music 
special, that the special allowed for Def Leppard to be played on the radio 
again.  What did you think about the VH-1 special?

[Joe] I thought it was like many of the others that I've seen actually. I 
think Behind the Music is the most honest, forthright program that has ever 
been involved in the music industry, because it's actually coming from the 
people involved. The artists normally have something important to say, 
instead of, "well, I learned how to play G-chord in 1967, and I learned how 
to play D-minor in 1971."  Nobody cares about that crap. People want to know 
about the deaths, the fights, the incestuous relationships with the fans. If 
you see the Lynyrd Skynyrd episode, it's compelling viewing, but, in many 
respects, so are the ones on the Osmonds and the Partridge Family. Legends 
is a similar thing; when you see David Crosby and the crap he's put himself 
through. It's fascinating that he's still alive. And our Behind the Music, 
it's coming from us. We're not being berated by critics - all of the 
comments are coming out of OUR mouths.  Ya know? There may be discrepancies 
in the way we remember some things, but at least it's coming from us.  And 
that's the cool thing, we're the ones telling the story. And it is, as the 
title says, Behind the Music. It has nothing to do with the music, it has to 
do with the successes and the downfalls and how we dealt with them.

[CM] I thought they did a classy job with the story about Steve. What did 
you think after seeing that segment, including the brief interview clip with 
Steve's father?

[Joe] (Long pause) It's a difficult thing to talk about really. Because you 
look at his dad and you know ther were problems there anyway.  But we never 
knew what was wrong, because Steve never talked about it. I mean I loved his 
mother, his mother was fine, his mother was great. But I think we, as a 
band, were a much better family to him than the one he had at home. But 
something, I don't know what - maybe something when he was a kid or whatever 
- something just wasn't right between him and his father.

[CM] Is it inspiring to know that so many bands grew up listening to Def 
Leppard and list you as influences?

[Joe] It is, but it's only been just recently that it's been cool for people 
to admit it.  Five years ago, you wouldn't dare mention that you had one of 
our records. Now, it seems that everybody is crediting us as an influence. I 
mean, people like Faith Hill wearing a Def Leppard t-shirt in People 
Magazine and Tyra Banks miming "Sugar" in Coyote Ugly. All of that stuff has 
kind of come around; we're actually okay to like now.  I think it helps us, 
because the whole grunge thing is dead and buried.  It's over. If you look 
at what the new Pearl Jam record has done compared to Creed, who is just a 
Pearl Jam clone, it's over.  And it makes you wonder what a band like Pearl 
Jam thinks when they hear this other band sounding exactly like them. They 
probably felt the same way we did when we heard bands like Warrant and 
Winger in the 1980s. And we'd go, "hang on, that's our last record you just 
made."

[CM] Speaking of t-shirts, Taylor Hanson has been seen sporting a Def 
Leppard t-shirt.

[Joe] Oh yeah, I heard that actually.  I didn't actually see it, but you 
know, Faith Hill and Hanson, you can't get any bigger than that.  And Erik 
from Hole was wearing a Pyromania shirt at one of the gigs we were at last 
year. We played a festival with Everclear and the guy [Art Alexakis] started 
playing "Wasted." These are things that just started happening in the last 
year really. It would be nice if we could keep it going. I mean, we get off 
the road in almost two weeks time and we're finished until the next album 
comes out. We need to find a way to keep a profile while we're making the 
next record. Obviously, the web site will help, but we need to find a way to 
keep people interested while we create the next album. And, as usual, we 
will probably disappear for a year and hopefully come back with an even 
bigger bang.

[CM] And, again, speaking of Leppard influences, have you heard the new 
Marvelous 3 album yet?

[Joe] No, I have not.

[CM] Well, the guys credit Def Leppard as a massive influence when they were 
working on their new album. And if you listen to it, you hear a big Leppard 
influence in the background vocals.

[Joe] Really?

[CM] There's just a big, bombastic sound on that record. It's cool to hear.

[Joe] I've got one of their albums at home, the one that came out last year. 
  That's very cool. See, I don't mind that. When somebody has an influence 
and you can hear it, that's great.  I mean, people aren't foolish; I'm sure 
they can hear the influences in what we do. They can hear Gary Glitter and 
Sweet and Queen. But it's not a blatant rip. The problem we had in the 1980s 
was that there were so many bands coming out that had songs that were 
absolute mirror images of our songs. And it got tiring.  I can understand 
why somebody like Kurt Cobain would come along with this whole new theory. 
It wasn't us that essentially burned our sound out. It was the 19 other 
bands that sounded like us. You could handle one Def Leppard, you just 
couldn't handle 20. Ya know? It gets stale when every A&R man in the world 
is trying to sign a band that sounds like Def Leppard.  But when I hear 
influences instead of total rip-offs, that's fine. I can handle that fine.

[CM] I don't know if you've seen the news here in the States the past few 
days, but politicians in Washington have been blasting the entertainment 
industry, saying it needs to clean up its act.

[Joe] I saw that on CNN.

[CM] What did you think?

[Joe] It's very hard to take a person in a suit-and-tie like that seriously, 
especially when they probably smoked marijuana at Woodstock but are now 
trying to tell everyone what to do. It's very weird. It's like they're 
saying, "do as I say, not as I did." Yet, parts of it are valid. It is 
pretty weird that a kid of eight-years-old can play a video game and blast 
people to death in computer graphic form. I mean, won't this affect him 
mentally by the time he gets older? He might pick up a real gun when he's 18 
and think nothing of it, because he's been killing people for the last six 
years in pretend form. It just whitewashes out any morality. It's just way 
more dangerous psychologically than, say, watching Arnold [Schwarzenegger] 
do it in a movie. Kids see Arnold do it and they know it's not real. You 
observe a movie, instead of actually participating in it. That's the big 
difference. As for stickering the records or censoring lyrics, it's a 
two-way thing. I think a lot of rap artists do take it too far. This "raping 
my bitch" and so on, it's a bit much. But there is the issue of freedom of 
speech; we are entitled to say what we want. Everybody should be allowed to 
express themselves, but there is a sense of morality missing. I am all for 
non-censorship of music, but I also have the ability to make a personal 
choice and dismiss it outright and not listen to it. What a lot of people 
are trying to do is ban it, which I don't think you can ever do. Because if 
you ban it, then where do you draw the line? Banning art just because you 
don't like it? Or banning art because you think it looks offensive? It's an 
impossible thing to do. Art is dictated by the actual artists themselves, 
and I don't think any politicians can do anything about it. If they did, it 
would be breaking the law of the land. And then everybody would stand up and 
say, "you can't do that." Freedom of speech is the freedom that America is 
based around in some respects. So it's difficult to call, but I think there 
needs to be a lot of self-censorship. But I don't think there ever will be.

[CM] I actually did some research and found that the PMRC targeted the "High 
N Dry" album in 1985. Do you remember that?

[Joe] No, I don't remember that actually. Someone might have told me that at 
the time and I probably laughed it off.

[CM] Yeah, the PMRC had the High N Dry album on the Filthy Fifteen for what 
they thought were references to drugs and alcohol.

[Joe] It seems pretty mild compared to what we've moved on to now, doesn't 
it? There was a lot of innuendo on that record, but I think they [the PMRC] 
missed out on a lot of the humor. The English humor. It was probably Tipper 
Gore, who has the sense of humor of an undertaker, who took offense to it. I 
always dismissed outright anything she ever said anyway. But what she did 
not, and STILL does not, seem to get is that by creating more fuss about the 
artist, she is actually making more people go out and check out what that 
artist is doing. All she's doing is knocking an album from 1 million sales 
up to 2 million sales by raging on about how disgusting it is. It makes some 
twelve- or fifteen-year-old kid go out and buy it. If she really wants to 
banish it, then stop talking about it. But that goes against the 
self-publicity machine that a politician is, ya know?

[CM] Believe it or not, I found a copy of Animal Instinct.  In it, David 
Fricke says that Mutt Lange helped your singing style evolve from a 
"sandpaper bark to a theatrical Ian Gillan-esque wail" during the High N Dry 
sessions.  Was this something you were comfortable with at the time? Was 
this something you had always been striving to reach?

[Joe] Oh, definitely comfortable, because I wanted to get better at what I 
was doing. At the time, I was kind of sailing blindly into the distance with 
On Through the Night. I was just doing what I had been doing for 18 months 
live at the time. Not really thinking about it.  When we came in with the 
new material, Mutt just had a whole new angle for what I should do with my 
voice.  I remember we did "Bringin' on the Heartbreak" and Mutt played it 
back to me. I thought, "holy shit, that doesn't even sound like me."  It was 
so much better than what I could have done on my own.  And I accepted, at a 
very early age, what a lot of people in rock-n-roll won't. To use an army 
analogy, if you want to do 10 push-ups, you do them. But if you've got a 
sergeant major standing over you telling you to do 20 push-ups, you WILL do 
20. In other words, with motivation, you will do more than you think you're 
capable of doing.  Mutt made me sing better than I ever thought I could. By 
showing me new techniques and doing so many takes and practicing it more 
often, it opened up a whole new door.  It was alien and foreign to me in the 
beginning, but you jump in the deep end and you either sink or swim.  And I 
was determined to swim really. It took some getting used to, but I was just 
happy to hear the finished products and know that they sounded way better 
than what I did on the first album. I don't think I ever sounded like Ian 
Gillan though.

[CM] I agree. Maybe that was just David Fricke's interpretation.

[Joe] That's it. Someone was telling me about a review that Dee Snider did 
of our first album back in 1980.  He said he thought I sounded like Paul 
Stanley.  And I'm like, I don't think I've ever sounded like Paul Stanley.  
Some people just have their opinions. People have said that I sounded like 
Brian Johnson, which is the Mutt Lange connection, no doubt.  People have 
said that I've sounded like Robert Plant; I don't hear that either. 
Personally, I don't think I sound like any other singer.  I think I have a 
uniqueness, not necessarily as a top-notch, fantastic vocalist, but it's in 
the same category of guys like Ozzy Osbourne and David Lee Roth. It's 
instantly recognizable, whether good or bad.  You hear the voice, you know 
who it is.

[CM] Also, in Animal Instinct, in the chapter about Mutt, Fricke mentions 
that you had been up for two days straight doing vocal tracks. And 
[engineer] Mike Shipley had even passed out a few times.  Is that what a 
typical recording session was like with Mutt? Is it that exhausting?

[Joe] Oh, that was what happened back in the early days for the High N Dry 
album when we actually had a tour booked starting in June.  I still had 
vocals to finish on the record, and everyone else had already headed over to 
Germany or wherever the tour began.  And we had, literally, 48 hours to get 
the album finished. We had gone from doing the noon-to-midnight sessions to 
the noon-until-whenever-we-passed-out sessions. But, yeah, Mutt would push 
and push. And when there were three people in the room, someone had to go 
first.  It's like these competitions where people put their hands on a car, 
and six days later, the last one remaining gets to keep it.  I don't 
remember the incident, but I know that, as a band, we have almost killed 
Mike Shipley and Nigel Green as engineers.  We've either nearly killed them 
or we have tainted them for life. But, at the same time, they always came 
back when we needed them. I think they enjoyed working with something that 
seemed potentially groundbreaking and that's why they pushed themselves so 
hard in doing so.

[CM] What are your future plans?

[Joe] Phil and I have this Cybernaughts project. It's finished, but we don't 
know when it's coming out. And also at the same time we're gonna be 
christening a few babies and writing a few songs. So, we'll let everyone 
know where it goes from there.

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