Because we hadn’t done a record in a while, I guess everybody was backed up with ideas. It just started to come together so naturally, and we were in such a great place. “It’s like The Emperor’s New Clothes you start believing it. “Anywhere we looked, it seemed like everybody kept saying the album is dead,” sighs Joe. Teeming with ideas, the band rode an immense creative wave and emerged with Def Leppard’s 14 songs. Co-producing with longtime collaborator Ronan McHugh, the initial thought was to just cut a couple of tracks and perhaps release an EP. In between their seemingly endless tour schedule and following Campbell’s treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma (he’s in remission now), the musicians convened at Joe’s home studio in Dublin, Ireland during early 2015. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed making a record as much as I enjoyed making this one.” ![]() We personally didn’t even expect to do an album when we first went into the studio! We just wanted to embrace our influences and write a few songs we could be proud of. There were still expectations even when we did our first record On Through The Night. “We’ve been independent for seven years, we’ve loved every minute of it, but we haven’t made an album as such. “We’d never done an album when we weren’t contracted to do one,” explains Joe. However, while recording their self-titled eleventh full-length studio album, and first since 2008’s Songs from the Sparkle Lounge, the band members-Joe Elliott, Vivian Campbell, Phil Collen, Rick “Sav” Savage, and Rick Allen -found themselves in a rather new, if not entirely welcome position. With ten studio albums and countless sold out shows under their belts, it might seem like Def Leppard have done it all. ![]() If you’re willing to look for it, there’s always going to be uncharted territory in music. The feeling gets stronger so let yourself go! ![]() Magic and wonder will hit you like thunder ![]() This was psychologically completely different.So step right up 'cause your time has come “When you put four or five alpha males in one room with new songs it becomes a little competitive. All the things that we listened to growing up are leaking in, which it always has, but we didn’t block it this time.”Įlliott says the pandemic, which forced them to put their songs together remotely, was a gift. “On this record we were coming up with ideas that sounded like Bowie or Elton John, or Queen and Zeppelin. “We’re back to the roots of what got us into music, not back to ourselves,” Elliott said. The new songs see the band try to step away from the “albatross” of Hysteria, said Elliot, experimenting with piano, flamenco guitar and glam rock. They have also just released 12th studio album “Diamond Star Halos,” their first in seven years, which they pieced together during the pandemic despite the five members being spread across England, Ireland and the U.S. The jovial singer, still rocking the long hair and sporting a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses, knows it can’t last forever.īut he sees no reason the band’s journey can’t “stretch until 2035 when we’re the same age as The Rolling Stones are now.”ĭef Leppard are back on the road this summer with fellow rock veterans Motley Crue, Poison and Joan Jett.
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