http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_4235929

Def Leppard's Joe Elliott talks about, yeah, staying in shape
By Tom Lanham, CONTRIBUTOR

SURE, THE FACTS are impressive, says Joe Elliott.

The little pop-metal outfit he started with his Sheffield, Britain buddies back 
in 1977, Def Leppard, went on to sell more than 65 million records, and land 
coveted RIAA Diamond Awards - certifying 10 million units sold - for its'80s 
classics "Hysteria" and "Pyromania."

But that doesn't mean it's been a cakewalk career for the 6-foot, 2-inch 
singer, who's finally trimmed down to his fighting stage weight of 180 pounds 
for the group's current VH1 Classic tour with Journey. The show hits Concord's 
Sleep Train Pavilion tonight and Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View 
Saturday.

Elliott swears he's suffered for his fans, for 29 years. Few high-profile 
rockers are willing to talk about the health regimens that keep them spry in 
concert. But Elliott, 46, could write a book.

As a teen, lifting boxes incorrectly in a steeltown factory, the future star 
developed a bad back.

"And once you've got one, as everybody who has a bad back knows, you've got it 
for life," he says.

Of course, there's the cold reality that everybody in the band is conscious of 
the fact that, especially coming up through the MTV years, image and the way 
you look are partly as important as how you sound. He admits, "Never as 
important - an ugly band can make great music and get away with it, and PInk 
Floyd would be a great example."

But Elliott was programmed to think of his audience first. Often to humiliating 
degrees. The spotlight would beam down on him, he says, "And people would go, 
'Wow. Look! He's portly!'"

But people didn't realize that sometimes he was wearing a back brace under his 
shirt. He says he once saw 41 chiropractors in 43 days: "Every single day 
except for two we had to get somebody in to fix me, because I was bent in half, 
I was crippled. And every time they'd fix me up, I'd get onstage and do a jump 
here, a twist or shimmy there, and pop! Out goes the back again. And that was 
when I got my first steroid injection."

Steroids eased the throb of Elliott's herniated discs. He was pumped full of 
them again in'03, when he tore his rotator cuff.

"I was forever being injected with steroids, but I didn't realize what they 
did. They took the pain away, but they also make you balloon in weight."

A specialist sat him down for a life-threatening bulletin. He told the vocalist 
that it wasn't steroid abuse, but steroid use that would eventually hobble him 
permanently by tearing away his remaining spinal cartilage.

He quit, cold turkey.

"So now I'm officially getting back on track," Elliott says of the slim new him 
on the cover of "Yeah!" Def Leppard's new covers album.

"I'm pain-and-steroid-free for the first time in several years, and it's good 
not to wake up crippled, or just forever wondering why your trousers don't fit 
anymore."

His old workout plan? Five-a-side soccer. These days, with the other band 
members spending most of their off-hours with their wives and children, he 
says, "I can't get another nine people to kick a football around, so I have to 
use my home gym, and every day I exercise, without fail," Elliott says.

"It's just something you've got to keep your finger in, because it's hard work 
being a human being, never mind being in a rock band. From the second you wake 
up, you're going uphill. And then you realize that, for the rest of your life, 
everything is an uphill battle."

But Elliott sounds boyishly exuberant on "Yeah!" (Island/Universal) an 
anthology of some of his and Def Leppard's favorite childhood songs. In 1970s 
Sheffield, kids couldn't afford albums and there was nothing but Top 40 AM 
radio, he recalls, so the only introduction to certain artists was45 vinyl.

It's with reverence that Elliott wrapped his pipes around dusty standards 
including Sweet's "Hell Raiser," David Essex's "Rock On," the Faces' "Stay With 
Me," Badfinger's "No Matter What" and a single that every member of Leppard 
bought separately, before they'd met, ELO's "10538 Overture."

Why a 14-track set of covers? Elliott explains: "...I just thought it was a 
great idea, ever since I had David Bowie's 'Pinups' in my arsenal of albums. I 
thought 'What a great concept. He's showing me where he came from.' ...If you 
actually got to hear your favorite artist's version of - say, with Bowie it was 
the Pretty Things, the Who and the Easybeats - it just made sense. You could 
actually hear those original songs."

Some songs, like Thin Lizzy's "Don't Believe a Word," had even greater 
significance. Not only was Elliott a huge fan of late Lizzy leader Phil 
Lynnott, he met him twice. First as as an autograph-seeking 15-year-old, and 
later in 1982, when "Pyromania" came out, at the offices of the UK record 
company the two bands shared.

Elliot says, "Phil actually said to me 'I heard your album, and it's the reason 
I split the band.'... I didn't know what to say to the guy... I only wish I'd 
been a little bit older and brave enough to just slam him against the wall and 
say, 'Well, why don't you go and try to write a better record?' Because we'd 
taken it to the next level, in his eyes, and he just couldn't compete anymore. 
But he should've come back stronger.

"That's what we tried to do when Guns 'N Roses kicked in, and again when all 
the grunge bands were trying to murder us. We didn't just roll over and die. 
And now, other than Pearl Jam, we've outlasted'em all."

Yes, Elliott feels like a survivor. In more ways than one. Guitarist Steve 
Clark passed away in 1991, from mixing alcohol and prescription drugs.

But it was the group's decision to wait for drummer Rick Allen - who, after 
losing his arm in an auto accident, was working to design a new synth-assisted 
percussion kit - that cemented Leppard's reputation as decent blokes who were 
in it for the long haul.

It wasn't easy, launching a rock combo at the height of the UK punk movement.

And as the frontman sees it, Def Leppard had nothing to with the sped-up metal 
outfits of the era, either.

"Lumping us in with Iron Maiden was as ridiculous as lumping us in with Depeche 
Mode," he grumbles. "And we've spent 20-odd years trying to tell the whole 
world that we're not a British heavy metal band. Now, if people finally hear 
the songs that influenced us, they might finally get the picture."

But at least Elliott has unlocked a secret or two about rockdom in the 
three-decade process.

"It's all about maintenance. In this business, you have to fend off the aging 
years as best you can, and I now see that there are two ways of doing it: You 
can have all that steroid stuff pumped in and end up looking like a hot water 
bottle, or you can do what Mick Jagger did. Which is, be as wrinkly as he is - 
but when he goes onstage people still go 'Holy s- ! How can he do that at his 
age?' Because he's looked after himself - that's how.

"And now, for the first time in years, I feel able to get up there too without 
pretending. Smiling through the pain onstage? I can do it. I can do it better 
than anybody I know. But I don't really ever want to do it again."

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