http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Stories/0,1413,82%257E1804%257E1051104,00.html
Article Last Updated: Friday, December 13, 2002 - 11:49:37 AM MST

Stop the presses: Def Leppard really a song band
By Jim Harrington
CONTRIBUTOR

HAVING sold nearly 50 million records worldwide, Def Leppard ranks as one
of the most popular bands of all time.

However, there is a misconception about the band that is nearly as big as
its sales figures. And oddly enough, it has to do with what type of music
the group plays.

Most people would say that Def Leppard plays heavy metal music. Most
people would be wrong.

Take a deep breath and get ready for the truth.

"I don't think that Def Leppard has ever been a heavy metal band," says
Leppard-guitarist Vivian Campbell during a recent telephone conversation
from his home in Los Angeles. "Certainly in the early days, it was part of
that movement and it got lumped in with that whole new wave of British
heavy metal.

"And, fair enough, there was a lot of Spandex and leather jackets and
guitar riffs. Since then, certainly from (1983's) 'Pyromania' onward, Def
Leppard has been a song band.

Bay Area metal-heads with tickets to see Def Leppard in concert on
Saturday night in San Francisco will just have to accept that they are
going to see "a song band.

But even Ozzy will tell you, song bands are OK as long as the songs are as
much head-banging fun as "Photograph," Bringin' on the Heartbreak," Rock
of Ages" and other signature Leppard tunes.

Def Leppard's high-octane show surely won't be short on huge hits from the
'80s and early '90s. Loyal fans looking for "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and
other sticky classics should get their fix.

The band will also be playing at least four or five tracks from "X," its
appropriately named 10th studio album. "X" is the fourth album written by
Def Leppard's 10-year-old lineup: guitarists Campbell and Phil Collen, voc
alist Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen.

And here's where that pesky misconception comes into play again. The album
will undoubtedly be filed as hard rock or heavy metal in stores, but "X"
is really a traditional pop record full of multi-layered vocal harmonies
and melodic guitar work. Some of the tracks could even work on Top 40
radio.

"X" continues the longstanding Leppard tradition of taking basic pop songs
and dressing them up with juicy guitar riffs and hooks big enough to catch
Moby Dick.

"(Def Leppard has) been a pop band disguised as a rock band," Campbell
says. "You could take away all the bombast from the Def Leppard
productions -- all the big drums and all the big guitars -- and underneath
all that th ere is a song that you could play on an acoustic guitar.

Many bands that were big in the '80s had cool videos and big stage shows
like Leppard. But few had the substance behind all the flash, splash and
cash. Maybe that's why Leppard is one of the few from that era of music
tha t is still around in 2002.

One of the casualties of the time was Campbell's old band Whitesnake. The
guitarist calls Whitesnake "a very disjointed band" and says that the
lineup he was in was put together by the group's record label.

He complains that there was no synergy or real chemistry between the
players in the band. On stage, it was every man for himself, with each
player trying to out-rock the other musicians. The result, Campbell says,
was some really bad live performances.

In contrast, the guitarist would catch Def Leppard in concert, during the
tour for 1987's "Hysteria," and was in awe of what he saw and heard.

"I remember saying to my wife that there was such a great vibe in Def
Leppard and that I wish I could be in a band like that," Campbell
remembers. "It's pretty ironic that a few years later that I ended up
being there.

In 1991, tragedy struck Def Leppard when guitarist Steve Clark died of a
fatal mixture of drugs and alcohol. Campbell, who was friends with
vocalist Joe Elliot, was asked to replace Clark in the band.

Campbell joined right after the release of 1992's "Adrenalize," an album
that would go No. 1 and produce such hit singles as "Let's Get Rocked" and
"Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad.

Since then, the band has taken its sweet time putting out new studio
works. It's not that they haven't been working hard enough. To the
contrary, they might have been working too hard.

"There's a very strong work ethic," Campbell says. "That's why it takes so
long to make records. We write and we re-write and we pull it apart and we
put things under the microscope. If we think there is room for improvem
ent, we take time to do it.

"And it's the same when we rehearse. We rehearse until (the songs) are
right - not until they are almost right. I think that anyone who comes to
see us play live would hear that.

Def Leppard appears in concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Bill Graham
Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove St., San Francisco. Tickets are $39.50 Call
(925) 685-8497, (510) 625-8497 or (415) 421-8497 or visit
www.ticketmaster.com

You can e-mail Jim Harrington at jimthecritic@yahoo.com

About ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy | Contact Us
©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers