Def Leppard Bringing on "X"
New album will be band's first in three years

Def Leppard are putting the finishing touches on their tenth album, tentatively titled X and due later this year. The band recorded the follow-up to 1999's Euphoria last year in Los Angeles and Sweden, with drummer Rick Allen adding his parts last December in Dublin.

For the first time in their history, Def Leppard have enlisted multiple producers, including their past crony Pete Woodruffe, Marti Frederiksen (Aerosmith), and the Swedish tandem of Andreas Carlsson and Per Aldeheim (Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync).

"It's certainly gonna be an energetic record," frontman Joe Elliott posts on the band's site. "It's gonna have ballads, it's gonna have mid-tempo songs, it's gonna have fast rockers. What we've got right now, is much more into the songwriter aspect of it, great melodies, rather than 'Wow, listen to this great riff!' So it's not necessarily gonna be a metal record. Right now, we're into just making a good rock record that appeals to more than just someone with a Metallica T-shirt on."

In other Def Leppard news, the band's 1983 smash Pyromania will be the subject of VH1's debut episode of Ultimate Albums, which premieres on Sunday night.

Andrew Dansby
http://www.rollingstone.com
March 8, 2002