http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,4782086%255E2902,00.html Beware the Leppards By SCOTT PODMORE 28jul02 DEF Leppard: Definitive arena rock band of the 1980s. Loud guitars and drums, teased hair, screaming girls, strategically ripped jeans, drugs, booze, sex and money. Absolute rock stars. These Brits are back with their 10th album, aptly titled X. But, in case you didn't know, the band never went away. Frontman Joe Elliott, with a Yorkshire accent as Sheffield as steel, has an unequivocal ebullience for music and, after a decade of disappointment, an inner belief that the tide has turned. "I'm going great. We've been given the chance to be who we are again," he says. "The 1990s have gone, thank God. Music has moved into a much more melodic state of mind." Gone, too, are the torn jeans, loud jackets and wild ways that came with this exuberant '80s package. But, rest assured, the distinctive Leppard sound remains, with an added maturity and a new edge. It has been 25 years since Elliott (43 on Thursday) and bassman Rick "Sav" Savage organised the band's first jam in a spoon factory in Sheffield. Elliott is bursting about the new album, saying it is a mix of rock, pop and everything in between -- and this should be the band's decade, he says. Even the harshest Leppard critic could forgive this middle-aged rocker for being optimistic. Elliott insists he is merely being positive and he is certain of renewed success. "It's coming back around now," he says. "When you get bands like System of a Down publicly going out there saying they actually love Def Leppard -- that just wasn't happening in the '90s, but is happening now. "We're getting respect again. The Who sucked in the 1980s, but they were great in the '90s. It all comes around." In fairness, Def Leppard has shown it has staying power -- and the boys have needed it on their journey through pleasure and pain, lofty heights and hellish lows. There were tour-stopping illnesses, the death of a lead guitarist (Steve Clarke) to drug and alcohol abuse, and a drummer (Rick Allen) who lost his arm in a car accident. On the flipside, the band has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide. ONLY three years ago Def Leppard was honoured with the prestigious Diamond Award for 1987's mega-selling Hysteria, the band's most widely known album. The US award is for sales in excess of 10 million for any one album. Hysteria yielded seven smash hits (Woman, Animal, Pour Some Sugar on Me, Love Bites, Armageddon It, Hysteria and Rocket). Elliott points to this award as being a defining moment for the band, perhaps even the spur for renewed vigour. "Importantly, this award is voted for by the buying public, not by some suit and tie who thinks somebody deserves an award or not. It was on sales, so it was totally genuine," he says. "That made us feel good. That we were there next to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, or The White Album, or Sgt Pepper's, you know? It was like, wow -- Elton John standing with us saying 'Well done, chaps'. Forever burdened with the "metal" tag, Elliott insists their genre is rock/pop. "We've always wanted to mix it up a lot more, like Queen, or the Beach Boys even, which means you're moving further away from the metal fraternity," he says. "The rock fraternity is a lot more fun, so people are then comparing you with the Stones, Oasis and the Kinks, rather than Metallica and (Iron) Maiden, which we don't really have much of a kinship with, musically. "I play soccer with these (Iron Maiden) guys and I love them as people, but we certainly don't have, musically, much of a connection. "We're more sort of like Queen meets AC/DC." After all these years one might allow Elliott to be cynical about modern-day boy/girl bands and a market saturated by bubblegum pop. He pulls no punches: "That's just manufactured pap! One side of me asks, 'Is it that much different than what Motown was?' "The difference is that those guys back then were hand-picked for the job. They weren't picked from some TV show, and they really could sing. "I don't hear that in Boyzone, or Westlife or S-Club 7. It's elevator music, it's just soul-less drivel." When asked about the simplicity of his own band's lyrics, Elliott is fiercely loyal. "We have never had a political agenda so we've always touched on the classic song-writing style. It's always boy meets girls kind of stuff," he says. "The standard fare for a Leppard thing is a relationship situation, whether it be boy meets girl, or a dodgy relationship between a father and a son, mother and a daughter, or a brother and a sister, or whatever. "It's about when one of our songs comes on and the two people look at each other and they go: 'He's talking about us'. My idea of a song is to stick my hand in somebody's chest, tear their heart out and stamp on it. 'YOU want to touch them. You'll never find me singing about 'I rode on the back of a giant demon with my sword in my hand to slaughter a dragon'. "Yes, we have had Suppose a Rock's Out of the Question and in ways it's tainted us and people can't see beyond that, but there's a lot more substance on the new album. It's a hell of a lot more obvious." And the important things that drive Elliott outside music? "More music," he says cheekily. But seriously? "Ah, man, that's a trap question. Without music, I dunno, just have a really miserable time. It would be like the Taliban, wouldn't it, like where they ban the thing," he says. "I'm a pretty simple guy, I don't do the Andy Warhol art gallery trip. I lay on a beach with a Bud Light and chill, and maybe listen to something new like the Chili Peppers." Elliott plays his cards close to his chest, with tales of wild times and fanatical fans, but he freely drops a couple of jokers on the table. "There's not really that many, but the few that have happened are pretty mental," he says. He speaks of the time a girl climbed up the outside of a hotel from the floor below, 45 metres above street level, to greet unsuspecting bassman Rick Savage. And then there's the time Elliott checked into his hotel room after a gig, to be greeted "by this beached whale of woman" in his bed ordering him to ..., well, erhm. He refused her demands, if you were wondering. What is important to Elliott is the future: "We did this album at my house, everybody stayed with me in my guest bedrooms. We watched telly together, we ate food out of the same fridge. We had a boys' club. "You know, if we can do that for seven months after 25 years . . . there's not many people who can do that." One thing is for sure. This Leppard will never change his spots. He is what he is. "At the moment, my priority is to re-establish the fact that we belong in part of the big pie that is the history of rock 'n' roll," he says. "We'll never eclipse Hysteria, sales-wise, but we've always maintained our standards. Hand on heart, we know that Def Leppard now is as good as it's ever been." Who knows? Maybe the Leppards might just make the old sound new again. X is released next Monday, August 5, on Universal Music.