http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/121202/overtones.html Getting the Lep out by Alan Sculley At first, Def Leppard's new CD, X, looks like an orchestrated attempt to revive the career of a band whose fortunes have faded sharply since the 1980s. The song "Unbelievable" finds Def Leppard teaming with songwriters Andreas Carlsson, Per Aldeheim and Max Martin-the tunesmiths who helped bring Bon Jovi back to that band's platinum-selling ways with the hit "It's My Life" from the 2000 CD Crush, and have written multiple tracks for teen stars. Def Lep also joined forces on three tracks with Marti Frederiksen, the hit-making songwriter who has become Aerosmith's latest primary collaborator. Def Lep guitarist Phil Collen realizes that such collaborations seem to follow a record company blueprint for crafting a hit album. But that misses the point, he says. "It wasn't the record company's idea. It was my idea. I wanted to do that on the Euphoria album, use multiple producers," Collen says, mentioning their previous studio effort. "I think it was essential that we used new blood. I think it was great. I actually think we probably wouldn't have done the record had we not done that." For the band, which includes Collen, singer Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage, drummer Rick Allen and guitarist Vivian Campbell, the past decade has been a period of adjustment after the '80s albums Pyromania and Hysteria sold more than 20 million copies combined and the band lost original guitarist Steve Clark to a drug overdose. In 1996, Def Leppard tried to adapt to grunge with the stripped down CD Slang. Fans of their patented pop metal sound rebelled; the group reverted to their classic sound on 1999's Euphoria. "We didn't want to be stuck to rigid guidelines," Collen says of X. "I think the Euphoria album, looking back on it, was very clinical in its approach. We tried to make a pastiche of our career, basically. By doing that, I think it definitely dampened your enthusiasm. So the next album (X) was a reaction, if anything, against that. It was like, 'Let's do what we want to do, do a commercial album that we think is really good, and not really mind what anyone thinks about it.'" Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com © 2002 Boulder Weekly. All Rights Reserved.