From: "Mike N. Reinemann" Date sent: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 05:00:37 -0400 Subject: PLANET ROCK PROFILES pt.2 PLANET ROCK PROFILES - Pt. 2 ------ RICK: The pay off is we're still around after y'know 20 years. TOM: have you seen a ... on the road to where you are now was it a hard album to make 'cos you've been so successful? JOE: it's not even necessary but the challenge is making that record where just phenomenal I mean we did fire the producer because y'know it didn't work out y'know, being with us for a while in Ireland writing the songs em he said that he couldn't he just didn't have the strength to work on the record he'd been on The Cars record 'Heart Beat City' for a year and he was just wiped, he didn't even finish the record and he just said he wasn't ready to go in the studio again and do it all again em so we sat around and wrote some songs and we discussed y'know who we're going to get to produce and it was astonishing who wouldn't do it and we'd sold 6 million records and all these producers passing us saying they didn't want to do it not interested so we went like oh OK so we were left with not much of a choice anyway so we went with Jim Steineman whose not even a producer anyway he's a songwriter, but we felt with his vision of theatrics, it might y'know we kind of got his theatrics and Def Leppards' dynamics mixed up and I think it has a big mistake on everybody's part but none the less we went ahead with it for a while and it wasn't good and eventually we parted company with him because it just wasn't working out so we tried doing it on our own and that was much better but it still wasn't as good as it needed to be and em then of course Christmas came on and Rick had his accident and em you've got all these elements and y'know more to come y'know Rick had to recover and y'know he had to go through that whole mental aspect of it which he'll tell you better than me and while he's still trying to do that we're trying to make a record and 1 got the mumps. IvlUtt had a car crash and Bon dovi came out and stole our thunder and all sorts of things happened y'know it was a very bizarre time. TOM: Was there ever a chance it wasn't going to be made? JOE: No never because ah because I'd say a year or so into the project or maybe even longer than a year Mutt actually came back and said y'know I'm ready now we should have just taken 18 months holiday basically and saved ourselves an awful lot of money. TOM: Everyone takes it for granted now? RICK: I do as well y'know looking back on that whole period y'know it doesn't seem like it happened to me, it just kinds seems like somebody else. I don't know it lust kinds seems very distant but em I grew up in many ways ah I learnt many things not only about myself but about the people around me and eh there reaction to the whole thing and y'know human nature and em I had a lot of determination to get back after that whole thing. I figured it was the only thing I could really do well and up to that point I started to neglect playing drums as it where that was kinds secondary to my extra sorts curricular activities at the time em it was yeah but em ironically as soon as I loose my arm the first thing I think about is wanting to play drums again and eh with my determination and them standing by me and ah just reassuring me that everything was going to be OK and there was plenty of time y'know we're going to be working on the album for a while and ah just do what you gotta do and ah y'know we'll be there when y'know you're ready and ah it was extremely painful for everyone involved. TOM: How long did it take before you got that kit together and ah started.... RICK: I started thinking about... I don't know about a week after ah I came round in hospital and a friend of mine helped me develop the foot pedals end ah I actually came up with idea and em just tapping with my font on this foam at the bottom of the bed, my brother brought my stereo system so I was actually listening to songs that I grew up with y'know seeing if I could still play the basic rhythms and realized that I could and mentioned this to a friend of mine and he said oh well, we'll see what we can come up with some sort of pedal design and sse electronics then I showed the idea to Phil and Steve when they came to see me and ah y'know I think one of the first things they said to my Mum when they were y'know leaving was ah well he's so normal, he's like ah everything seems OK and I guess. I guess I was putting on a bit of a brave face at the time 'cos ah I just wanted everyone to know I was OK. I didn't want there to be just doom and gloom surrounding the whole thing and so, ah I just made it my business to y'know just really get back to, to playing again and, to the point were I almost forgot about myself. I was trying to impress a lot of people around me maybe more so than myself ah but then again it was a grind thing it kept my mind of the severity of the. whole situation. I really should have y'know spent a bit more time. y'know in some sort of rehabilitation y'know sort out my head but em that came later, em. I think just building Up to the tour, y'know just doing monster Of rock and eh just the warmth, the incredible feeling I got from people around me and just fans and y'know band members alike it was just really, it was just really, it was a great thing, it was something I'd never experienced before and I had some what of a low self esteem and I never really saw myself as being anything really great em, but em, that whole experience just lifted me it just gave me something to work towards and I still sort of, I still look back on that today and y'know I'm just, I don't think I would have necessarily survived the whole ordeal or being in a band had the accident not happened which is kinds ironic in a way. TOM: Vivian. what was your impression of the band before you joined? VIVIAN: I was always a Def Leppard fan. I actually went out and bought the first indie single more out of curiosity 'cos I had never heard of them but eh I was in a band in Belfast called Sweet Savage at the time and em we were actually pretty inspired not so much musically by Def Leppard but by what Def Leppard achieved y'know doing the indie route and getting a major label deal and for what Def Leppard meant to that whole wave of British heavy metal, that phrase we all hate I became much more of a fan in later years really when they started making more so pop songs then rock songs so much so that I bought 'Hysteria' twice 'cos I wore out the cassette sol was very familiar with the bands work. TOM: Were you nervous auditioning? VIVIAN: No, no no I knew I actually knew I was going to be perfect for Def Leppard, sorry I hate to say that but I knew it, em and I was very well prepared, so no I wasn't nervous about it. TOM: You came in before Adrenalize? VIVIAN: No just after the Adrenalize record for that tour. TOM: Just leading to the 90's. I get the impression that they were a bit more disjointed, you'd almost say Adrenalize was the last big sounding Def Leppard album, you had a hits compilation and then you had 'Slang' Which Has almost a step away from y'know the Def Leppard sound - what was your thinking behind 'Slang'? JOE: The thinking behind 'Slang' was we wanted to get away from our sound because everybody else was burning it out and at the same time somebody'd shifted the goal posts and those two people were Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder and eh we wanted them back but we knew they'd been kind of shifted for good and we were going to have to move with them really y'know there was an astonishing amount of Def Leppard sounding bands out there and we used to get sick to death saying 'c mon that's our next album they've just made and once we'd done, we were doing the Adrenalize tour and we'd decided to do the retro-active album which was just a collection of unreleased stuff plus some B-sides we were going to remix and it had a very live feel to it and we just kind of got talking individually, collectively, whatever and thought it would just kind of nice to make an album that had kind of a lifer feel to it but was all new material which is basically and that was very fitting with what was going on in radio and in rock industry at the time it had moved on it really had changed and it needed it. it needed cleansing what was a little annoying for us, I guess was the fact was when a movement dies and a new one comes in we kind of got, we were happy to see the back of your Wingers, your Warrants, your Slaughterers but there was a certain element of the media who lumped us in with them and we found that astonishingly like wrong, really because we weren't part of that movement we were Def Leppard like The Beatles were nothing to do with the merseyside sound and the stones were above whatever was happening in London, they were their own identity and thats how we always saw ourselves and always will and em so we basically had to kind of re-invent ourselves to a point or at least try and something that would make people sit up and listen and so the Slang record was a case of making something a little bit more contemporary and away from the big production with more of an emphasis on a good production but not necessarily as large just different songwriting aspects y'know trying different flavours using more kind of sampling using more R & B things on certain songs em just almost going back to basics but at the same time taking in some of the '90's stuff as well. TOM: So is Euphoria a return to your more traditional sound. is it taking you back again? JOE: it's certainly not 'Slang' again, but em we couldn't have made Euporia in '96 as much as we'd liked to have done, it just wasn't the right time but for us now looking back over what's happened in the '90's which in fairness as Viv pointed out he started liking us in the first place 'cos we started doing more sort of poppy rock songs and just the nature of that they're normally more uplifting more of a majory sound and minory sound there not as dark and as dingy as a lot of the rock music can be a lot of the '90's can be very bland or very dark and we wanted to make something that wasn t bland and wasn't dark and after 7 years away from that sound and no-one else is doing it anywhere we almost became the alternative and ah it just felt right to make a record where a band like us can re-embrace who we are, not be embarrassed about it, feel good about it in fact and write songs and play our instruments which became very unfashionable in the mid-90's so actually to write a song that wasn't cool to actually play your song it had to be attitude and I think you can have all 3 and there's nobody doing this so it's a case of 'Slang' was like going away on holiday I mean it's an album we're immensely proud of the fact it didn't sound like Def Leppard, but that was the whole idea y'know but with this record it's a classic Def Leppard, and this is what we're good at doing and it's a great record and y'know 'Slang' there was a lot of individual writing going on very few collaborations on this record the whole thing is a collaboration so its obviously match of a, of a collective thing. Vivians written a lot more on this aibum than he did on the previous one and everybody got involved and we recorded it the way we've always recorded the classic sounding records in the past which is a lot of layering, a lot of multi-tracking and a lot of stuff doing it individually just creating upwards and emphasis on the song and just whatever else needs to happen. TOM: You got Mutt Lange in for three of the songs? JOE: This is Viv's first experience of working with him so that was fun.. TOM: How did you find it? VIV: I thought it was great, I found it very inspiring to work with Mutt for the first time just to actually watch where the actual Def Leppard method of recording came from em now obviously so much of it had come from Mutt and ah it was very inspiring just to see how he, how he created something out of nothing and how he motivated himself to do that em I . . going into the record there was never a conscious effort to say ah lets get Mutt involved it was just we'd gotten to the stage on one particular song where we'd gotten to a runt and that went on for, for weeks and months and we couldn't get beyond were we where and with this tune so we sent him out a tape and ah he mailed the tape back and it had a lyric and a melody on the back and from there it was just well, let's call and see if we can get him to come over for a weekend which he did ah a long weekend, a very long 'cos he works y'know a 20 hour day or whatever it is so it was great a really. really great experience it was very, very inspiring for me personally to actually watch someone that talented at work em... TOM: How do you feel about this record? VIV: I feel like this is my very first Def Leppard record even though it's not, it's certainly the first where y'know it's a real Def Leppard record. I got to be part of, or witness how Def Leppard creates from the ground up how the whole song writing mounts up, like Joe said on the last record 'Slang' was y'know we didn't really know what one wanted to do. He just knew we weren't making a Def Leppard record like they usually were and y'know we all came in individually with songs and we just sort of basically recorded them very much in a live way y'know it was totally different so for me I feel it's my first real experience of what the Def Leppard method is and it's really frustrating to watch it because it takes an awful long time and ah y'know I come from a background of bands where we basically rehearse for a few weeks, go into the studio and cut stuff 'live' and that's how, that's y'know been the reative bulk of my professional experience so I have to bite my tongue a lot and consider its part of the learning CUrVe and it is, it certainly gives you a ah different point of view y'know on how it is the records can be created. TOM: The overall result, how do you feel about it, y'know its your 7th album. I don't mean to compare it to the rest but how do you feel about it? RICK: I think its our best for sure, y'know it just really starts to sink in now what a great record it is and eh I think it's perfect that its part of a trilogy as it where because it is a classic sounding Def Leppard record and I think, I think that's what we needed to get back to and its good to see radio coming orotund to our way of thinking again which is basically what it needed. TOM: How about you, Joe are you excited about it? JOE: I'm very excited about it, I wouldn't be as brave as Rick to say, I think its our best because its easy to say its your best, when its your newest cos its our most recent and I do love it to death and its possibly our best record. But em, y'know there'll be a lot of people who'll see this interview and say well how can you compare it to Hysteria and I think its really wrong to compare an album just 'cos it sold 15 million copies we all know there are albums in the charts at the moment that sold 4/5 million that we can't believe anyone bought one copy of y'know it doesn't necessarily quantify it as a fantastic record 'Hysteria' is a great record, I think this is a very brave record for us to make more so than Slang was - Slang was deemed a brave record cos we jumped off our own bandwagon unto an unknown plateau as it where we've actually gone back or moved back to a classic Leppard thing where a lot of people think a very backward move for us, its not it's a very forward move y'know I think this is a much braver record than the last one was em I like the songs, I like the fact that we actually produced an album that many people think MUtt did and just 'cos he was involved in the first 3 songs which is just from our own personal point of view I think it's nice to learn the ability between ourselves and Pete Woodroofe to make a record that sounds as big as the traditional Def Leppard sound which means we have learnt something to me is great because the learning curve should always be a continuous thing and I don't think you ever know enough. In fact the more you know the less you know em it's nice to think you can be making better records the further into your career rather than going downhill so l love it to death. I think its great, I think it's perfect for now, ee appear to be getting a good start with it which is nice in America specifically they seem to be really taken to the first song on radio it was number one the first week out and that's a great feeling especially when it went in above the Chilli Peppers. VIV: What do you mean exactly there Joe? JOE: They don't like us, so we don't like them. I don't like them. Its my little immature vigilante man coming out just briefly there, no y'know it's great we just did a show there in Minneapolis the Edge Fest, there was 35 thous.. 38 thousand people there or something like that and it was like going on stage in 1988. I mean I don't mean it was a retro, I mean it was like they just accepted us it wasn't like ah I don't like them anymore, they were, they knew every word of every song and they sang along to everything and it was a good feeling to be back it really was, you actually felt like you'd achieved something again, and that's what its all about its achieving something greater than you've achieved before whether it's a great performance, a better song, always trying to better something you've done in the past not living off the past we don't look back 'til we're asked about it in interviews we're always looking 'whats next?' 'cos we've done that and that's it, its over so lets move on, what's next, now it's a case of taking this album out and not so much convincing people but just seeing if we're going to embrace it as much as we'd hoped they will and as much as we'd have. TOM: What remaining ambitions would you say you have left for the band? RICK: World Domination JOE: I don't know, Vivian what would you like? VIV: A TV movie perhaps JOE: Def Leppard meets The Phantom VIV: One thing I remember when I joined the band that Joe had said that em that y'know I was as wary as joining another band as they were of getting someone new in because I'd been through the mill with so many other bands and y'know I really didn't fancy joining the band and finding out it didn't work in 2 or 3 years being back in the same situation, so we were sat talking in Los Angelos one night and I remember Joe said, y'know Def Leppard has been around a while and its had a level of success and its been building, building, building that Joe wanted this band to be y'know one of the great British bands that goes on and endures and y'know as long as you keep being viable you can keep doing it and y'know bands like The Stones and The Who and that's not to compare Def Leppard musically or in terms of merit but eh to have that kind of, to mean that to people and be around for decades and to do viable work, and eh there is that sort of collective ambition in this band, to as long as you're valid in what you do, you can continue to do it and eh I think the early and mid-90's have been the toughest part for Def Leppard probably in terms, creative terms, I don't mean personal, there's been a lot of personal things that have been well documented in the past but y'know I think the band is on the upside now, and eh I think as long as we continue to make good records we'll be around for so long you'll be wishing we weren't. TOM: Do you see it that way as well, I think the image of the band on the up is something you have a sense of RICK: It feels that ways, it feels eh the whole atmosphere at the moment, feels like it did when we released Adrenalize its eh there seems to be something that's really positive all the planets seem to be lining up, everybody seems to really like the band again, its hip to like Def Leppard again. JOE: We're even getting sampled on peoples records I mean y'know everything's happening at the moment. RICK: It's a great time, its really good time for us, everybody seems really settled em y'know we like each other. JOE: I think ee do TOM: GUYS, thank you very much! =====================