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No Fa-fa-fa-Foolin': '80s Metal Men Still Def

By Ray Hogan
Staff Writer

August 28, 2003

Last month, Def Leppard celebrated the 25th anniversary of its first gig, which
took place at Westfield School in the band's hometown of Sheffield, England.

The group has sold tens of millions of records with its fusion of pop and rock,
and squashed it's own "it's better to burn out than fade away" adage by lasting
the quarter century largely intact.

In fact, guitarist Phil Collen is downright excited to be on the road this
summer, even though the group has been touring behind its latest disc, "X," for
some time now.

"It's going fantastic considering we've been out almost a year," he says. "We
don't want to be a nostalgia act. That's why we make new records rather than
just tour every summer. We've tried to escape that thing."

The band plays the careerbuilder.com Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford tonight.

Collen joined the band (singer Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage, drummer Rick
Allen and the late guitarist Steve Clark) in January 1982, a year before
"Pyromania" was released. The disc was Def Leppard's breakthrough and went on to
sell more than 7 million copies in the United States alone.

It was a popularity they could never have prepared for. "That was beyond the
stuff you dream of when you're a kid and want to have a rock band. You think on
a local level. It was all the things we dreamed of and more for everyone,"
Collen says. "The rest of the band had been an opening act. We were still
playing half empty theaters in England. And then we were a Top 10 act."

The success grew even greater with "Hysteria," an album that would sell 12
million in the States in 1987. The band's merging of hard rock powerchords and
pop sensibilities was more deliberate than many fans initially thought.

"I think it was really planned," Collen says. "We wanted to be a hybrid. We
didn't want to be like anyone else. We wanted to sound a little like everyone
else."

Def Leppard was also among the first bands to realize the potential of the
emerging video medium. "We were younger and some of the bands the generation
before us despised the change," Collen says. "Now it's completely turned around
and it's all image and doesn't matter what the substance is anyway because it's
all created. You had Dylan and Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. (Those kind of people
come around) less and less and that's really sad."

Collen is eager to share his band's success with producer Robert John "Mutt"
Lange (known as Mr. Shania Twain these days). "He had a concept and without
sounding like a (jerk), we had a vision," he says. "He's the most energetic,
infectious person I've known. It made it fun."

The group remained a top attraction in the United States through the early
1990s, when other forms of music quickly put most 1980's acts on a temporary
back burner. Along with the group's rapid fame came hardship. On New Year's Eve
1984, drummer Allen lost his arm in an automobile accident but devised a system
that allowed him to remain with his band. Guitarist Steve Clark wasn't as lucky;
in early 1991 he succumbed to years of alcoholism and died at age 30.

"Take any five people in the world and say 'you be together for 20 odd years and
see what happens'," Collen says. "The fact that we've hung in there makes the
bond a little bit stronger because you've gone through everything together. When
we lost one of us, it didn't feel right. The reason we put that record out
("Adrenalize", 1992) is that we owed a lot to Steve."

Clark was eventually replaced by Vivian Campbell (Dio, Whitesnake) and when the
group hit the road to support "Adrenalize," it realized Def Leppard, which
Collen says always likened itself to a gang, had to stay together.

Throughout its career, Def Leppard found its success matched by a backlash from
critics. "We crossed over to pop fans and it was easy to take pot shots," Collen
says. "All of a sudden you've set yourself up."

*

what: Def Leppard

where: careerbuilder.com Oakdale Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Road, Wallingford

when: tonight, 7:30 p.m.

Price: $39-$49.

Contact: 265-1501

Copyright © 2003, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.