Def Leppard Atomic Mess News

Seems like long ago and far away when Def Leppard was one of the biggest-selling pop-metal bands on the planet. The group's career went kerplunk when it couldn't come up with an alternative to the soaring anthemic rock that was its specialty. On this comeback record, it has dropped any pretense of being a metal band. Instead, the Leps focus on the bubblegum hits and, mostly, sound invigorated. The songs are better than in recent outings; the production is just as fabulously over-the-top as it ever was; and there are enough hooks to keep Captain Ahab satisfied.

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Q: Rick, you have sold over 46 million records, yet every single time you release a new album, you almost have to prove yourself again — how does that make you feel as an artist?

Well, I think it's good and that's how it should be. I don't think you should relax and say that the last album was big so we do not have to prove anything anymore. You want to get totally behind new albums and you should always want to have something to prove because there are always new people that can listen to the band.

Q: Quite true. This is the fourth album written with the current lineup of Phil Collen and Vivian C ampbell. Can you compare the dynamics of this lineup with the one that included first Pete Willis and Steve Clark, and then Steve Clark and Phil Collen?

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From one of the most successful yet accursed rock bands in history comes a story of resilience, determination, and survival. Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell explain how over 25 years of rock has added up to X.

"I think it was unfair, not having been with Def Leppard in the '80s, that they were lumped in with bands that they had nothing to do with. Poison, Cinderella - some of those bands had decent songs, but Def Leppard had great songs! Def Leppard was breaking ground musically," declares guitarist Vivian Campbell as he reclines on a sofa at the San Fernando Valley's Mates Studio - the same studio, it so happens, where he first jammed with Leppard 10 years ago. "I think the only thing Def Leppard was guilty of in the '80s was having a bunch of bad hairdos. And perhaps some bad fashion mistakes. But who in the '80s wasn't guilty of that?"

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Added the following guitar tabs to the Guitar Section:

• Long, Long Way To Go
• Me & My Wine
• Now

Rick Allen has been playing drums all his life, and nothing was going to stop him from doing what he loves to do. Nothing.

By now we all know the story about Rick's terrible car accident on December 31, 1984, which resulted in the drummer losing his left arm. One could only imagine the horror. The future of Del Leppard started to look mighty cloudy.

But only a few short months after his accident, Rick miraculously began a whole new approach to playing, with the help of family, friends, and a special electronic kit made for him by Simmons. Two years later, he was out playing live again.

MD: What is your current setup?

Rick: My current setup is an acoustic kick and snare, with a snare sample that I can fire with my left foot as well. From left to right it's snare trigger, hi-hat, kick drum, snare drum, and tom-tom on the floor–all on pedals. And then the top tier is pretty much a carbon copy of that: I've got pads that correspond, sound-wise, to what I've got on the floor pedals. The cymbals are all real, but I've got a couple of tricks that nobody's really figured out yet.

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I readily admit that Def Leppard is one of those bands that I link to my youth. Def Leppard wrote amazing music, mixed in with a lot of silly fodder. Killer songs like "Photograph", "Stagefright", "Hysteria", "Animal", "Women", and "Rocket" always seemed to give way to cheesy ballads like "Love Bites", and goofy tunes like "Pour Some Sugar On Me". Nonetheless I was able to look beyond the efforts I didn't like because the songs I did dig were just so damn good. Thus Def Leppard I always considered to be musical hero's of sorts. They were able to rock, yet appeal to girls, and even more importantly to radio!

Today Def Leppard returns with album ten. My initial response was disappointment. But after getting over the fact they will never write another "Hysteria" record I dove back into"X". Staying true to form there are ballads, even more so then ever. Songs like "Unbelievable" and "Long long Way To Go" are meant to pull at the heart strings of girls far and wide. Then there are songs like "Everyday" that have a light hearted feel to them, yet force you against your will to sing along.

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I don't know what it is with some of these bands. Do you eventually get to old to rock? Do they look back and think their older material is too heavy and too loud? Is it an age thing? I don't think so. At least not entirely. There are bands like Saxon and Iron Maiden that have been doing it just as long and haven't lost a step. So while age will take it's toll on most bands eventually, that's not the problem here. What happened to Def Leppard is much worse. One of the worst things that can happen to a rock band… Commercial success.

It's killed many rock bands and it always starts with a ballad. It only takes one. Then all of a sudden you get some major radio support, your song reaches the masses and it's adopted into the mainstream culture. What's wrong with that, you ask? Nothing. It's what every band strives for, and if they say they don't want that, then they're lying.

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The reason Def Leppard is one of the few 80s "arena rock" bands that still have a major label deal is because they always try to change with the times without being unidentifiable to longtime fans. Even though they may not sell 10 million copies of each album anymore, even 1/10 of that is good enough for a major label to hope for in the sad state the music business is in now. While many turned their back on the band with their last album, Euphoria, it looks like they won't be turning back around anytime soon. While this is the most "Def Leppard-ish" they've sounded in years, it's still not going to be enough to please the diehards.

Long gone is the big, bombastic rock sound that made them famous in the first place. The closest they get is on "Four Letter Word", which is an obvious rip-off of their own "Armageddon It". The big rock riffs are few and far between.

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What year is it again? While Def Leppard are quite literally working in the present tense with their single "Now," the song's video plays upon their status as '80s survivors by tracing the journey of a classic Lep T-shirt. The Sheffield boys are smart enough to know that there has always been a need for metal riffs and catchy choruses. And judging from their new album X, the band can still serve up both. Singer Joe Elliott and guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell spoke with VH1 about guilt-free mullets, the junkyard known as eBay, and how recording X almost turned into Barry White.

VH1: The "Now" video has a great concept, with the Def Leppard T-shirt changing owners and traversing eras.

Phil Collen: Getting a treatment for a video is like people giving you demo tapes. Most of the time they aren't great, but occasionally there's one that's cool." We chuckled about this one and thought it could really work! Then we met the Malloys, who had done Blink-182's videos. We said, "We don't really do the comedy thing like you do with Blink-182, but we can see where you're going to go with the video. It's goofy and funny but also nostalgic." It worked perfectly.

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One of the opening salvos has been fired in the war against the manufactured pop which litters the world's charts.

Def Leppard, who were arguably the UK's biggest band of the late-80's - early- 90's, stormed back into the Top 25 yesterday with their new single, Now, and guitarist Phil Collen recently took the opportunity to tell us what he thinks of the likes of Gareth and co.

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As any casual viewer of VH1's Behind The Music knows by now, few bands have had to face the kind of hardship and heartbreak that has dogged Sheffield, England's finest, Def Leppard, throughout their career. And even fewer have survived to tell the tale on Storytellers. Weaker-willed Behind The Music bands like the Bangles and Quiet Riot splintered simply because the didn't get along, but Leppard lost both their original guitarists (one, Pete Willis, was fired because of his alcoholism; the other, Steve Clark, drank himself to death) and their drummer, Rick Allen, lost his arm in a brutal car accident–and yet, the mighty Lep kept on rockin'. Glammy Londoner Phil Collen took Willis's place, Dio/Whitesnake veteran Vivian Campbell replaced the dear departed Clark, Allen learned how to drum with one arm, and now, a whole quarter-decade after Lep started, they're releasing their 10th album, X (the Roman numeral for 10).

…LAUNCH's managing editor Lyndsey Parker recently met up with Collen and Campbell at their San Fernando Valley rehearsal space, where they took a break from polishing their famously fun stage show to discuss their roles in one of rock's most tragic and triumphant sagas. Here's how it went:…

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Eighties pop-metal gods pair with Swedish master producer. Do not try to resist. A couple of years ago, a band named Bon Jovi put out an album called Crush that was intended merely to promote some live shows overseas and pay off a few mullet-replacement-surgery bills. Instead, the recording became their first American hit in years, thanks to the single co-written by Swedish popmeister Max Martin, "It's My Life."

Naturally, their fellow Eighties hair-bangers sat up and took notice. So X is Def Leppard's own version of Crush, complete with a Martin power ballad.

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Just some of the questions that were asked by readers of The Sun:

What has been the high point of the last 25 years for Def Leppard?

Does it feel sometime while writing a song that you can predict each other's ideas?

Are you going to release a Def Leppard boxed set at any point with rarities, live tracks and other interesting stuff?

After all this time in the business, are you guys still blown away by the fact that you have actually managed to achieve your dream of becoming such a hugely successful band? Do you still say to yourselves "I can't believe we've achieved all of this"?

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Halfway through their set two weeks ago at Irving Plaza in New York City, Def Leppard played their new single, "Now." The pop-metal legends were doing a one-off club gig arranged by their label to celebrate the release of their first album in three years and 10th overall, X (Island). Singer Joe Elliott started the song alone, strumming an acoustic guitar as a laid-back drum loop played in the background. When he began to sing the first verse, the rest of the band made a cautious entrance, creating a moody backdrop for his delicate rasp. Less than a minute in, things got interesting: Elliott's sweet talk grew more forward, and guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell added some pristine melodic embellishments. Then Collen signaled the beginning of the chorus with a flash of dissonance, and everyone but drummer Rick Allen started singing the title refrain in the band's signature four-part harmony. Not everyone in the sold-out crowd knew the words, but they knew the sound - pre-recorded rhythm track and dark melodic undertow aside, "Now" is classic Lep.

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I have been listening to your new album. I find it has a distict thread in the lyrics of find and keeping love. Since many artists write about what they know or experience I was wondering is this a response to the band or your current experiences?

How many videos are you guys planning to put out for the new album X?

Are you concerned that the commercial and pop-rock nature of X will alienate your core audience and rock radio at the expense of aiming for more of a Top 40 crowd, which seems highly unlikely? I've talked to several rock-radio PDs, who won't play "Now" because it's too soft while Top 40 radio thinks of DL as an 80s act. Aren't you risking losing fans on both ends?

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