http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Entertainment/Headlines/sceneMUS2042503.htm Def Leppard: not afraid of love but no sell-outs By RICK DEYAMPERT Entertainment Writer Last update: 25 April 2003 Def Leppard, the British rock band that pours some sugar on its heavy metal tendencies, uses a taboo word on its new album, "X." In fact, the band even wrote a song titled "Four Letter Word." "I've said it for years -- we're probably one of the few rock bands around that's not afraid to use the word," singer Joe Elliott says by phone before a tour stop in Philadelphia. That tour will bring Def Leppard in concert Wednesday at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach. What's this taboo four-letter word? As Elliott sings on "X" over snappy, snarling guitars: "I found a new four-letter word, the sweetest sound I ever heard. . . . Lust can be kind of nice, but it ain't L-O-V-E." The "L" word doesn't frighten Def Leppard "because we write about human emotion," Elliott says, his accent revealing his roots in Sheffield, England, where the band formed 26 years ago. It's an accent much like that heard in the Beatles' Liverpool 50 miles to the west. When the album first came out, Elliott recalls, "People said, 'So, you've written a love album?' No, we haven't. We've written a human emotion album, because it's love, it's hate, it's jealousy, it's greed, it's torment. It's every human emotion you can imagine between man and woman, or man and man, or woman and woman. It's about things people go through." Like the band's nine previous albums and such hits as "Pour Some Sugar on Me," "Foolin'," "Photograph" and "Hysteria," "X" marks its spot with a blend of sweet pop ballads and jarring hard rock, jangly guitars and metalish power chords, four-part harmonies and Elliott's occasionally raspy vocals. It's a mix the singer calls "light and shade." Don't look for the band ever to delve into "Lord of the Rings"-type fantasy. "We don't write about slaying the dragon," Elliott says. "When you write it on the back of a demon, and you're trying to slaughter the wizard on the top of the mountain, it's nothing that anybody has ever done. That's truly Tolkien-esque. It's great for the movies, but it's kind of ridiculous for songwriting. I never saw Lennon and McCartney go down that road. Or Jagger and Richards. Or Ray Davies, or (Led Zeppelin's) Page and Plant. "We write so a couple can turn around and look at each other and go, 'Holy (expletive), he's talking about us!' Or a guy can go, 'Wow, he's singing about me' or 'I've been through that -- I know exactly what he's saying.' " But writing about such universal emotions -- and, no doubt, selling 17 million copies of their 1987 album, "Hysteria" -- led the grunge bands of the early 1990s to snidely label Def Leppard as calculating, "corporate rock" sell-outs. "We've been accused from Soundgarden and Pearl Jam on down of being a corporate rock band, but we're the least corporate band in the world," Elliot says. "We've never done what 'the man' has told us to do. We've used the record company to our benefit rather than the other way around. "We've watched the bands that have accused us end up buying the Porsche and taking their dogs to the dog shrink and playing the arenas they swore they'd never play, and selling out. We didn't lie to our audience and say, 'Well, our ambition is to stare at our shoes, be miserable and get rich real quietly without telling anybody and pretend we're still poor.' We never lied to people about our musical ambitions, that we wanted to be like the Stones, the Who, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Queen. We wanted to be huge worldwide, not just a big band in Sheffield. "I saw the lies Pearl Jam and Nirvana told, because they went on to do things they swore they would never do, but I didn't get annoyed. I felt sorry for them. . . . We've never been corporate. We've just been big because we sold records because they were strong songs. And that's always been our ambition and our drive. People only remember the songs at the end of the day. That's the important thing." Elliott formed Def Leppard in 1977 with bassist Rick Savage and guitarist Pete Willis. Drummer Rick Allen and guitarist Steve Clark soon came on board. According to "The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll," in the early 1980s Willis was fired for alcoholism and replaced by guitarist Phil Collen. The band's next album, its third, was its monster-selling breakthrough, "Pyromania." Drummer Rick Allen lost his left arm in a car accident in the mid-1980s, but he adapted by customizing his drum kit and continuing with the band. Clark died in 1991 from what the Rolling Stone encyclopedia said was a "fatal mixture of drugs and alcohol," and was replaced by guitarist Vivian Campbell. "Three of us have been together 24 years, four of us have been together 21 years, and the five of us have been together 11 1/2," Elliott says. "There's a brotherly bond that goes way beyond getting on stage and playing. We've tried to explain it before and maybe it just goes over people's heads, but it's pretty simple: There's more to being in a band than being in band. "You're on stage for two hours a night, but you're together potentially for 22 hours other than that. You've got to be able to get on. We've gone through births, deaths, marriages and divorces together. That's a lot more than just being a regular bunch of guys. It truly is about brothers. We've seen it all, we've done it all and we've done it together." rick.deyampert@news-jrnl.com If you go WHO: Def Leppard. WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. WHERE: Ocean Center, 101 N. Atlantic Ave., Daytona Beach. TICKETS: $39.50 plus service charge, available at the Ocean Center box office and Ticketmaster. INFORMATION: (386) 254-4545.