Power Play Metal Rock & Metal Magazine Issue 38 October 2002.

Def Leppard have just released their tenth studio album, entitled "X",
easily their best since the ground breaking "Hysteria" album. While the
music on "X" is instantly recognisable as Def Leppard, it represents a
fresh approach with new directions, resulting in an album with great
crossover appeal. Roland Oei met up with vocalist Joe Elliott and
guitarist Phil Collen on their recent promotional tour to find out more
about the record that will undoubtedly put the band back at the top of the
rock world.

How did you get interested in music?

PC: It was my cousin. My cousin was two years older than me. I was in
London - I was born here. He just got these American bootlegs and this
weird shit that no one had ever heard of in England. My cousin ended up
messing himself up 'cos he got into acid very young. I bypassed that bit
and I got into the music. He got me into it, actually. At 14 I saw my
first gig, which was Deep Purple or something at Brixton. That was it. But
it was my cousin Dave that actually really got me into it.

JE: When you're finding your feet as a kid, something attracts your
attention, whether it's soccer, cricket, girls or music. My Mum and Dad
were very musical on an amateur level. My Mum used to play guitar and I
wanted to play a guitar and she showed me a few chords. Then I said I
wanted one and my Dad said. "Well I'll buy you a guitar if you learn how
to play it." I never had the ability or inclination that Phil would have
to sit in a room for eight hours playing the thing. I jumped from guitar
to playing soccer to playing tennis to whatever. We used to have little
sessions in the house, singing, so it was always in the blood a bit. It
was when I saw T Rex on "Top of The Pops" that I just went "bang!" I
thought, "Yeah, that's what I want to do." I've never lost the enthusiasm,
never.

Did you approach the writing of this album any differently to the previous
ones?

PC: Absolutely. We threw out any kind of preconceived ideas that we had.
With the albums we did in the 90's, we were so concerned with what people
thought about us. "Slang", was like a post grunge album, really kind of
raw sounding. The one after that, "Euphoria", we tried to make it so Def
Leppard that we actually copied the old formula. It was a bit clinical
actually. On this one, we just threw it out and were like, 'you know what,
we don't give a f**k. We're going to make it for us.' Having said that,
when we finished the album, we were really happy with it. We were more
pleased with this one than anything we've done since "Hysteria".

You wrote "X" in different places. How necessary was the change in
environment to the writing process?

PC: Not so much to the writing process but for the recording. We used
three different producers. We used Marty Frederiksen, who did the
Aerosmith thing. The reason we got him was we were (fans of) "Jaded". I
thought, 'This sounds contemporary but it sounds like Aerosmith and it
sounds like these 17 year old kids playing with a bit of conviction, but
it sounds like Steven Tyler, who always sings with conviction anyway.' So
we thought I'd be great to work with him. I live in California and he
lives just up the road. We hooked up, he came round to my house, we demoed
it, kept the demo and then we just re-recorded over the top of it. That
really became the yardstick for the rest of the album as it had a lot of
balls and conviction to it - something a bit different to what we'd been
doing. We did one song in Sweden with Andreas Carlsson and Per Aldeheim,
who had worked with Britney and Backstreet and all that stuff. So again
that was a totally different flavour and a different way to do it. The
rest we did in Dublin at Joe's house, and we've done a bunch of albums
there anyway.

Do you think you'll get flak for working with Britney's producer? Why not
work with Mutt Lange again?

PC: Mutt Lange: the last artists he worked with were Celine Dion,
Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and his wife, Shania Twain, so not really;
it's us broadening our horizons. The reason we wanted to work with them is
we heard some of the Backstreet Boys' stuff; not the last album, the one
before and it was like, 'This is great, it sounds like Def Leppard without
the guitars.' You know, the backing vocal thing. So there are certain
elements and aspects that reminded us of where we wanted to go. And to be
quite honest, they were probably influenced by us in the first place, so
it just went full circle really. Mutt Lange is busy. He just had a kid and
I spoke to him two days ago and he's working furiously to finish up the
Shania Twain album. That takes priority and he doesn't really do a whole
album anymore. When he worked with us, it was a concept. We did "Hysteria"
and he said "I think we should do a rock version of "Thriller" - you know
give seven hit singles, cross over, have all these different influences,
really rich influences, and not be stuck and be narrow minded and just
"Oh, We're a rock band", You know just broaden it." I'd love to work with
him in the future. We worked with him on the last albums just for a few
songs. It'd be nice to sit down and really have him produce the whole
thing.

Were songs on "X" written with hits in mind?

PC: I can't really write something that's self-indulgent; even the length
of a song: if it gets more than four or five minutes, I start going, 'this
is boring'. I grew up really listening to Led Zeppelin and Bad Company and
these bands doing 15 minute songs, and it was like, 'f**k this boring
shit!' And the Pistols came along and it just changed everything. And it
was like 'this is great!' As much as I loved Zeppelin and stuff, I still
like the aggression and the energy and spontaneity that the punk bands
had. So I've got some of that installed into me and I do get bored very
easily. So not so much hits in mind, but it's got to ring true in one way
or another, and if that means being commercial, then yeah.

Can you tell me the inspiration behind the songs you're most proud of on
the album and what you like about them.

PC: I really like "Now". Again it started off in my house - me and Marty
Fredreiksen. The way he works is he gets an acoustic guitar, slams it down
and sings over the top of it. That was one of the first songs that we
actually nailed on the album that had the sound and conviction. Again it
influenced a lot of the rest of the album. There's a ballad on there
called "Let me Be The One", a song of Joe's from ages ago and we nearly
didn't put it on the record 'cos we didn't finish it. There was something
not quite right about it. He's redone the vocal. It had acoustic guitar
which we threw away and I played it on electric and we put some strings on
it and all of a sudden it went 'bang!' And it was just right. I fully
expected that one to be left over for something else. I mean, I like the
whole thing, there's a lot of variety on there. The song "Gravity", which
is about losing the lot and going insane, in contrast is very poppy. The
bridge bit in the middle almost sounds like a Police thing, a Caribbean
kind of vibe, then it goes into this kind of chorus that's got heavy
guitars and almost a rap to it, So I like that, it's got a nice,
contemporary flare about it.

It's a relief that when you listen to "X" it's definitely Def Leppard.

PC: Yeah, I think no matter what we do, it's going to sound like that;
even if we do a reggae album or a jazz album, it's going to sound like Def
Leppard because of the voices, the kind of guitars and stuff like that.
Even if we try not to, I still think it has an element of it.

You wrote 15 songs, so how did you choose the final ones out of that?

PC: There are not really 15, There were 14. There was one that was left
over that had this big guitar solo on it and again it needed finishing
off, it needed a bit more time spending on it. So we did. We came back to
that one. That was called "Kiss The Day" so that was the bonus track for
England and Japan. We didn't think it was suitable for the rest of the
world because it had a three-minute guitar solo in the middle. We never
really do the 30-song thing and pick the best. We actually work on it. If
something's crap, just throw it out in the first place. Or if something's
got spirit and there's something good about it, then we keep working on it
until it's right. You can tell if something is inherently good or not. The
song "Animal" off Hysteria actually took three years to get right. We had
different versions of it and it really sucked. It was like, 'f**k this is
crap', but it should be good; it's something great, but it's shitty. Joe
had done a great lead vocal and we ended up keeping the vocal and
completely re-doing the backup track and it had a totally different feel
and it was our first hit in England. It was worth persevering. There's
something to be said for doing a demo and recording something better. If
there's something you know can be better, it's sometimes really worth
coming back and getting it right.

So how do you know when it is right?

PC: Just instinctively, just like if you think something's irritating
about this; you just know. We've kind of gotten to the point where that's
a natural thing these days.

So what makes a good song for you?

PC: It could be a lot of different things. There's a song called "Long
Long Way To Go" on there that's a ballad, which we didn't even write. I
heard it and before I even got to the first chorus, I was like 'that's a
f**king smash hit!.' It really is, and we can do such a killer version of
it.' I'm really proud of that one. Again, the lyrics on it were great. If
you reflect the mood of the lyrics with the music or vice versa, I think
you have to. A lot of times, songs go out there and they look out of
context with themselves. With that one, like I said, we didn't even write
it and the original demo was like an R&B thing. It was like lyrically if
we narrow the vocal we can really make it heartfelt. We put flamenco
guitar on it and we did big backing vocals and we weren't embarrassed in
doing that. It worked great for Enrique Iglesias. We're not scared of
doing something. On this record we weren't bothered whether someone
thought we were cool or uncool. This is great and we really believe in
this. We did that to it, and really nailed it to the wall.

What do you feel are the highlights of the new album?

JE: Highlights for me? "Now" because in many ways it sounds like Def
Leppard, but it doesn't. I'm using that quote because somebody actually
said it to me. They said, "I can tell it's Def Leppard but it doesn't
sound like anything you've done before." Which is confusing and I think a
bit of confusion is good because it upsets the apple cart a little, which
is exactly what we set out to do - have something that wasn't so obviously
Def Leppard. Like a New Status Quo album would be the same as every other
f**king Status Quo record since 1975. We wanted to mix it up a little bit.
"Now" is a really strong opening track and also I really love the song
"Everyday", which we did with Marty as well. I think it's a great, great
pop song. It was a very demanding song to sing, so I kind of had to get
inside that song a lot and it starts meaning something to you when you
when you hear the lyrics. It suits a lot of different situations that
lyric. It'll upset some people and it'll make some people happy. That's
exactly what music's supposed to do - touch on your emotions.

But there's a lot of great stuff. Me and Phil, way before this album
started, were messing around with a song he had which ended up being
"Cry", which we did and we didn't do. Right at the end, we ended up doing
it, rewriting all the lyrics and melodies. I'm really glad it made it
because musically we both got a boner on when we were messing around with
it at his house. [webmaster: wtf?:)] It's like this is really good but for
some reason we just couldn't nail it as a song, and then we did in the end
and it came together really well.

PC: Yeah, actually I left to go home and there was still a bit missing and
Joe was like "F**k, I've got it, trust me," and we actually left and he
actually wrote something, recorded it that night and that's what ended up
on the album. For us, that's kind of rare. It was great and it was the
absolute ingredient that the song needed 'cos we'd been f**king around
with it for a couple of years.

JE: "Four Letter Word" is so simple and so instant that it's not got
tiring for me yet. Certain songs you like the first time you hear them and
then after six weeks you're like, 'Okay, I'm over that,' Every time I hear
it, it just sounds really fresh - it doesn't sound like a bunch of old men
trying to be rockers. And that was one of the big things about this record
- that we wanted it to sound exciting. We wanted it to sound like it meant
what we were doing. Sometimes you can try too hard. As a highlight of the
album, that's one of them in that we managed to pull off a Def Leppard
record without trying too hard to do it. The last few years, we've been
stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to impress people that don't
really like us and still maintain our core audience. You just end up going
around in circles, chasing your own tail. With this record, we didn't try
too hard. We put the same amount of energy as we've always put into
records and it was all in the right directions but natural. That was a
highlight, the fact that we managed to get through the whole project,
working with all these different producers, and it still had a thread of
familiarity between one producer and the next.

Talking about getting sick of things, do you ever get sick of performing
any of the songs live?

JE: Not live, no. I get sick of rehearsing them. If I never have to sing
"Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" again in rehearsals, it won't be too soon!
But you don't need to rehearse them. It's like somebody saying to you,
'You need to go practising on you bicycle before you ride it.' No I don't.
I know how to ride the f**king thing. It's the same with songs; I don't
need to rehearse "Rock of Ages". All I need to do is familiarise myself
with the words. If it's two years since we've done a gig, I might forget a
bit, but I've yet to use autocue. I did forget the words when we did it on
"Storytellers" and we left it in because it was quite funny. I was
morphined up to my eyeballs because I'd dislocated two vertebrae in my
lower back and they pumped me full of shit and I was brainless for about a
week. Other than that, everybody forgets words now and then.

PC: That was great. You know "Storytellers"? We were all talking between
the songs and Joe had this stuff and all of a sudden he just goes off on
this speech and we're thinking, "What's he doing?" they're filming it all
and it was because of the stuff.

JE: He's off. We'll go for a Coffee. Give us a shout when you're finished.

PC: And they kept it all in and it made it a lot more interesting.

JE: It actually showed a human side to us. It made us look real. But you
can't not do a Def Leppard gig without "Rock of Ages" and "Photograph".
You can't 'cos in certain areas of the world they'd hang you when you came
out the back of the gig. Rehearsing them is a chore. The first day back,
it's like "wow that sounded good" if we haven't played It for a year or
two or whatever. But then you get to the fourth or fifth day and you're
like "not again". But once there's an audience there and Phil starts the
opening riff, like there was the other day: there was 21,000 people in
Kansas going "Whoa!" You're like Oh yeah!" That's what it's all about.
It's your job. You put up with certain things in your job that you don't
necessarily enjoy, but you know it's your job to do that.

This album is less heavy than earlier ones, so do you get pressure from
older fans to harden up a bit?

JE: No, because we don't ever talk to them when we're making records.
We've never had any pressure. The only pressure we feel is what we put on
each other, to make sure what we do is as good as anything we've done
before. If we started going like that from a performance point of view or
an attitude point of view then sooner or later one of us is going to turn
around and say we shouldn't do this anymore. We gotta believe in what we
do. We have to sound like we're meaning it. We've always made records
where bits of them appeal to different people. Ballads will appeal to
girls maybe more than guys and songs like "Scar" or "Cry" will appeal to
people that bought "Pyromania" or "High 'N' Dry". Maybe more guys would
like those songs. I don't think we feel any pressure from our fans. It's a
case of making sure we have great songs. Our success came through Top 40,
not rock. We weren't like AC/DC, where it's all on rock radio. We had hit
singles so we've always had a pop audience. So our heavier stuff is
probably the least known overall of all the songs we do. It's the pop
songs, stuff like "Sugar", "Animal", "When Love & Hate Collide", songs
like that that have been the hits. They're far from heavy.

PC: I totally agree, Yeah, we're a rock band, but as Joe said, we crossed
over into pop and that's where we've had our success. It's like I was
saying, you shouldn't make an album for someone else's expectations.
There's a reason why we sold 17 million copies of "Hysteria" - 'cos we
actually did our own thing, and there's a very strong parallel between
that album and the one we're doing now. We didn't really give a f**k about
anyone else at the time. The songs and the album were important and if we
like it, we figure other people will like it as well, and that's really
what this one's about.

What do you think made "Pyromania" such a huge album?

JE: Good timing, good producer, good record. Right time, right place.
Great songs. It's a combination of everything. There are a load of great
records that never got bought so they had all the ingredients minus one
and that was just the good timing or good fortune. With "Pyromania", I
think we were lucky that the first song, "Photograph", made the radio just
as MTV was taking off, so we had radio and TV for that, it got a lot of
airplay on the radio but that also encouraged a lot of people to phone in
to MTV and say, 'Let's see the video for this song.' MTV was a big help.
The video was a big help, but it's a great song. One song can sell a lot
of records. It didn't actually happen in Europe.

I was going to ask why you didn't break England on that one?

JE: Radio basically. In America there are two. Maybe three, rock stations
in every city, which plays 24 hours a day. Back in 1983 we had the Alan
Freeman rock show on a Saturday, Tommy Vance on a Friday, so you were
looking at maybe four hours a week where they would play what we do. So
there was no radio unless you actually broke Top 40, and "Photograph" got
to number 41. So we were kinda stumped there. Four years later when we did
"Hysteria", "Animal" came out and that did get played. Again, it was the
right time, right place, I suppose. Going back to "Pyromania", there are
ten really good songs…well nine really good songs on that album. I'll
definitely pass on "Action, Not Words". It's got great songs, it's got a
great attitude. It was Phil's first album with the band and he brought a
lot of fire to the band that was missing right up to him joining. We were
having a lot of problems with Pete. We always believed in the songs, it
was just a case of getting them done right. We were using machines that no
other band had used in the past. We were using recording techniques that
that would have frightened 99% of every other band away. But with a guy
that was and probably still is the best producer in the world, we totally
believed in what we were doing, even if we didn't know what we were doing.
We believed that he knew what he was doing. We were willing followers
really.

Who was the song "Photograph" actually written about?

Joe: "Rumour has it that it was written about Marilyn Monroe and we kind
of played up a little bit on that, but it wasn't really written about her.
It was just a chorus. When we were starting to write the lyrics, we just
went off on a tangent of 'why don't we write something about somebody that
you could never ever get?' And the best way to do that is someone that's
not around anymore. So it was just using an icon. It could have been Joan
Crawford, Jane Mansfield or anybody, but Marilyn Monroe is the 20th
Century image - that Blonde bombshell. It was useful for the video and it
was kind of a reference point for the lyric, but it was the least
important part of it. It was more a case of just getting the lyric that
were flowing and had a really good look.

You managed to play three continents in a day. That must have been fun?

Phil: No! Surreal it was. It was absolutely surreal. It was f**king hard
work. Actually, it was like a week, or it seemed like a week, but it was
just condensed. We did Morocco in a cave, then we got invited to this huge
place with belly dancing, camels, guys riding horses with swords, fire and
shit like that. It was quite amazing. We did all that then buggered off to
England. Then we did a corner around the corner at the Empire [Note: near
Sheperd's Bush Empire in London] and saw our families and all that. Then
we went on a plane to Vancouver. It was a bit like time travel, it was
great. It was exhausting and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Joe: I saw a great review for the London show. It said that Joe Elliott
was babbling between songs. It was no f**king wonder! I didn't even
remember doing the London gig because I was so tired. We'd been up all day
by the time we'd done the first one then we didn't fly until 4:30 in the
morning to go to London and I think we all, well I made the tragic mistake
of going to bed for 25 minutes and then turning up to do this gig sitting
on a stool, playing acoustic guitars and just getting through like on
automatic pilot. By the time we got to Vancouver, we'd all slept for 10
hours on the plane and we were all refreshed and fine. But the London gig
was definitely weird, and those bloody journalists, they're not very
forgiving, are they? Of course I was babbling - I'd been awake for 35
hours! It got us in the Guinness Book of Records.

Is there anywhere that you haven't played that you'd like to?

Phil: We've never played Hong Kong as Def Leppard. I played there in a
band called Girl. That was a blast.

Joe: India, we've never done a proper gig. We did a TV show down in India.
We got this lifetime achievement award in 1998 and the crowds were just
amazing. That's about the only continent that we've never really touched
on. We went to South Africa in 1997 - the first time ever, and it was
unbelievable. We did nearly 50,000 people in Johannesburg. The review the
next day was 'Def Leppard better than The Stones' because they'd been
there five years earlier. They didn't get many gigs, obviously.

What achievements are you most proud of?

Phil: The obvious one that jumped out is when we got the diamond award for
the 'Hysteria'. It was the first year they'd ever done it. It means if you
go 10 times Platinum on one record, which in America is 10 million, you
join this elitist group and you get a diamond award. We were one out of 88
albums. There was "Dark Side of The Moon", Elton John, "Sergeant Pepper"
just all these great artists; it was like a big do. Billy Joel walked
past, Boys II Men were there. We met Jimmy Page. It was really cool. There
have been other times, for example when Rick Allen had his accident; the
first gig we did after his comeback after practising with one arm.

Joe: Personally I think it was a massive achievement to get through 241
gigs on the "Adrenalize" tour. We were playing two and a half hours a
night, six nights a week. For me to get through that with my voice, God
knows how I did it, but it did. Just to have the stamina to do that and
having the enthusiasm to do it gives you the stamina. There have been
other achievements which I can't think of right now. We don't really look
back very often. You only ever do it in this environment when people ask
questions about it. You go, "Yeah, it was an amazing time." All we ever do
is wake up and go right to what we are doing today because yesterday's
gone and it ain't coming back. That's way more important, what we're going
to do tomorrow.

You have a side project called Cybernauts. Is there a difference between
playing with them and Def Leppard?

Joe: Yeah, a big difference except for exactly the same guitar player.
It's the two of us and the guys from Bowie's Spider's band. It was a Mick
Ronson tribute show that we taped and sat on it for three years and didn't
do anything with, until we all bought Pro Tools, which is the new digital
recording process. It was an experiment, really, to see how worked and
transferred it all from tape onto disk, and during a break on the last
tour we pieced it all together. It was very different it's a lot looser.
There is pressure when you're with Def Leppard but there was absolutely no
pressure with this because it was a total fun thing to do. It's like
getting up and having a jam with someone - it doesn't really matter if you
make a mistake. It was a lot looser and it was better for it because we
got the chance to have a good blow-out, and if it all went horribly wrong,
it wasn't going to be the downfall of our careers, which it possibly could
be if we had a horribly wrong movement in Leppard. But it was fun doing
songs you all grew up listening to. I can still remember lying on my bed
with headphones on, listening to "Life On Mars" when I was 12 years old.
And then 30 years later, I'm actually singing it. Actually, we did it in
Japan last year. We went back there because the album came out in Japan on
Universal. We did it on the Internet for the rest of the world. Just to do
those songs like "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" and "Suffragette City", it was
such a blast because we were fans.

[Question in the mag was missing but must have been something like] "When
Love and Hate Collide was a big hit for you in England. How did that come
about?

Joe: It came about about 6 years before it came out. It actually almost
didn't come out at all. When we did "Adrenalize", we'd got two kind of
balladesque songs on there, "Tonight", "Have You Ever Needed Someone So
Bad". When that song was up, it got kind of voted out because we didn't
need a third ballad. So it just got shelved. It was a song me and Sav
wrote in what was his house, which used to be mine. He bought my house off
me in Ireland and we were around his place and we wrote the song. Stevie
Lange, who's Mutt Lange's ex-wife, happened to be in Dublin and we got her
on the demo to actually sing the chorus bits. We sat on the song for six
years. We were halfway through making '"Slang" and the record company
pitched the idea to us of putting a greatest hits album out, but they
wanted one new song, so we played them all the stuff off "Slang", which
was vastly different to anything we'd ever done. It was not really
appropriate for an album of basically 80's pop rock, so Howard, the then
MD of the record company in the UK, was round at Phil's house and he said,
"Well, have you got anything else?" I don't know how or why, but there was
a copy in the house. We played him the song and he started to twitch, and
he said, "This is it!" we had to stop recording "Slang" and go and record
this song. So we had to shift headspace totally out of this grungy, mid
90's record we were making and go back to this big power ballad which we
were actually avoiding like the plague on the new record. It was six years
old to us. To everybody else, it was brand new. That's the great thing
about stock piling; never throw anything away, musically, 'cos you never
know when you're going to need it.

Was there a film about you guys?

Phil: Yeah VH1 did a thing called "Hysteria". It was quite flattering.
They left all the really juicy stuff out and some of the facts were a
little bit kind of here and there, but overall it was pretty good. They
did it because the "Behind The Music" thing they did, which is like a
documentary, was so successful. It's almost like a reality TV thing.
People were fascinated that one of us had died and Rick had lost his arm
and we had all this shit go off and were still a huge success. Reality TV
for rock fans. It was out in the States.

Joe: It'll probably get played over here on Sky because they've only done
4 movies so far. They've doe us, Meatloaf, The Monkey's and a band called
Sweet Water or something. All those movies have been played on Sky, so Sky
might pick it up. I've heard a rumour that it might come out as a DVD
release. They used some of our music in the background but we weren't in
it. They used actors. The guy that played Phil is in a car ad at the
moment. The guy that played me was in "Sleepy Hollow" with Johnny Depp.
Every nine minutes of the film represents one year, so you can imagine how
cramped it is, but it gets the point across.

You've just released a DVD on the making of "Hysteria" right?

Joe: Yeah, it is just on DVD.

Phil: Is it?

Joe: Yeah, through Germany. That's as much as I know though.

Phil: I didn't even know that.

Joe: We shot it in December. They generally put them straight onto TV but
the demand for them is so high now that they're able to sell them
commercially so it's available on DVD. It's 90 mintutes. It's old footage
- us going through the multi-tracks, me and Phil doing acoustic versions
of "Sugar" and "Hysteria", and just loads of interviews with everybody in
the band - everybody except Mutt who doesn't do interviews. It's only
available on import in England at the moment. The DVDs for "In The Round
In Your Face", "Historia", "Video Archive" and "Visualize", they've all
just been released about two months ago as well. Just about everything
we've done visually is now commercially available, which tidies things up
very nicely for the new album coming out.

Roland Oei © Power Metal 2002.

Interview took place in Leed's England on July 11th 2002.