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EG MUSIC: DEF LEPPARD

11:00 - 11 July 2008

In the US, Def Leppard can sell-out an arena tour with ease but back home 
they've had to team up with fellow Brit-rockers Whitesnake and Thunder to 
ensure a capacity crowd. "It's because we've never been cutting edge enough for 
Britain," they tell STEVE HAINES...

Like armaments and James Blunt, which many people would like to see in the same 
room, Def Leppard are one of the UK's most successful exports.

And yet, while they've managed to match their chart success back in Britain, 
home tours have never really commanded the same ticket sales.

It was never their intention says Leppard bassist Rick Savage.

"If we have targeted the US more, it's been unintentional. I can understand how 
it may look that way, but it's just coincidence that the way we write is more 
conducive to the American market.

"When you're in a band, it's dangerous to consciously write for a certain 
market as that can stifle the creative process. The way it's worked out is that 
our music is more accessible to the American people.

"The UK is great because it's a mixture of styles while the US has been brought 
up on rock and roll, so the UK is more diverse and cutting edge.

"But we've never been cutting edge, but our music feels natural for people in 
the mid-West of the US."

He adds: "We've never tailored our music for anyone, because we're really not 
that clever!"

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen tells a similar story.

"It was more that the US targeted us. We've always just gone where we've been 
wanted. When people said 'Why not play Germany?' we did, and four people would 
turn up! The last time we toured the UK, we hadn't had much support for the 
album and the shows, like at Hammersmith, were a bit sketchy really. But in the 
US, for the first date of our tour with Journey, 25,000 fans turned up and 
another 3,000 couldn't get in.

"This UK tour is different as it looks like it'll sell out. We're also doing 
Albania and Turkey, basically because we've been asked to."

Their return to the UK coincides with a change in the way the band have been 
making albums - the first departure from the Def Leppard blueprint for 
multi-layered rock albums since the ill-fated albums Slang and X.

New album Tales From The Sparkle Lounge has seen the band change the way they 
write.

"We did this covers record [Yeah!] and we had none of the re-arranging, 
re-recording and re-writing that we normally have," explains Savage.

"We wanted to take some of the vitality and inspiration that came from that and 
one way we thought of doing it was to have the songs ready earlier which meant 
writing on the road.

"So we'd have this little room with a small drum kit that we'd go in to play 
around with ideas and the road crew ended up decorating it with lights and 
stuff and it got christened The Sparkle Lounge.

"Normally, we'd have a huge tour and then start writing which would push 
schedules back. This time when we came to record, we had the nucleus of an 
album ready to get on with.

"It was a way of getting an album out quicker."

"Because we were writing on the road, it made everything quicker and we had 
more momentum going into it," adds Collen.

"When the tour ends, you just start recording and that's why I think it sounds 
fresher. And on this record, every member brought their own ideas, so it's 
almost like four solo projects on one album."

The album features a song called Nine Lives, which sees the band collaborating 
with US country star Tim McGraw, but the collaboration is more about family 
connections than it is about getting crossover appeal.

"It just came together because his tour manager is our drummer Rick's brother 
and he used to be our tour manager," says Savage.

"We've known each other for a few years. At our show at the Hollywood Bowl a 
couple of years back he said 'I want to come on stage and sing Pour Some Sugar 
On Me with you'. We were fine with it, but we didn't know how it would go over 
with a rock crowd, but he just lit the place up.

"Afterwards, he said that we had to do something together."

Collen adds: "As soon as he suggested writing together, I had an idea in the 
back of my mind. He said that he had this title, Nine Lives, and I had an idea 
for a melody which I hummed to him in a corridor of the Hollywood Bowl, so 
within a minute we had a strong idea. It was more blues than country and it was 
more blues than rock but still definitely Def Leppard.

"Tim loved it. A year later, we were in Memphis finishing it off and it sounds 
great."

Moving with the times, the band has released their latest single and a number 
of live tracks as part of a Guitar Hero Def Leppard bundle.

"I live in the US with my girlfriend and I remember last Christmas, her son, 
who was seven, came into the room singing Slow Ride by Foghat," says Collen.

"He was all 'Slow ride, take it easy' and I thought 'How do you know that - 
you're seven?!'. But at every Christmas party we went to, the game was there, 
so it had a massive appeal.

"When they approached us, it was an easy decision."

Video games aside, Collen is pleased at the natural resurgence of rock music.

"It's certainly not as uncool any more. Peer pressure is an awful thing - kids 
think 'I can't buy this, because it's not cool.', but those barriers are coming 
down. In the US, there are far more interactions between genres and you'll have 
hybrids, and they're OK where they wouldn't have been a few years ago.

"Now, in the US and here in the UK, there's more of an open mindedness with 
younger people and that has helped with the resurgence."

Def Leppard join Whitesnake and Thunder at the Trent FM Arena on Thursday July 
17. Tickets are £37.50 from the venue, via www.livenation.co.uk or by calling 
0844 576 5483. 

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