http://www.presstelegram.com/entertainment/ci_4482494 Oh yeah? 'Yeah!' Def Leppard is covering David Bowie and Blondie to prove once and for all it's not a heavy-metal band By Phillip Zonkel, Staff Writer Article Launched:10/13/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT Def Leppard is covering David Bowie and Blondie to prove once and for all it's not a heavy-metal band JOE ELLIOTT is a gambling man, but not with the slots. The Def Leppard frontman is calling from Atlantic City, N.J., one of the cities on the band's tour. The group plays the Hollywood Bowl tonight and the Hyundai Pavilion in Devore on Saturday. He says he's not tempted by the one-armed bandits. "I like the idea of winning. I like the idea of putting 25 cents in a slot (machine) and 2 million bucks coming out and then walking away with it," Elliott says. "But the chances of that happening are pretty slim. What's the point? "This job in itself is a big enough gamble." Elliott, 47, and his bandmates (guitarist Phil Collen, 48, bassist Rick Savage, 45, drummer Rick Allen, 42 and guitarist Vivian Campbell, 44) have hit the jackpot a few times. During the band's almost three-decade career, the quintet has released a series of '80s pop-rock anthems ("Bringin' On the Heartbreak," "Photograph," "Foolin'," "Pour Some Sugar On Me") and has sold more than 65 million albums worldwide. Two of Def Leppard's albums - "Hysteria" and "Pyromania" - have each sold 10 million copies. The group is one of only five bands in history to reach this milestone; the others are Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Van Halen and Led Zeppelin. Despite the band's obvious pop-rock influences and soundscapes, Def Leppard has been mischaracterized for years as a heavy metal band. Elliott says the group always has fought against the label. "That's what somebody once said, and we got lumped into it," Elliott says. "We didn't ask to be a part of it. We don't want to be a part of that. We don't believe we are part of that. "We're not dissing heavy metal. I don't see the comparison between us and Anthrax. It doesn't make any sense," he says. "We have harmonies. We have guitar sounds that are cleaner and jangle. We take as much pride out of copying our jangle sounds from bands like The Police and The Fixx more so than Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath." "We're proud to be a pop-rock band," Elliott says. Elliott says the frustration with being piegonholed and having to constantly correct the misinformation was one of the main reasons why Def Leppard did "Yeah!" The 14-track disc finds the group covering a variety of '70s British bands - Kinks, Badfinger, T. Rex, David Bowie, Sweet, Mott the Hoople, Faces and Thin Lizzy, among others - (as well as one Irish and one American band) that inspired Def Leppard. "The music that made us tug on the sleeves of our parents' clothing at Christmastime asking for a guitar or drum kit was all the pop-rock stuff on great British radio from 1971-74," Elliott says. "Yes, we love AC/DC, but we love Queen more." Here, Elliott talks about five songs - in no particular order - that made Def Leppard go "Yeah!" 1 Badfinger's "No Matter What" "That was the first song everyone threw their hands in the air and said, We have to do this, which is odd because I don't think Rick was more than 6 years old when that song came out. We all had a copy of that song growing up. It's one of the kinds of songs that influenced how we write our own material. Badfinger was like the heavy version of the Beatles. Anything that was Beatlesque would influence us. It didn't have jangly stuff like a Beatles' song, but it had clever chords and great melodies. It made you want to tap your foot and shake your head." 2 David Essex's "Rock On" "That was a great choice. We're not embarrassed or intimidated by the thought that people would go, 'I don't believe they're doing David Essex.' That's what we are. We aren't afraid of doing anything. We like to think of ourselves as great artists, and great artists take risks. The bassline and vocal in that song was always was very attractive to us and stood out a mile on radio back in the day. There weren't any drums on it. It was really weird and had a lot of echoes on it, stuff we had never heard before. We thought, How can we update it? We wrote an ending for it and put the beat blocks underneath it." 3 Blondie's "Hanging On the Telephone" "Blondie is the only non-British act we covered, with the exception of Thin Lizzy, who are Irish. We love Blondie, and it wasn't because she wore short skirts and lipstick. They had some great pop-rock songs. It came out of the New Wave era, but musically it had all the right parts. It wasn't just shouting. Great Britain kind of adopted Blondie as their own. They were enormous in Britain. It's much more fun and logical for us to do something like Blondie than what other people think would be logical for us, covering Zeppelin or Deep Purple." 4 David Bowie's "Drive-In Saturday" "David Bowie, along with Marc Bolan and Mott the Hoople, are the three main reasons I wanted to be in a band. This music was the soundtrack to our lives. When people come up to us and say that (Def Leppard) is theirs, I know exactly what they mean. I spent hundreds of hours not doing my homework, but learning to read, absorb and memorize all the songs on any of their albums, but mostly 'Ziggy Stardust,' 'Electric Warrior' and 'Mott.' I remember seeing Bowie do 'Drive-In Saturday' on 'The Russell Harty Show' back in '73 and genuinely thinking he was an alien. The earrings were a bit of a giveaway, though. No way would anyone from Mars wear that sort of thing. He scared our parents in a way that would be difficult to explain nowadays to a Slipknot or Marilyn Manson fan. But with this song, he showed a softer side of his many characters, which had a charm all of its own." 5 Electric Light Orchestra's "10538 Overture" "Hopefully it's beyond people's belief. There's a certain joy you get out of the shock factor of people looking at the album and going, 'I can't believe they're doing ELO and they're haven't done the 'Mr. Blue Sky' period. They've done ELO from '72, which is the mental ELO period. The '10538 Overture' is one of the highlights for me because we nailed the strings section. That whole song is almost built around the 'Dear Prudence' guitar lick and the end part of 'I am the Walrus.' It's so obviouosly influenced by the Beatles. It's kind of fun to discover second-generation Beatles ideas done 30 years later. The big attraction to this song was the opening five seconds, that guitar jangle. It's so enormous, and for '72 it was mind blowing." Phillip Zonkel (562) 499-1258 or phillip.zonkel@presstelegram.com DEF LEPPARD What: Def Leppard and Journey Where: Hollywood Bowl, 2801 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood, and Hyundai Pavilion, 2575 Glen Helen Parkway, Devore When: 7:30 tonight and 8 p.m. Saturday Tickets: $30-$175 and $25-$87 Information: (213) 480-3232 or www.ticketmaster.com Copyright © 2006 Los Angeles Newspaper Group