'Yeah!' It's Def Leppard
Def Leppard has spent the better part of the past two decades trying to explain in interviews that the band has been miscast as a heavy metal act, and its real roots are more in the pop and glam rock era of rock 'n' roll.
It's been a rather futile experience. But with the release of the new covers CD, "Yeah!," singer Joe Elliott hopes Def Leppard has finally found a way to set the record straight on exactly the kind of music that shaped the group's sound.
"We've gone through a tedious amount of time trying to explain to people that we're not strictly a heavy metal band," Elliott said in a recent phone interview. "You're explaining (this) one tour, and 18 months later you go back on the road and the same journalist will headline an article that we're an '80s heavy metal band … So what's the easiest way of making the headline irrelevant is to make an album that's in the shops, in your hands, in your head, on the radio, that says more than a thousand words ever could."