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Def and proud of it
Heavy metal band still endures after 25 years
 
Patrick Langston
The Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, August 11, 2005

These things happen when you're playing 80-odd shows in 90-some days.

First, he calls me "Todd."

Then Rick Allen, drummer with 1980s U.K. pop-metal survivors Def Leppard, can't
remember what city he's in. Setting the phone down for a moment, he comes back
to announce, "Dayton. Dayton, Ohio. Sorry. I ran into a dead brain cell."

Def Leopard's current blitz -- which includes a stop at the Corel Centre
Saturday night -- has had the quintet careening all over North America as it
toasts the 25th anniversary of On Through the Night, its debut album.

The tour's set list is built almost exclusively around the band's big hits,
tunes like Rock of Ages and Photograph from its 1983 mega-selling breakthrough
album Pyromania, and Pour Some Sugar on Me from five years later.

"We're celebrating the fact that we've been together for 25 years and came
through pretty unscathed," says Allen. "It's like any other real family: births,
deaths, traumas, you name it."

Deaths and traumas indeed.

In 1987, a roadie died on stage after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Three years
earlier, Allen had lost an arm after a car crash, forcing him to adapt his drum
kit or look for another profession. Then, in 1991, guitarist Steve Clark died of
alcohol-drug abuse.

The band has not only weathered the setbacks, along with changes in music
buyers' tastes and ongoing convulsions in the record industry, but prospered.

Even with its members now all in their 40s and chartbusting singles a fading
memory, Def Leppard continues to play arena and large outdoor shows (13,000
folks showed up for a recent St. Paul, Minnesota gig).

And the band is still capturing new, younger fans -- including female
enthusiasts, a rarity in macho metal circles -- thanks at least in part to the
its fondness for melody rather than just big lead guitar and bass moments.

Def Leppard is also doubtless benefiting from an apparent resurgence of vintage
metal bands. Motley Crue is reported to be doing its briskest business since the
rule of George Bush the First while both Iron Maiden and Judas Priest
(performing here in October) are enjoying the fruits of reunification.

"It normally goes in 10-year cycles. You can pretty much set your watch by it,"
says Allen. "Maybe people forgot or it's people that weren't necessarily
directly connected to the '80s; maybe they were a bit younger."

A frontrunner among U.K. New Wave heavy metal groups, Def Leppard was born in
1977 when guitarist Pete Willis (later replaced by Phil Collen) and bassist Rick
Savage joined forces in their native Sheffield, England.

Lead vocalist Joe Elliott jumped aboard shortly afterward, as did Rick Allen and
then Steve Clark (Vivian Campbell took over Clark's spot after the latter's
death).

Although all teens at the time, Allen, at 15, was by far the band's youngest
member, quitting school to drum.

"My mother took me seriously," he says. "She actually went to the school and
said, 'Well, you know he's got a job to go to and I think we should get him out
of school.'

"In fact, the first record contract I had to get my father to sign it with me
because I was still considered a minor."

The precocious band's musical talent and photogenic looks caught the attention
of the rock press, and Def Leppard was soon opening U.S. shows for the likes of
AC/DC and Ted Nugent.

A world tour, heavy video rotation on MTV and the guiding hand of producer Mutt
Lange cemented the band's position through the mid-1980s.

Hysteria's (1987) breathtaking sales of 16 million and six Top 20 singles,
including Love Bites and Armageddon It, kept the wolf from the door, even if its
slick production and distinctly pop flavour had many long-time admirers clucking
their tongues.

And while Def Leppard has never again achieved such stellar sales numbers, it
did enjoy a flurry of hit singles and albums in the 1990s, landed a spot in
Guinness World Records by performing on three continents in one day in 1995, and
saw its retrospective Rock of Ages: The Definitive Collection enter Billboard's
Canadian chart at No. 3 this past May. Still awaiting the finishing touches is
Yeah!, a collection of cover tunes slated for release later this year.
Consisting of pre-1980 material by David Bowie, Thin Lizzy and others, "it's
music that inspired us prior to getting signed," says Allen. The band has been
including some of the songs on its current tour.

As for the old war horses that Def Leppard has played countless times before,
Allen insists they still hum.

"These songs take on personalities of their own when you play them in front of
an audience. Suddenly it's the soundtrack of thousands of people's lives. The
energy that is created through that process is amazing."

Def Leppard, with openers the Tea Party, play the Corel Centre Saturday. Tickets
& times, 599-3267.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2005