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Major-league talent
Def Leppard hits ballparks in Camden and Lakewood
Friday, July 01, 2005
BY CLAUDIA PERRY
Star-Ledger Staff

Thirteen years is a long time to be "the new guy," but Def Leppard guitarist
Vivian Campbell is just that.

Campbell joined the English rock band in 1992, after the death of founding
guitarist Steve Clark. He had played with Whitesnake and Dio, a couple of pretty
well- known rock 'n' roll outfits, but he's found his home with Def Leppard.

"When I was in Whitesnake, there were five different guys from five different
nations," Campbell, 42, said. "There was an age disparity of about 17 years
between some of the guys and myself. We were from different eras and cultures.
The only thing we really had in common was the music. 

"With Def Leppard, there's a unity there. We're all within a few years of each
other. We grew up listening to the same songs, and we all wanted to play guitar,
drums, sing, be in a band. We had the same media and the same sense of humor."

Def Leppard (the name mimicks Led Zeppelin) has at least one thing in common
with Canadian rocker Bryan Adams on this "Doubleheader" tour, which stops at
minor-league ballparks in Camden tonight and in Lakewood on Tuesday. None of
them knows much about baseball.

"I don't know anything about it," Campbell said. "(Def Leppard bassist) Rick
Savage knows a little about every sport. We're big sports fans, but we're much
more into cricket than baseball."

Campbell follows the Leeds United soccer team, but he's not hard-core. ("I don't
cry into my coffee when they lose.")

Coffee is another bonding agent in Def Leppard. The sound of Campbell's bean
grinder could be heard in the background during an interview.

"Phil Collen (the band's other guitarist) and I have probably been sighted in
many Starbucks around the world," Campbell said. "We are hopeless addicts when
it comes to caffeine."

Def Leppard's last album of new songs, "X," was released in 2002. They finished
an album of covers, "Yeah!," a year and a half ago. The band's version of the
Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" has received some U.S. air play, but it won't be on the
American release, Campbell said. U.S. fans will hear Badfinger's "No Matter
What."

"We recorded about 14 or 16 songs from the music that influenced us in our
formative years," Campbell said of the album. "It's mostly stuff from the glam
rock era -- Sweet, T-Rex, Thin Lizzy, ELO, Roxy Music. It's scheduled for (U.S.)
release in September, but I should rap on wood when I say that."

It's been nearly 22 years since Def Leppard's watershed album, "Pyromania," was
all over MTV and the pop charts. That album sold in excess of 10 million copies,
and songs like "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" are burned into the cortexes of
many rock fans of a certain age.

"Unfortunately, it's hard for veteran bands to get on the radio and create an
awareness with young people," Campbell said. "But a couple of things are
happening. At shows I see people with very young kids or kids in their
mid-teens. I guess the parents force-fed them Def Leppard, because they sing
along to lyrics that were written before they were born. It's great to see."

© 2005 The Star-Ledger.