http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/0800whatson/page.cfm?objectid=12648907&met hod=full&siteid=50002 Plenty of lives left in big Def cats icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk Andy Coleman It was 25 years ago that teenage rock fans Joe Elliott and Rick Savage first got together in a Sheffield council flat bedroom to form a rock band called Def Leppard. Some 40 million albums sales later, Joe is more interested in looking to the future than reflecting on past glories. The reason is a new album titled X and a UK tour that reaches Wolverhampton Civic Hall this month. 'It's a record of great songs,' says Joe. 'Second best was never good enough for this band. 'We've achieved some incredible things together, but the challenge now is to try to better what we've done before. What we've got that you can't buy, plan, learn or develop is chemistry. Where before we may have been trying to push things in a number of different directions, this time we were all on the same page musically and mentally.' Def Leppard have experienced so many ups and downs that it's a miracle they're still going. Guitarist Pete Willis was sacked in the band's early days for his excessive drinking, drummer Rick Allen lost an arm in a car crash and guitarist Steve Clark died after a night of booze and pills. Incredibly, Leppard soldiered on, selling millions of albums and playing in all the biggest arenas in the world. 'We always wanted to be the biggest band in the world,' Joe points out. 'Our yardstick when we started was the Stones and Zeppelin and The Who and The Beatles, which may have seemed like a foolish dream at the time. 'But come 1988 we were the biggest band in the world. It was what we'd aimed for and we achieved it. Our competition has always been whoever's in the Top 10, which was Michael Jackson in 1983. Madonna and Prince in 1987 and, I guess, Britney Spears and Celine Dion now. We've never sold ourselves short and we're not going to start now.' So what drives Def Leppard on? 'Clearly we don't need the money,' Joe laughs. 'We could have retired in 1988 if this was about money. What we do is make music, and we all believe that we've still got great songs inside us. 'No-one suggests that Neil Young or Aerosmith or Lou Reed or Iggy Pop pack it in, even though all those people have had periods where they were considered less 'cool' than they are now. 'We're the ultimate example of a band that can make a living without having journalists on your side. If there's ever been a band that's hated by the press, other than Queen, it's us. 'When Pyromania came out it got slammed everywhere and nine million record sales later those same reviewers might still hate it, but people who actually have to buy their records like it. 'I don't care if people think we're credible, we've only ever had one agenda - making great records.' So having achieved goal after goal, what dreams are left for Def Leppard? 'The new album sells 20 billion copies, we all get knighthoods and have every street in Sheffield named after the band,' Joe says with a smile. Def Leppard Wednesday 18 February 2003 Wolverhampton Civic Hall Call 01902 552 121 for tickets © owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror Plc 2003 icBirminghamTM is a trade mark of Trinity Mirror Plc.