They say a leopard never changes its spots. This obviously rings true, music wise, for rockers Def Leppard. The band, comprising lead vocalist Joe Elliott, drummer Rick Allen, guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, and bass player Rick Savage, hail from England and has been rocking hard since their 1977 debut. Exactly 22 years on, they have released their seventh studio album, Euphoria, which hit Malaysian stores on June 21.
Def Leppard first caused a hysteria on the US charts with their 1983 album, Pyromania, which had the hit single Photograph. However, success would come much later on home soil for this band. In fact, Def Leppard finally were acclaimed as rock stars in England only in 1987, when Hysteria won over the charts both in Britain as well as globally. That was the album that contained great tunes like Animal, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Armageddon It, Rocket and of course, Hysteria. Finally in 1995, the band compiled 15 of their greatest hits in one album, Vault. They also included one new song, When Love And Hate Collide.
Not unlike other bands, Def Leppard went through several upheavals which tested them as a band severely. The first incident happened in 1984, when drummer Allen lost his left arm in a car accident. After laying off for almost a year, he returned to the band with a Simmons electronic drum-kit, having taught himself to master it with one arm. Another tragedy struck in 1991 when guitarist Steve Clark, who had been wrestling with alcohol problems, died when from a potent cocktail of painkillers and alcohol.
Nowadays, the band is no longer young or restless. Each member has cleaned up his act and matured over the years, shedding the "bad" rocker image. But the fact remains that they still produce good songs. Euphoria sets the stage for Def Leppard to be at the helm of rock music once more. The album was recorded over a period of almost 12 months at vocalist Elliott's home in Dublin. Recently, Phil Collen, who is based in California, talked to us in London.
Are you guys going back to the '80s sound with Euphoria?
Not the '80s sound. We're making happy sounds. It's fun. When we made music in the '80s, it made
people feel good. Rock music in the '90s is very miserable, dark and depressing.
Nirvana was big in the early '90s.
Nirvana is good. All the bands that copied them didn't sound so good, they didn't have that same magic.
[In the '90s, rock music] stopped being entertaining, [and became] really self-indulgent and miserable.
We're not really going back to the '80s, but partly going back to the same kind of intention we had when
we did Pyromania and Hysteria. We made those records to make people feel good. The same goes
for this album. So much of that has been missing from rock music.
And how is the music scene these days?
I think everything goes in cycles. I'm talking mainly about the United States but it reflects everywhere.
Top 40 music has always been the same since the '50s, '60s - always happy, makes you feel good,
Mariah Carey, Backstreet Boys. People like this, it makes them smile. With other types of music, like
rock music, it got dark and serious. I think rock music is about to change now .... I understand people
want to be entertained again. They don't want to go to a show and see nothing. They want to go to a
show and go "Whoa!". I think that's going to happen in the millennium.
You joined Def Leppard in 1982, replacing Pete Willis at the right time. How did success hit
you?
I left Girl, a band from London, to join Def Leppard. Yeah, we [Def Leppard] were still playing at small
places. We were still just an opening act in America. I played on Pyromania and we released it, that
was the first album that we had a big success. And [then] there was a big gap in between [with] loads of
hard work. People always think, "You've got a big album, you can relax." It's not like that. It's like,
more work. [It] gets harder all the time. But, this is good, this is what we want to do.
Did you guys take a long time to record Euphoria?
This is the quickest album we've done, actually. It took us a year to record. We took about nine months
to write some of the songs and to find the directions that we want to go in.
Your last album was in 1996, Slang. It took you three years to come up with another album.
Why?
People go, "It has been so long", but they forget that we've been touring for a year. You have to be on
tour, you can't just go "Ohh! OK [we're] going to do another album". [Touring] takes a big chunk out of
your time.
Boy bands seem to be purging albums faster than the proverbial rabbit...
Yeah. They don't really do their own music, and they don't tour for very long. Some of these guys, they
go out there and they tour for three months [and then] plbbttthh! We go everywhere, you know! We
tour for a year and a half! And now that's a real tour!
What do you think of boy bands?
It's the same as anything else. When you have a big success, everyone copies it. That way, a business
man would go, "We can make money." And the kids would go, "I want to be a star." And it just
snowballs and you get millions off it and it gets to the point that the people would go, "Oh! I'm so sick of
this." And then something else comes along. In America, we switch on the tv and they all look the same.
[It was] New Kids On The Block 10 years ago, and you had Take That over here and now Backstreet
Boys, who are actually good because they can actually sing. Because a lot of these boy bands
[whispers] are terrible.
How did Steve's death effect you all?
Crappy. It was awful. We saw it happening. It was over a long period of time - about a five-year
period. The drinking got worse, and Steve used to come and say, "Look, what are we gonna do about
this. This is terrible. I can't really stop." I haven't drunk for five years. After this happened, it just
convinced me even more - alcohol can ruin you.
Do you wish things could have been different?
It's had its ups and downs. Yeah, certain things you wish ... but [shrugs] that's life, you know. At the
end of the day, we've come out pretty good ... all of us.
How have you matured as a guitarist?
I think you get less selfish as a musician the more you go on. When you're a jazz musician or classic
musician, you play exactly the same old thing over and over again. And you expect people to like it. It's
very indulging. I think we've all learned that people have a very short attention span, especially when
you're playing pop music or rock music. You have to be concise. You have to do a lot in a small amount
of time and [you have] to make it very interesting. When you first play the guitar, you play for ages and
you don't realize that it bores other people. And now in the computer age, everyone is online, there's so
much to do. Kids, as well as grown-ups in the '90s, have a very short attention span. This is our own
fault ... this a cultural thing. It comes with the computer age. We have so much information and so much
access, that we want to be entertained like little kids. We want more, now, now, now, NOW! And we
relate that to music. That's the thing I've learned, that you have to make it even shorter and more
exciting. You have to put more into less so that it doesn't bore people.
How does a band which has been together for so long tackle the songwriting angle?
Every single song is different. Everyone contributes, but not all at the same time. Some may write a
whole song and someone may write a bit of a song.
Do you have a special source for inspiration?
I just listen to other music. You get inspired by it, and you never know when it's gonna happen.
Plagiarism?
Yeah, sure, pure and simple. But the art is to take it and make it not sound like you stolen it. Borrow it.
[Laughs] That's how you get around it. You know, some bands go, "You can't do that. That's exactly
the same." But just borrow it and colour it up. It's fun.
What are the CDs you have with you now?
Buckcherry out of America - they sound like a combination of Guns N' Roses, AC/DC and Aerosmith.
And I've got Talvin Singh's O.K.
How did it feel when you made it big in your own hometown?
It was really good but we lost a bit of the excitement. We worked so hard to make it in our own country
and it happened in America [first] and we were like wow! because it was SO big. That, when it
happened in England it couldn't really compare, you know. Especially when you see how big America is
and how successful it [the album] was. It took a bit of the impact away because it happened the other
way around.
Is it still fun for you to play your old songs?
If we rehearse these songs, we'd go, "God, we've played this thousands of times. Hate this song!" All of
a sudden you play it in front of a person and they go, "Wow! This is great." And you go, "Oh really?
We've just been rehearsing it 3,000 times. Seems a bit dull to us, but [at least] you like it." It makes me
feel really good because you get [all sorts of] reactions. The song takes a different kind of face ... there's
a relationship.