http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09190/982535-388.stm Def Leppard pours some sugar on Poison for pop-metal tour Thursday, July 09, 2009 By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "If you actually look at the way that the Glam bands (if you want to call them that) from Los Angeles dressed themselves up. They totally missed the point. ... They didn't have any substance musically I don't think in comparison to us ... bands that do that, are doing it to cover up the fact that there is no substance in their music. ... I think Andy McCoy (Hanoi Rocks) does the best Keith Richards, so much better than Motley Crue, Poison or any of those bands. They were real. The rest of those guys, it was all a bit fake for me." -- Joe Elliott, Def Leppard singer, July 2008 "I'd be hurt if this were coming from John Lennon." -- Rikki Rockett, Poison drummer Def Leppard and Poison provided some good Internet entertainment in the summer of 2008 with an old-school war of words that began with Elliott's blunt comments at a Swedish rock festival. After that, the last thing we expected was Def Leppard and Poison as traveling buddies, with Cheap Trick, just a year later. "Yeah, I was actually sitting next to [Joe] at that press conference in Sweden," says Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen, "just talking about substance of bands, and where bands come from, and I think he mentioned we come from a songwriting/producing thing and that Poison was based on an image thing, as was Motley Crue and a lot of other things. It wasn't insulting by any shot, but obviously someone twisted it around. But, it's all fine. Everyone loves each other now and kissing each other, and away we go." The pop-metal tour of the summer hits the Post-Gazette Pavilion Friday, with Def Leppard, part of the late '70s New Wave of British Metal; Poison, late '80s glam metal; and Cheap Trick, a quirky late '70s power-pop band. "I've always been a huge Cheap Trick fan," Collen says, "and I've always thought that Poison were a really entertaining, great live rock band. They don't profess to be anything else than a good, fun party band. That's what they do and they do it really well." Def Leppard arrives fresh from playing for 80,000 at the Download Festival 2009 in Donington Park, in the U.K., where Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen first made his comeback in 1986 after losing his arm in a car accident. "It was really cool to revisit it," Collen says. Among the other headliners were Slipknot, Korn and Marilyn Manson, the kind of bands that came along in the '90s to out-heavy the likes of Def Leppard. "It's not hard," Collen says with a laugh. "We never tried to be heavy. It's interesting that everyone would try to put us in this metal bracket. We're like, 'Knock yourself out. We're just a rock band.' I think the grunge thing was more damaging. But, in the end, it was a good thing because it got rid of a load of [crappy] bands as well, before it disappeared itself. It's so diverse, rock music. We're closer to say, Madonna, than we are to Slipknot." Def Leppard originally formed in Sheffield, England, during the punk rage of 1977, bucking the trend with its fresh take on pop-metal. It caught fire with MTV, starting with "Bringin' on the Heartbreak" and then in a big way with "Photograph" from "Pyromania." The only album more popular in 1983 was Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Def Leppard continued its multi-platinum run with "Hysteria" and "Adrenalize." Collen joined just in time, in 1982 after getting dumped from a glam band. He saw Leppard as a progression from punk. "When the Pistols came out it was the most refreshing thing I'd ever heard. All the bands I grew up on were doing 20-minute drum solos, living in their mansions, and you could hear it in the music. It had become really boring and dull around '74-'75. Punk came up and it affected everything. The next wave of rock music was rock bands that had a different kind of philosophy but still used the punk ethos of 'If it's more than three minutes, it's boring.' That really influenced that whole thing. I was totally into the punk thing. The [Iron] Maiden stuff and Def Leppard was just a progression." When he joined, he had no idea that Def Leppard would go on to sell more than 65 million records, become one of the most popular bands of '80s and even extend that success into the next two decades. "None of us expected it. That was ridiculous what happened on the 'Pyromania' tour. It was mind-blowing. I knew it was cool, but I never really imagined the gravity of it really." Although the album production slowed considerably in the '00s, Def Leppard arrives on this tour with 2008's "Songs From the Sparkle Lounge," its highest-debuting album (No. 5) since "Adrenalize" in '92. Elliott described it as being written in the vein of "Hysteria" with the production style of "High 'n' Dry." "Well, it's different and it should be," Collen says. "Every record you do should have a totally different flair and feel. We just did what we wanted to do. Stuff that is special to us. We said, 'This isn't really for the fans, this is for us.' We went into the Sparkle Lounge, saying 'This is the way we want to do it, and we don't really care what anyone else thinks about it.' " The first single, "Nine Lives," was certainly a surprise in that it found the metal band collaborating with country star Tim McGraw. "Rick Allen's brother was Tim's tour manager," Collen explains. "Tim was a big Def Leppard fan. He said it would be great to get a song together one day. About a year previous, in the back of my mind I started writing this song, and when I met Tim McGraw at one of our shows, I hummed it to him, and about a minute later we had the basis for a song. That was pretty much it, really. It wasn't a forced collaboration. It was a natural thing." Same goes for Def Leppard's recent collaboration with Taylor Swift for CMT's "Crossroads," according to Collen. "She grew up listening to [Def Leppard]. Her mum used to listen to it and she got into singing through listening to Shania Twain. So, again, Shania Twain was married to Mutt Lange, who produced 'High 'n' Dry,' 'Hysteria' and 'Pyromania' and some of 'Adrenalize.' So there were big connections and that's how that came about." The band released deluxe versions of "Pyromania" and "Adrenalize" in May, and a few deep cuts from those albums are sharing the set with "Sparkle Lounge" and other hits. "We have an hour and a half and we don't want it to be like last year, so we're revolving songs around," Collen says. "We released these two deluxe edition albums, so we've got a few of those songs we're moving in and out. We did 'Too Late for Love' the other day and we hadn't done that for years. Something has to go. We have so many songs, so it's a revolving door." Def Leppard * With: Poison, Cheap Trick. * Where: Post-Gazette Pavilion. * When: 7 p.m. Friday. * Tickets: $29.50-$125; 1-877-598-8703. Scott Mervis can be reached at smervis@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2576. First published on July 9, 2009 at 12:00 am