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Def Leppard plays to the crowd
Eric Shepherd Martin
Special to Go Triad
Published
March 27, 2008 

Many might consider the '80s glam rock quintet Def Leppard as a subdued Van 
Halen minus the peacocking arrogance of David Lee Roth, roaring politely and 
ready to rock your face off, but only if you're all right with that kind of 
thing.

It's been 25 years since the album "Pyromania" first made the band into a 
particularly well-groomed pop-rock force to be reckoned with, yet Def Leppard 
continues to be a band for everyone. Even now, "Pour Some Sugar on Me" ranks 
right up there with AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" on the list of 
most-played songs at a junior high school dance.

"Our audience is very diverse," says guitarist Vivian Campbell, speaking from 
Los Angeles days before setting out on Def Leppard's U.S. tour with fellow 
retro-rockers REO Speedwagon and Styx.

"We've noticed that in the last three or four years, there's a young audience 
that's come to our shows," he says. "That's the plus of downloading music, is 
that it gets young people listening."

Campbell and other members of the band, however, are all too aware that the 
vast majority of their current success still hinges on their vault of golden 
oldies from their "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" days.

"Success is a double-edged sword," he says. "The public wants to hear what they 
want to hear, and they want to hear the hits, and we're very fortunate that we 
have a truckload of hits. That's just what the audience seems to want, even 
when they're young."

That's a shame, really, because the band has never stopped working to put out 
new material. In 2002, the group released "X," a mildly successful but 
critically lambasted album produced by some of the team members behind the hits 
of Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. To some, it seemed like a kind of 
mid-life crisis for the band.

"We tried to bend over backward, and (the industry) basically pulled the rug 
out from under us," Campbell says. "Having said that, you do have to balance 
that with the fact that you do want to hold people's interest. If you go on 
some jazz rock odyssey, you're likely to lose your audience."

The band followed "X" with "Yeah!" in 2006, a cover album of '70s hits by glam 
rock superstars including David Bowie and T-Rex, which was a dynamic 180-degree 
turnaround that saw the band going back to its roots.

The band's next album, "Songs from the Sparkle Lounge" (due out April 29), 
promises to be a step into somewhat new territory. Already the band has 
collaborated with country megastar Tim McGraw on the single "Nine Lives," a 
move that is about as far from hard rock as rock stars get.

It's almost as if the shadow of Def Leppard's past success has given the band 
the freedom to do what it pleases.

"We didn't really make this record for anyone other than ourselves," Campbell 
says. "I think that's been a problem in the past."

In the meantime, the band is enjoying the music business, which, Campbell 
admits, is what ultimately defines the band.

"We always give what we give because we're always professional in what we do. 
It would be great to tour with a younger band that's more cutting edge, but I 
don't think it would be doing our audience a favor."

Contact Eric Shepherd Martin at walkshep@email.unc.edu.

Def Leppard, with REO Speedwagon and Styx

When: 7 tonight
Where: Greensboro Coliseum, 1921 W. Lee St., Greensboro
Tickets: $35, $55 and $75, available at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling 
852-1100 or 722-6400
Info: www.greensborocoliseum.com

©2008 News & Record