Def Leppard Atomic Mess News

A lot of bands that were big in the '80s are now having trouble getting booked into bowling alleys, but Def Leppard's not one of them. The British melodic-rock quintet–which hit its commercial peak in 1987 with Hysteria, which has sold 16 million units worldwide–is still on the arena circuit, with a gig lined up for Tuesday (September 23) at the Pacific Coliseum. As lead vocalist Joe Elliott explains over the phone from a midtour break in Phoenix, he wouldn't have it any other way. "There is the odd person who it's always nice to see in an intimate setting," relates the 44-year-old singer. "I don't think Tom Waits would work too well in Madison Square Garden; you'd rather see him in Carnegie Hall. But there's a novelty factor about a band like us in an intimate setting. Other than sittin' down on a stool doin' like the VH-1 Unplugged­type stuff, Aerosmith, Zeppelin, us, Bon Jovi–whoever you wanna name–kinda gravitate to the larger-than-life persona. I think if you aim big and think big you actually end up just being big.

"Some people like that intimacy of stayin' small," continues the talkative rocker. "Maybe Norah Jones is going through a bit of a headfuck at the moment. She probably always wanted to just be Billie Holiday, but now she's Alanis Morissette, you know. And she's gonna be wanting to do intimate stuff, but 10,000 people per town are gonna want to see her do it, which means holding up in a residency for a month or just biting your lip and going with a big gig. For us, when we got offered the big gigs, that's what we were looking for. And as long as you put a value-of-the-money show on, the fans would rather see you in a bigger venue most of the time, anyway."

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It will be more than a blast from the past as Def Leppard brings its old and
new music to the Prince George Multiplex.

Some rockers say video killed the radio star. Guitarist Phil Collen says
video helped boost rock'n'roll band Def Leppard into superstar status.

"It (MTV) certainly helped. We embraced the whole video concept in the early
1980s," said Collen, on a break from Def Leppard's 10-month long road trip as
the band stopped in Saskatoon. "In the long run though, it (videos) did hurt
us I guess because it took away that mystique. They became very candy-coated
and did nothing to display our passion for the music."

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Steve Clark, the 30-year-old guitarist for the hard-rock band Def Leppard, was found dead at his London townhouse, Scotland Yard said yesterday.

Authorities said they were investigating the cause of Clark's death, but added there were no obvious injuries and no suspicion of foul play.

Clark was found by his girlfriend on the living room floor at his home on Old Church Street, in the fashionable Chelsea district of London, police said.

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The latest chapter in the headline-friendly Def Leppard story had Joe Elliot, the lead singer for the mega-selling metal band from Sheffield, England, arrested last week at a West Hollywood hotel for spousal assault.

Elliott and his girlfriend, actually, who both were later released on $50,000 bail each.

But guitarist Phil Collen says the incident hasn't affected the band's equilibrium as they rehearse for their upcoming tour, which hits Molson Amphitheatre on July 10, and promote the release of their new album, Slang, in record stores last Wednesday.

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These are tough times for the premiere pop-metal bands of the 1980s.

Warrant, Poison, Slaughter — and many of their brothers in hairspray — have mercifully slid into oblivion.

At least Britain's Def Leppard have survived, but the sight of all those empty Saddledome seats at last night's concert was still startling considering the band filled the joint to the rafters just eight years ago.

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If you're going to have a row in a hotel room, says Def Leppard's Joe Elliott, "make sure the doors are locked so no one can hear you."

Sage advice from a man who unwittingly found himself on the wrong side of the law in Los Angeles in May, when he and his girlfriend Bobbie Tolsma were both arrested and charged with assault. Charges were dropped the next day.

The singer is on the phone from a hotel room in Oklahoma City, frantically packing for the next jump on the band's Slang tour. It hits the Edmonton Coliseum Saturday.

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Hard rock veterans Def Leppard's collaboration with the production team behind hits by *NSync and Britney Spears will arrive in stores in July.

Island Records announced the group will celebrate its 25th anniversary with the release of "X" on July 30.

The new album sees the group teamed with various producers, including sessions at Joe Elliott's Dublin home conducted by longtime band associate Pete Woodruffe. Aerosmith producer Marty Frederickson oversaw sessions in Los Angeles.

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On the surface, Def Leppard's latest CD, "X," looks like a carefully orchestrated attempt to revive the career of a band whose fortunes have faded sharply since the days when albums such as "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" were racking up sales in the tens of millions.

The song "Unbelievable" finds Def Leppard teaming with songwriters Andreas Carlsson, Per Aldeheim and Max Martin - the tunesmiths who helped bring Bon Jovi back to its platinum-selling ways with the hit "It's My Life" from the 2000 CD, "Crush," and who have written multiple tracks for Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync.

Def Leppard also joined forces on three tracks with Marti Frederiksen, another hit-making songwriter who became Aerosmith's primary songwriting partner on that band's most recent release, "Just Push Play."

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Is it ever too late for love? Not in this roadside turnoff, baby.

To a claustrophobic crowd of over 4,500 (at $40 a pop), Def Leppard staged something of a comeback special last night, far exceeding the adrenalin and hysteria they generated their last couple times through, including the disastrous rock fest and their unappreciated surprise appearance at that Molson Rocks debacle, where people were falling asleep on the amps and hissing.

Joe Elliot, who was in his 20s when the band formed in western civilization's late '70s, looked like a husky mechanic, and his voice suffered slightly under a Canadian flu.

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Having just embraced - or endured - aging glam-metallers Poison and former Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil, E-Ville is now throwing open its doors to another band that's as synonymous with the '80s as Members Only jackets and Miami Vice.

But make no mistake - Def Leppard isn't some novelty reunion act, stumbling out of rehab to make a fast buck off the resurgence of interest in all things big-haired and tight-Spandexed.

"All these other bands from the '80s are re-forming and doing package tours, and we never went away," said guitarist Viv Campbell.

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I've added more information about the 2004 Def Leppard Convention in Las Vegas. This includes info on location and ticket purchases.

The mind is a wonderful thing. It can, for example, shield us from traumatic past experiences by burying them so deep inside the memory banks that only a face-to-face encounter can reawaken them.

Case in point, those hideous, sleeveless Union Jack T-shirts made famous by candy-coated, hairspray-scented British metal band Def Leppard.

So much for the joy of repressed memories.

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Def Leppard is back in the spotlight. Well, kind of.

A Def Leppard song is back in the spotlight at least, now that Mariah Carey has covered the 1981 power ballad Bringin' On The Heartbreak, with the accompanying video getting heaps of play on video stations such as MuchMusic and MTV.

Carey's diva-fied version of the tune is not sitting well with some of the Leps's hardcore fans, however.

"They've really reacted weirdly to it," Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen said Friday in a phone interview to promote the U.K. hard rock band's concert tonight at the Pengrowth Saddledome.

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Just three days after '80's hair-metal mongoloids Poison invaded the Agridome, veteran British rockers Def Leppard showed their mettle to a near sell-out crowd of 6,500 onlookers who were living in the past and loving every minute of it.

Twenty years, two months and one severed arm after the group last played the big orange barn, Def Leppard pulled out all stops on a full-blown arena rock extravaganza that pounded the giddy crowd of 20-, 30- and 40-somethings into submission with one hit after another in rapid-fire succession.

The songs have stood the test of time rather well and it was fitting that 44-year-old singer Joe Elliott would salute the crowd with a snippet of The Who's "My Generation" in the middle of his own group's monster hit "Rocket," about two-thirds the way through his band's 105-minute set.

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Their glory days are well behind them, but Def Leppard didn't leave their fans high and dry last night.

The 26-year veteran British quintet showed a crowd of about 5,000 at the Winnipeg Arena they may have aged but they haven't changed their spots. They were still serious about putting on a true arena rock show, with an equal mixture of old and new songs that would satisfy fans of any era of the band — from its heavy rockin' early days to the slick, radio-friendly material of the late 1980s and early '90s.

The group — vocalist Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage, guitarist Vivian Campbell, guitarist Phil Collen and drummer Rick Allen — started off by playing the entire first side of their 1981 debut album, High 'N' Dry, featuring their breakthrough hit, Bringin' on the Heartbreak.

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