http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?ID=6887

Def Leppard returns to music scene with UCLA appearance

Friday, May 10, 1996

Metal band promotes new album 'Slang' with first performance in three years
By Sona Stepanian

Daily Bruin Contributor

After a multi-year absence, a change in its line-up and the virtual
disappearance of the heavy metal musical genre which brought the band to
prominence, 80s staple Def Leppard reemerged last night from a three-year
touring hiatus with an hour-long live show at UCLA's Zeta Beta Tau fraternity
house in support of their latest album "Slang."

"(Def Leppard) wanted to get involved with the younger community, the college
community, and UCLA is the most prominent university on the west coast, it's
where a lot of music happens," said Jacob Rothman, a second-year
business/economics major and vice-president of Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT).

The show was preceded by an interview with the five band members. The entire
show was broadcast live on 144 radio stations across the United States and
Canada.

"We had talked to Def Leppard's management and the label about doing something
with the band to launch the album," said Mark Felsot, senior director of
broadcast operations at Album Network, which is a trade magazine and the
nationally syndicated radio program responsible for the live broadcast.

"They just wanted something unusual," said Felsot. "They didn't want to do it at
a normal club or studio. They just thought that would be too confining."

It was the first time the new Def Leppard songs off of "Slang," set for release
on May 14, were ever played to the public. The albums' first single, "Work It
Out," was released to radio stations earlier this month. And the band, who has
never played on live American radio before, made its debut in front of an eager
group of ZBT members and guests, record company executives, KLOS radio station
contest winners and a group of rooftop spectators who had gathered around the
fraternity's backyard to catch a glimpse of the evening's festivities.

"I think our generation, growing up in the '80s, grew up on the metal scene,"
said Christian Ramers, a third-year microbiology, molecular genetics student. "I
think Def Leppard has adapted and their new album kind of showed it. They eased
their way in, in their own Def Leppard style."

Def Leppard, with a newer look and sound on "Slang," the group's first studio
release in four years, is not quite the same band that that once ruled the MTV
airwaves.

"I think that they transcend. They've been around for a long time. The new album
is quite different; it's a step beyond what they did in the '80s," said Geri
Miller, editor of Metal Edge magazine. "I think people will give them a chance.
They won't say, 'Oh they're and '80s band' and not listen."

"I believe they looked at this record as kind of a new chapter as in where
they're headed," said Felsot. "They've sold 40 million records worldwide and a
greatest hits album came out two years ago, and I think that kind of closed a
chapter."

FRED HE/Daily Bruin