Def Leppard – Interview with Phil Collen

Is it inspiring knowing that so many bands grew up listening to Def Leppard and list you as their influence?

It really is. When we were growing up, it was very important, just forming a band on influences. We were trying to mix it up. We liked Bowie and Led Zepplin. It is very important and very flattering as well.

Was there any reasoning behind the names of a bunch of the albums ending with ‘ia’ like Pyromania, Hysteria, and now Euphoria?

Actually, the first two were a complete coincidence. We weren’t even aware of it until a bit later, actually. Everyone started digging it and we tried to come up with a third one and we never could, closest we got was Dementia. (laughs) So, it ended up being Adrenalize. The cool word always wins, really. We were actually gonna just call this record Def Leppard. With Adrenalize we kind of racked our brains and went through a bunch of stuff. I think then I came up and just said, “What about Euphoria?” We had a song on the last album called “Pearl Of Euphoria” and it was just a cool word and it just represented the music. And it sounded a bit similar to Hysteria and it seemed to gel straight away. The guys at the record company, especially in England, freaked. They loved it.

How important has Mutt Lange been to you guys?

He’s so important. He is part of the band, really. A lot of it was his concept. We had ideas, but when I joined the band they were working on Pyromania and they were trying to do something different then and add some of the Queen influence in there, like with the big melodies and tons of backing vocals. Mutt’s whole thing was “You don’t want to just be a rock band. You want to be more than that.” It’s true. That is exactly what we wanted to be. He had the concept, really, and when we made Hysteria, he said, “Let’s make a rock version of Thriller that you can have like seven hit singles from.” And we did. It was amazing. That was all his idea in the first place. He always made us better than we were and he pushed us, which is great.

How has Pete Woodroffe been since he produced much of the new album?

We have worked with him for nine years. We worked with him on Adrenalize, and when we came and did this album we had to persuade people because we said we wanted to do it with Pete. And they said, “Well, is it going to sound like the last album, Slang?” ‘Cause we kind of cut that album live, we had live drums and all that stuff. But we said that we wanted to go for a different sound and we wanted to go back to a real studio album like Hysteria and Pyromania were and at first a few people were skeptical, including Pete. He didn’t want to spend a year of his life stuck in a room with us. We had to persuade him. We sat around and cut a demo for “21st Century Sha La La La Girl” and we said, “This is what we want the album to sound like.” Old Def Leppard sound-ish. And that kind of got him back in it. And when we played the demos to a few people, they were freaking and they really were digging it. We knew straight away that Pete was really the only person we could work with, aside from a couple other people. But people don’t understand how we work; we do everything separately. We wanted to do it the same as we did Hysteria, Adrenalize, and Pyromania.

So, was the writing and recording in the end similar to how you worked in the past?

Very similar. Again, going back to the Mutt thing, we learned that it is a process of elimination; once you’ve got the direction, the song is either good or it’s bad. It’s a process of elimination. So it’s like, “Is the song too slow? Does the vocal bridge? Is the chorus strong enough? Is the bridge strong enough?” It’s just stuff like that. Again, what we learned from Mutt. That is what we did in the past. I think on Slang and on Retro Active it was like, “Okay, let’s write a song and let’s record it,” like most bands do. But on this album, we went back to the old method, if you like.

Did you guys actually see the VH1 special Behind The Music?

Yeah. I really liked it and I liked how it turned out, because you never know how these things are gonna turn out and they end up making you look like a complete dick or something. But it was really cool.

After watching the special and all of the other specials on the ’80’s rock bands, do you think that you guys get unfairly categorized with the not-so-great ’80’s bands?

Absolutely! In fact, that was our downfall. I think we are back, and back with a really big album. I think what really burns an artist out, or a band, is copying. Alanis Morissette is going through that right now. She had a huge album and everyone is trying to copy that, from Natalie Imbruglia to every female artist you can imagine trying to do that. What turns people off is that they go, “I’m sick of it,” and they get a not-so-good version of the real thing. We tried to distance ourselves from a lot of those bands. We really do think we are much more unique than the bands we’ve been thrown in with, and that includes heavy metal music. We have nothing to do with that, we are a rock band. It was very frustrating and irritating when you get thrown in with bands like Poison or something. I’m not trying to have a superior attitude or something, but we were really different. It was a different thing from all those bands. It was kind of a bummer.

On the new album, I like the song “Demolition Man”. It completely reminds me of the Def Leppard of old. Are there any songs that you really like a lot?

Yeah. I really dig “Paper Sun” because it is a bit darker than some of the other songs and yet it’s very typical Def Leppard with the big vocals, two guitar solos, and it’s got the kitchen sink with tons and tons of vocals. I also like “All Night”, but I like the entire album really. That is why I can sit back and say, “Oh, I really like this song.”

I have to say the thing I enjoyed the most is that you guys didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. I’ve listened to you guys since Pyromania and you guys went back to that sound and I was wondering if all along you set out to get back to your roots.

When we started the record and were recording demos for it, we didn’t know what direction to go. We were sort of stuck somewhere between the Spice Girls and Oasis. I literally asked a few people in the business, as well as fans, “What would you like to hear?” and everyone said unanimously, “There is a huge void and it would be fuckin’ great if you sounded like Def Leppard.” So that is what we did. We went back and literally we sort of did another ‘greatest hits’. (laughs) We looked back at some of our songs and just gave them that treatment. We just tried to evoke some of those same feelings when we did some of them songs. The prime one is probably the first single, “Promises”. It kind of reminds me of Pyromania and “Photograph” type Def Leppard. It is kind of up and it is rock and it absolutely sounds like Def Leppard. So that is what we went with. It was funny, when we actually went to record some of this stuff, as soon as it started sounding like that we were like, “Wow!” It was almost like we forgot how to do that. It was a complete hoot. We tried to get away from it before because it got burned out. I mean, literally like Brian Adams and God knows how many bands sounded like us, I’m not knocking him at all, but some of his stuff sounded similar. And what happens is that people just get fed up. That is what happens with all movements after a while, like the grunge thing became a parody of itself. I think throughout the ’90’s we were afraid of doing anything that sounded like Def Leppard up until this point.

When you are writing, do you write about specific things? Or do you lay down the music and write as you go to the melody?

That is always the same way. Usually on the classic Def Leppard albums the song would be written and it would get changed. There’d always be something in there where someone would go “I don’t like that.” It’s a little bit frustrating, but no one has any egos or anything and it doesn’t get personal when someone says, “This bridge section kinda sucks.” It’s like, “Okay, let’s make things stronger.” But on Slang and Retro Active we just wrote the song and recorded it. There wasn’t much involvement with a fine toothed comb to change anything.

Does it blow your mind that Def Leppard has sold 41 million records in your career?

Well, you know what was really cool when we did that thing in New York, when we got the Diamond award (awarded to artists who sell ten million copies of an album in the U.S.). It was really cool. It was an elite group of artists. I’m sure that everyone was quite able to throw a tantrum there, but there were no egos there. We met Elton John, Billy Joel, and Boyz II Men. And everyone was really cool. Kenny G was the nicest guy in the world. It’s like you go in there and you wonder, “What is this going to be like?” Like we also saw some old friends, like Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. It was cool, but it also confirmed something for us. I mean, we knew we sold all of these records, but that was a confirmation. It was really a great feeling.

Do you think that Def Leppard unfairly gets left out of conversations about bands with staying power, like the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith?

I think the thing is that Aerosmith are a bit older than us, and both those bands, the Stones and Aerosmith, have had part twos of their careers. But it has been over a decade since we’ve had a slam-dunk hit over here in America. If we have one now, they may start saying that stuff. I mean, already people have seen the VH1 thing and that has helped quite a bit, but people think we’ve reformed. But actually we’ve been working all along. I think it takes an event or something to make a thing like that happen.

How do you think music has changed since the early ’80’s, both musically and within the business?

The music industry is more of a business. It always has been, but it is more business oriented now. It used to be an art form that allowed some people to make some money. Now it’s a business that sometimes lets people have an art form.

It hurts those long-term artists.

Exactly. The whole thing is the quick burnout. That is our fault as humans, not the industry’s. We are like spoiled kids. I mean, there is so much choice, which is cool, but the downside to all that is like, great, everyone has a car or two, but the downside is that the freeways are completely clogged. And the problem with people getting exactly what they want is that they get bored. A lot of time music has become a backdrop for a movie or something. It doesn’t have the same passion or importance that it used to have and that is a shame. Just as a whole, I think the difference is that it isn’t as important in people’s lives now, and it’s part of something else like a soundtrack or a jingle. The amount of bands that go, “We’ve got this song on this soundtrack,” I mean, it’s like, “Great, but what about the music?”

You guys have die-hard fans. Is it your goal now to bring in some of the newer generation?

That is always our goal, but the real trick is, like with Hysteria you’d get really young kids, like ten years old, and you’d get fifty year old people, too. It was really nice. That is always what you want. It is the ideal situation.

For your live show, do you think that the Def Leppard of ’99 will be as good or better than in the ’80’s?

I think on like Slang we didn’t have a real production, we just went out and played. Some of that was great. I think what we are going to do this time is a combination of both. We have been rehearsing over at Joe’s (Elliott, vocals) place in Dublin and we will also rehearse in L.A. and then do some promo and radio show gigs in England. We are going to do a warm up tour of the States with some outdoor shows. Hopefully we can come back and do an arena tour with more of a production. It is cool when you see someone like Pink Floyd because you have something to look at. Again, it is the whole ’90’s thing where you associate no production, no frills, no nothing, and you’re like, “That was cool.” I mean, everything is an anecdote to everything else and I think that has been done now and people really want to see a show again. I know I do. I saw Aerosmith the other night and they were just fucking great.

It seems like a lot of stuff from the ’80’s is making a comeback. Is there anything you don’t want to see come back?

There was a load of crap at the tail end of the ’80’s, and everyone just got so sick of it. I don’t care to see that whole attitude, druggy, drinking thing. It ain’t cool. It kills people. It’s not cool to drive your car when you are wasted. All that shit is kinda ridiculous. I like the entertainment part.

What do you think of the new breed of ‘rock stars’?

Like who? (laughs)

I don’t know. (laughs) I guess that was sort of my point. Really the lack of. Do you find music to be really vanilla?

I think there is a void. You do have Top 40. It is always consistent. You have Brandy and Madonna who will always be in the Top 40, and all these boy bands, but it’d be really cool to have a rock band in there. I know you have new bands like Korn, but there is a big difference between the singer for Korn and Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. Steven is a rock star, or Mick Jagger. It’d be nice to have some of that stuff back again.

Do you think it is their flamboyance and aura that surrounds them?

It’s a bit of everything. I mean, it is the flamboyancy, but they are pretty sharp guys. It’s more than that. They just deserve their title and can actually back it up. I just think it has been miserable for rock bands in the ’90’s and I think it’d be nice if it were more fun again.

Do you think that is partially why people like Ozzy still bring in new fans every day, because of the lack of rock stars?

Yeah. Because people really like that. Despite what some ’90’s bands said, I think people do dig that. It’s escapism. People like something they can latch on to, even if it is an image, whether it’s Michael Jordan or Ozzy. You’ve got Marilyn Manson now, but I don’t think he quite goes across the board. People want larger than life and in your front room.

Is there any advice you’d give up and coming bands about becoming a rock star?

You’ve got to believe in what you are doing, one hundred percent. And then back it up. You’ve got to go out and sing your ass off, and look good, too. It’s got to be a combination. Otherwise, it’s just spouting your mouth off.

So are you going to just keep Def Leppard going until you fall off the Earth?

People always say, “How do you keep doing this? Some bands just go on and get tired.” I say, “When you get tired, you should just stop.” I mean, we work really hard and we enjoy it. We have something to say, and the day we don’t have something to say is the day we have to knock it on the head. We still have a lot to say, not particularly with lyrics, but we have something to say by making music to make people feel better or feel a certain way. That is what we are all about.

What do you guys have planned to bring in the millennium?

Actually, somebody invited us to come down and play in Goa in India. They got this big hotel and they were like, “Do you want to come down and hang?” And we were like, “Hey, that’s cool.” I got a feeling we are going to be on tour somewhere so we’ll probably be somewhere like Moscow, Idaho or something.

Are you worried that all this crazy stuff is going to happen?

I’m sure there are a few things here and there that will go wrong, otherwise, there wouldn’t be such a fuss. But perhaps nothing will happen at all. What do you think?

I’m thinking nothing’ll happen. I think people are bent out of shape for nothing.

Just like someone said to Joe, “You know we are going to have to come down and change your alarms,” and it’s like, wait a minute. It seems like a bit of a scam.

I know. It’s like everyone is so worried that they aren’t Y2K compatible.

I know. Well, we are anyway. (we all laugh)

You know what is so funny? We were going to ask you if you Def Leppard were Y2K compatible, but we thought it was ridiculous to ask.

(laughs)

Can’t wait to catch you guys at an outdoor show.

It’ll be really cool. Summer stuff is always a hoot. Get your mosquito spray on and away you go.

+ charlie craine