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Def Leppard's Rick 'Sav' Savage

Conquer the world? Been there, done that. 'Now we can enjoy our
music,' Rick Savage tells Gibson Keddie

"We almost wish we'd done a record like 'Slang' instead of doing
'Adrenalize' when we did", muses Rick Savage, bass player with AOR
world-rockin' behemoths, Def Leppard. And yet the band at that time
were doing the only logical thing possible in the wake of world-
crushing sales for 'Hysteria' - they were capitalising on the
unique sound they'd developed throughout the arduous sessions for
'Hysteria', and who could blame them for that? A highly-developed
working relationship with studio bermeister Robert John 'Mutt'
Lange, built over the course of the preceding two albums,
'High'N'Dry' and 'Pyromania', found the Leps hitting the consumer's
wallet-opening bulls-eye mark thanks to a combination of great
melodic power pop/rock songs and an instantly identifiable sound
that wasn't so much radio-friendly, it actually got you into bed on
the first date. What was the problem with 'Adrenalize' for the
band, then, Rick?

"We were getting stale," he reflects, "going through the motions of
making a record. A compromise between 'Adrenalize' and what we're doing 
now would have been more appropriate. But we had tunnel vision when we 
were in the studio; we weren't making a record from a creative point of 
view, we were just doing the tried and trusted method that we'd gotten 
used to. I think a lot of that was us trying to get over the death of 
Steve Clark; we thought we were over it, but it took three, maybe even 
four, years to actually realise what we'd come through. And I think, now, 
this is the type of record that we wish we'd made three or four years ago."

Def Leppard's astounding success was always tempered in equal Yin and
Yan amounts by well-publicised tragedy, particularly drummer Rick
Allen's car accident where he lost his arm, then the death of founder
member, guitarist Steve Clark. Whereas the band had commendably held off to
allow Rick Allen time to recover and return to the band, the Steve Clark
situation had to be resolved. Therefore to complete the recording of
'Adrenalize', Phil Collen took over all guitar work for the album prior to 
a replacement for Steve being found. Rick now admits this was far from 
ideal.

"Once we'd made the decision to carry the group on, we thought, okay,
let's just carry on the way that we were doing it, but it really wasn't
right at the time... I don't think we could have done it any differently
being stuck in that time again, but it's when you come out of it the other
end, and you look back... I wouldn't say we'd made a lot of mistakes, there
are a lot of songs on 'Adrenalize' that we really like. It was more the
process of recording it, it was a real low point in the band's career from 
a morale point of view. We weren't doing it with the right intentions."

Production Puppets?

With 'The Sound' now being as synonymous with Def Leppard as the songs,
there were comments flying about that they had become merely Mutt Lange's
puppets, unable to fend for themselves; aborted sessions with other
producers gave this theory some credence, but when the 'big production'
songs were being recorded, was there any thought ever given to whether the
songs could work live?

"I've got to be honest with you, no. That was probably one of the
mistakes that we made; there wasn't enough emphasis on that side of it. 
We'd written this bunch of songs and I think we were recording too much to 
a formula. ----------------------------------- 'We've sold the units, if
people want to talk about units; we've done the concerts, and now we're
happy to do it just for the music' -----------------------------------

"It was specifically a low point for Phil because there was no relief;
it's hard enough doing the guitars for one guitarist in the way that we 
were doing it, but parts for two guitarists was really draining him to the 
point that there were times when he didn't really want to do it. He'd 
rather have done anything else than be stuck in a studio for 16 hours a 
day, doing guitars. He once said, "I'd rather go away and be a plumber". 
He was really down; we all were."

Did you have to alter your particular bass style to suit Rick's new
electronic drum system after his accident?

"At the time, no, because Rick, even as a youngster, his style of
playing was very metronomic, towards a drum machine-type feel, solid and
secure. Even after his accident, because he was using pedals triggered by
his feet, we were actually using more sampled sounds and more obvious drum
machine sounds. I was brought up playing guitar to a solid beat,
consequently there was hardly any change whatsoever. He still plays with
that metronomic feel that you get from a drum machine, anyway, so it didn't
really make much difference. In actual fact, it probably emphasised the 
idea of playing in solid time, if anything, and improved my ability.

"Once he gave us the decision that he still wanted to do the drums after 
his accident, and actually formulated a way of making it possible, we just 
said, Yes, whatever it takes, we'll wait. We still had a lot of recording 
for 'Hysteria' to do anyway. He was an inspiration to us at that stage, you
know, still is."

Slang Match

'Slang' is the record which Def Leppard hope proves that they can stand on
their own two feet. Last year's Greatest Hits compilation 'Vault' brought
their career thus far to a resolved point, they reckon, and in the 
meantime, the band re-located to a villa in Marbella - all right, the same 
one used to film the Spanish scenes for 'Auf Weidersehen, Pet' - for a 
year whilst they wrote and recorded material for 'Slang'. No longer the 
luxury of hundred track layers with Mutt Lange guiding them through each 
step. This time they assembled three Mackie portable desks and a bunch of 
ADAT machines, using digital VHS video tapes, and set up in the villa. 
"Rick played the drums in the dining-room while the rest of us were in a 
lounge area, and it was fun to record. The previous albums were basically 
like checking into the office and going through the process, whereas this 
was a bit more of a laugh."

Okay, so you wanted a change, but wasn't that a bit drastic?

"Not really, no, because in all honesty we'd gotten tired of making
records the way that we did, and we wanted a fresh start with a
different approach. In many ways, we've been there and done it, and I
think now we're enjoying our music even more than when we first started,
partly because we don't feel any pressure any more, we don't feel we've
anything to prove. We've sold the units, if people want to talk about 
units; we've done the mega concerts, and now we're happy to do it just for 
the music. We're no longer motivated by the unit thing. I don't even know 
how much we ever really were, to be quite honest. When we think back, with
'Pyromania' and 'Hysteria', a lot of the time we were trying to achieve
something that no band had done from a sound point of view, and we did go
down a lot of blind alleys in order to finally achieve what we wanted."

One bonus of the new material is that there is more discernible
interplay between the two (rhythm section) Ricks...

"In the past the bass guitar has been a slave, to a certain extent, to
the metronomic side of it, and basically had very little freedom, that
was a part of the process of the old sound. Everything was geared to a
certain spectrum, and the way that it was played had to be so precise
that the personality aspect of all the instruments was lost in this big
sound that we wanted to create. The guitar rock-god image thing is out of
the window, anyway, and is very pass. It's more geared to a band thing 
where any one instrument, at any one time, can pop its head through and 
say, "Look at me, the spotlight is on me", sort of thing, and I welcome 
that because, again, it's a fresh angle."

Have you changed your gear to accommodate this new band approach?

"Not that much; in the studio it was a basic set-up of Trace Elliot
GP-12s: one as a straight DI from the amp into the desk, and another
going in from a speaker simulator, and a combination of the two at any
one time. A couple of times we used this little old pedal, a 'Grunge'
pedal, to really distort it up sometimes, and add a sort of synth bass
effect to it. And that's basically it. Very few tricks in between, just the
odd compressor in at the mix. I still keep going back to my original
5-string Hamer they built for me. I've tried other things in between and 
for some reason, or quirk, that one guitar has a very unique sound. Also, 
on a couple of songs, there are a couple of fretlesses used; one a
straightforward Precision fretless and another an acoustic fretless, made 
by Ovation. I went round the houses with a few different guitars, and 
ended up coming back to the old ones. Their familiarity made me feel at 
home with all the other different stuff that was happening."
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