Def Leppard

Fri 31st Oct, 2008 in Features

You can imagine my excitement when my Editor calls to ask if, “I am interested in doing an interview with Def Leppard’s Phil Collen?” No questions about it, of course I am interested. Luckily, the man himself shows equal enthusiasm, as we talk about the phenomenon that is Def Leppard.

Calling from Los Angeles, which has been home for the past 18 years, Phil informs me that both drummer Rick Allen and guitarist Vivian Campbell live there. Bassist Rick – œSav’ Savage lives just outside of Sheffield and vocalist Joe Elliott is just outside of Dublin. Joe has chosen Dublin as “Ireland is very similar to being in England. You get the same stuff on TV, beans on toast…just things you’re used to – that’s one of the reasons Joe’s stayed in Dublin.”

Phil prefers it “out in The States, especially in California because of the weather really. It’s quite dreary in the UK – we just played there. It’s summer, London was okay but we went up to Newcastle and it was really crappy. Just grey and overcast and you just go, “Wow, this is summer!” Then you get back here and it’s great!”

Having thoroughly acclimatised, Phil ensures he’s no longer a pasty Brit. “I go out in the sun now and I’ve got a bit of a base…in the 10 days I’ve got off this summer, I’m just gonna go to the beach with the family and enjoy it!”

The band originated from Sheffield some 30 years ago and Phil believes the dreariness was a great catalyst to start the band. “It’s true about Sheffield and a lot of other places. There was not a lot to do – it was a good way of escapism, that’s what being in a band and about being an artist is, it’s all about an escape route.” Phil nevertheless was a Londoner, but “I wanted to get away from England and the dreariness.”

Forming in 1977, Def Leppard was part of the – œNew Wave of British Heavy Metal’. They sold over 65 million albums worldwide, predominantly through the mega successful Pyromania and Hysteria. There was no backup plan for Phil – who worked in a factory after leaving school – had the band not succeeded. “Quite naively there was no back-up plan. Again, I always think there are different routes you can take. A plan that does not always work out, you can manipulate it to work in another way.”

Despite the mega sales, courtesy of the grunge movement Def Leppard’s brand of heavy metal was unfashionable for a period. Phil is philosophical about being in vogue again.

“It’s really nice, but just like you said; it’s a flavour of the month. You have to realise it’s not a permanent thing. It’s so temporary. You really have to enjoy it while you can and really work your ass off, as it changes all the time.” The change is not exclusive to the music scene but also incorporates life in LA. “I’ve been away from California for six weeks while we were touring Europe and because of this recession, the amount of places that have closed down quickly that were there for years. It’s changed just like that! Actually being in a band’s the same thing.” The ethos for a band is “just enjoy it, cherish it and try to make to better. Work at it very hard, as it really does disappear so quickly.”

Things may come and go but the band is still around despite its fair share of tragedies. In December 1984, Rick Allen lost his left arm in a car crash when his speeding Corvette swerved off the road on a sharp bend and went straight through a dry-stone wall. Guitarist Steve Clark’s escalating alcoholism ended in death from an accidental mix of prescription drugs and alcohol in 1991. Former Dio and Whitesnake guitarist Vivian Campbell filled the vacancy and Rick lived to play another day with a specially crafted drum kit. Phil believes it’s important to see “the glass half full. Things just work out; you just gotta keep sticking at it.”

Def Leppard is one of few artists who have received two Diamond Awards (for albums in excess of 10 million sales). ”[It was] the first time I understood the magnitude, that we’ve sold that many albums…it was like wow!” Phil enthuses. “We’d obviously achieved something on a huge scale. It was at that moment it hit home that it was a reality.”

The Diamond Awards were achieved via 1983’s Pyromania and 1987’s Hysteria. For a while the band stuck to one word title albums like Adrenalize. Phil thinks “we got stuck in a rut where that was concerned. We stuck by a rule. A one word title is great cause it sticks in the imagination. It’s strong; it absorbs more people in.”

The rule did not apply to their latest offering Songs from a Sparkle Lounge, their first album in six years. “When we did this album, we had this place backstage called the Sparkle Lounge where many of the songs were written. It was refreshing to not think about this strict phrase that summed it all up.” The album is the “first real valid title we’ve ever had. It describes the album properly.”