http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/music/s_632803.html Def Leppard wins over country stars and kids By Rege Behe, TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, July 9, 2009 What in tarnation is going on with Def Leppard? Last year, country superstar Tim McGraw sang with the British band on the single "Nine Lives." Taylor Swift, the omnipresent teen sensation, sang with the band on a "CMT Crossroads" performance in 2008, joining singer Joe Elliott and company for versions of "Photograph" and "Pour Some Sugar on Me." It's not that Def Leppard has traded its Union Jack motif for cowboy hats. It's only country musicians acknowledging the pervasive influence of Def Leppard. "There was never any intention of Def Leppard going country," guitarist Viv Campbell says in advance of Friday's concert with Poison and Cheap Trick at the Post-Gazette Pavilion in Burgettstown. "Nor are we influenced by it any way." According to Campbell, Swift's affection for Def Leppard came by way of her mother's passion for the band. McGraw expressed interest in performing with the group after attending a Def Leppard concert, which led to the recording of "Nine Lives." "It's basically a Def Leppard song with a little bit of Tim McGraw," Campbell says. "We tried to cash in on it, I'll be straightforward about it. We tried to exploit it as much as possible. We actually serviced that song to country radio, and they sent it right back to us. There was no way they were going to play it because it wasn't country." Which is kind of odd, because "Nine Lives" does have the heft and feel of a contemporary, mainstream country tune. And some of that can be traced back to Def Leppard's innovations on the albums "Pyromania" and "Hysteria." "They've brought a lot of the production sensibilities of '80s rock music to Nashville productions," Campbell says. "Modern country music has a lot of what Def Leppard was doing with (producer) Mutt Lange from a production point of view 20 years ago -- in terms of really big drums, really building up the sonic landscape of the track." That sound -- the soaring interplay between guitarists Phil Collen and the late Steve Clark, the jet-propulsion quality rhythm section of bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen, topped by Elliott's incomparable vocals -- has hardly varied over the band's three decade existence. Campbell thinks such consistency enabled the band to endure, especially when Def Leppard's popularity waned in the '90s. "We kept making new music, we kept touring, and we survived," he says. "We're kind of true to what we do. And also, being the new guy in the band for 18 years, other than me -- and Steve Clark would be here if he were alive -- it's the same lineup, it's the same band. I think that means something nowadays. There are so many other bands out there touring with one original member. Some people care about that, some people don't. But we've always tried to remain Def Leppard and the music has always driven us." To endure for more than 30 years, a band needs to regenerate its fan base. Def Leppard has done this, but at a cost to its bottom line. Campbell believes a new swathe of fans latched on to "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Animal" by way of illegal downloads "The bad news for the music industry is, that generation is not paying for music," he says. "The good news is, for more established acts like us, the younger generation is being exposed to our music, they're trading files with each other, and as a result they're coming to our shows. It's been this way for the last five, six, seven years. Our core audience is still in their mid-40s, our age. But a large percentage is young people coming to the shows. That's the upside of music piracy." copyright © 2009 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co.