Def Leppard is currently touring the US behind its 1999 release Euphoria (Mercury)
by Joe Lalaina
Who inspired you to play guitar?
Marc Bolan inspired me to pick up a guitar when I was around nine years old. I saw him on TV, and he looked so cool and had the greatest hair. I gravitated toward anything with a guitar riff from that point on. But Rory Gallagher, my first real guitar hero, made me study the instrument seriously about three years later. I copped his licks, bought his albums and went to his shows.
What is the one piece of gear you couldn't live without?
My head. As far as technical equipment … I'm not sure. I have so much of it now that it's ridiculous. Prior to joining Dio in 1982, my first serious band was Sweet Savage, and I had just one Marshall amp and one guitar. Gear was vital to me then. These days, there's so much of it at my disposal, and equipment companies even give me things for free. I don't get as attached to gear anymore.
What are you listening to these days?
A lot of pop music. A band from Wales called Catatonia is one of my favorites. I no longer listen to a lot of guitar music. What happened to rock guitar in the late Eighties really burned me out. It became an Olympic sport; there was just too many people play too many notes. There were so many technically proficient players, but you couldn't tell who was who.
If there's one thing you could change about the music business, what would it be?
"Music" and "business" don't belong together. You either learn to coexist as a musician in the music business or you don't. You're always going to be catering to the business side of the music, so you have to compromise your integrity. When you're first starting out, you're playing purely for music; but as soon as you enter a studio to make an album for a record company, and sell a record, then you're doing it more for the business end. Ultimately, your career tends to be more about business than music, and that's an unfortunate truth.
Were you disappointed in the sales of Def Leppard's last album, Euphoria?
Not at all. These days aren't the best of times for bands like Def Leppard, so we're happy to be one of the few groups form the Eighties who've survived. We didn't have expectations that Euphoria was going to sell in the multimillions. It went Gold in the US, and it certainly sold better than our previous album, Slang.