Def Leppard
On Through The Night …
by Tina Ramirez
Metal Edge Magazine, June 2000 issue
As hard rock regains the foothold that was weakened by the angst of the '90s, Def Leppard is working hard to secure their place as one of the genre's main-stays. And with their latest album, tour, and two feature programs on VH1, they've been pretty hard to ignore. While touring to promote new release Euphoria, the seasoned rockers coupled their years of experience with a sheer love of music to captivate an audience who ranged in age from 14 to 40, leaving little doubt that they are well on their way to reclaiming their spot in the hard rock stratosphere.
Ask lead singer Joe Elliott to describe Def Leppard's sound and he replies, "Melody and harmonies entwined with clever guitar arrangements." It's true that they have crafted a clearly recognizable sound, and after 20 years and over 43 million records sold, Def Leppard continues to be welcomed in the open arms of rock fans across the world. Still possessing the youthful vitality that made them one of the most successful rock groups of the past two decades, they are setting out to conquer 2000 with both barrels loaded. Elliott updated Metal Edge in a n interview during the band's recently completed winter tour …
Metal Edge: Are you happy with the response to Euphoria so far?
Joe Elliott: Yeah, the response - media wise, record wise, our old fans, new fans - has been phenomenal. Radio response has been brilliant - Radio has totally accepted the band. If we make another great record, and get it out within 18 months or so, with a tour, I think we're in real good shape. I think the one thing people have come to realize is that age is not a factor anymore, it's the quality of your music. Of course, I wish 10 million people had bought [the album], I wish it was doing what the Santana record is doing. The one thing that makes me happy is that someone said six months ago that Santana would have an album that would sell six million, you would have thought that person was out of their mind. It just shows you that you should always hang in there because it will come around.
People have referred to Euphoria as Def Leppard's "comeback" album. How do you feel about that?
That's not how I feel at all, it's only been about three years since the last album came out. There were four and a half years between Pyromania and Hysteria, and five years between Hysteria and Adrenalize. It's kind of a standard fair now for bands to put an album out every three years, and we had this album turned 'round in less than a year, no bull. And, we never went away, so I don't see how it could possibly be a "comeback" album. We were on the road until the middle of '97 with Slang and we delivered this album in March of '99. If you're talking "comeback" from the a commercial point of view, it's done a hell of a lot better than Slang did. I mean, Slang wasn't the turkey everybody kind of made it out to be - Let's not forget, for its apparent unsuccessfulness, we got some really good reviews on that album. Believe it or not, we received more bad reviews on Hysteria than we did on Slang. I thought it was a great record and I stand by it to this day. We purposely narrowed our own vision on Slang, we were sick to death of making big, fat, produced records. We wanted to do something that sounded a bit more raw. With Euphoria, we have been playing to crowds of 10-12 thousand and more, and it's picking up. Rock radio is playing us again. "Paper Sun" is great, "Promises" spent nine weeks at number one on the rock chart, and we've been getting phenomenal air-play on "Day After Day."
Why did you decided to release "Day After Day" instead of "21st Century Girl?"
Good question. It was a decision that was made without the band knowing about it, which is something I wasn't overly happy about. Having said that, if it does the business, fair enough. It was between the management and the record company that decided it. They maybe researched it and it may well have been the right decision, I was a little annoyed that we weren't actually invited in on the loop, which won't ever happen again because I vented my frustration on the phone. I'm happy that "Day After Day" is doing well, but I was surprised at the choice. The thing is, "Day After Day" is going to rock radio, "21st Century Girl" was going to go to Top 40. So they are possibly just holding back until the tour this summer. I've yet to discuss this with anyone.
Was it a conscience decision to go back to the "traditional" Lep sound with Euphoria?
Euphoria wasn't a desperate, back peddling thing. We didn't say, "Oh, the last album flopped, let's go back to doing something safe again." The only calculation that we made was to make sure that when we wrote songs, we did them so they didn't all sound the same. We wanted to make a new record that had the same variety of songs as our greatest hits album. That was pulled from a 14 year period and you've got everything from "Bringin' On The Heartbreak" to "When Love & Hate Collide" and all the points in between. The variety on that record includes various ballads, tempos, and fast songs. We wanted out new album to have that kind of depth and variety. So we ended up with things like "Kings Of Oblivion," and the other end of the spectrum, "To Be Alive" and "Paper Sun" - which has the most serious lyric on the record - and then "Back In Your Face" - which has the most ludicrous lyric on the record.
Some people might argue that "All Night" has the most ludicrous lyrics on the record.
I don't see "All Night" as ludicrous, I see "Back In Your Face" as ludicrous. But that's just our choice as humans to judge things in individual ways. I've had so may people come up to me and say, "When are you going to release 'All Night' as the next single?" All females, mostly, they get off on it.
How's this tour been so far?
Great! Attendance has been great, and it's very consistent right now. We haven't come off stage once having said, "That was a bad show." It's just really enjoyable to do these shows night after night knowing that the response has been so good. We're having a couple of months off and coming back to the States in the summer, three months from July to September. Sav's girlfriend is expecting a baby towards the end of June, so that's why we can't start until then. There may be a couple of other things we do, like festivals, but nothing is confirmed yet.
What type of venues will you be playing? Will you continue to play arenas?
We're going outdoors again like we did last summer. It will be a mixture of different types of venues. Last year, people were starting to mention in the chat rooms on the internet that we were doing state fairs and people were shocked. But we've been doing state fairs our whole career. We did state fairs in '81, '83, and '88. We did tons of them on the Hysteria tour. This summer is going to be a mixture of sheds, state fairs, and arenas. If there's a place where we want to go or where there's a demand for us, we'll go.
Any plans on paying (their typo, not mine! There's a handful actually- LK) New York, LA, and some of the other bigger cities?
We're hoping to. We've avoided all major cities so far because we want to save them for the summer.
I've read that playing arenas isn't "cool" anymore. People claim to like the smaller venues more. What do you think?
Come to one of our shows and see for yourself… I mean, it's supply and demand, isn't it? If you've got a 10,000 seat building and you can put 10,000 people in it, why would you want to play a 5,000 seater and leave 5,000 people out on the pavement. We're just very fortunate that we can play arenas and put a fair amount of people in them. The crowds get off o n it. We actually work better in an arena than we do on a small stage. it's fun doing the little venues, but it's not as much fun as doing the big ones. Def Leppard works great on a bigger stage. We're that kind of band and that's what we've always wanted to be. Our aim was to play Madison Square Garden, not CBGBs.
What elements need to come together to make it a great show for you?
A real good rapport between us and the audience. That's the most important thing for me - that's more important than the performance that we put on.
How do you obtain that?
Well, you work it out over the first two or three songs. If there are a lot of people there that are really up for it, that makes it easier. If they are saying, "Impress me," then you have to go out there and work them up. I have to say, "Alright, here's the challenge, it's me against 10,000, who's gonna win." That's the way you've got to look at it. You've got to shake it up a little bit and add some energy and excitement to it. That is what makes people want to come watch the show rather than stay at home and listen to the record.
It puts a lot of pressure on the frontman.
I think there's so many people out there who are just so scared to do that. They're all afraid to be a rock star, they're afraid to be the frontman, they're afraid to put themselves on show. That's why I joined the band in the first place. I wanted to be like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. You see people like David Lee Roth who are just legitimately over the top, almost like Liberace. What a great frontman! I mean, everybody's dying for him to rejoin the band except the people that are in the band! I'm really happy that people like Kid Rock and Marilyn Manson come out and they're characters. I'm not one to mention any bands, but you look through the bands from the '90s and there aren't really that many characters. A lot of it was very insular. they were shoe-staringly boring. I mean, one of my favorite albums of all time is Throwing Copper by Live. I went to see them and it was the most boring show I've ever seen I my life, I couldn't believe it. they made Supertramp look like the New York Dolls. The singer was fantastic - his voice was good - the drummer was fantastic, but the actual show was like watching somebody soundcheck, there was just no vibe. On the other hand, you can go and see Rob Zombie and he's charging all over the place putting on a show and it is great! Marilyn Manson is a show. Kid Rock is a show. To us, the music is more important than the show, but actually projecting it in a certain way is much more important than just standing there and playing. That's how some bands play and the audience might as well be home listening to the record. There wasn't much in the '90s that made you want to go out and watch a band, and to me it was boring. I'm sure someone 15 years old would say I'm full of shit, but they never got to see Led Zeppelin, Guns N' Roses or Kiss, where there's stuff going off that makes it an event.
From looking at your live audience, it seems you're capturing a lot of new, younger fans. Are you surprised?
Well, I'm surprised at the variation of it. I mean, we've done some gigs where you can't see anybody under 25, and then we've done some gigs where you can't see anybody over 25. I hate to use this comparison, but it's kind of like a baby Rolling Stones situation. They must have a hell of a lot of 50-55 year olds going to their shows, but they still have a bunch of 20 year olds going, as well. What we have is the same thing on a smaller scale.
Do you think VH1 has played a big part in that?
Well, in the last 18 months it's done nothing but good things for us, but it's strange how they've split us in two - They'll play to death the Storytellers and the Behind The Music, but they don't play our videos.
That's interesting, since you are part of the group of artists considered to be video pioneers.
Yeah, and there are people who would like to see our videos who don't get a chance. Storytellers was fun, but I must say that I'm slight embarrassed by it because I was completely out of my head on morphine. I had an injection about three days before and I was taking prescribed tablets and I barely remember doing it. When I watched the tape for the first time, I genuinely couldn't remember doing the show. I had forgotten we had done it, I was watching it like I was watching another band. I mean, the performance is fine, but I'd like to do it again one day when I'm not mediated to high heaven. I sound like a junkie, but I was prescribed medication! [laughing]
Why didn't you have them edit the beginning of "Rock of Ages?"
Because we thought it was funny, it shows the human side of the band. I forgot the words! It's very infrequent that I forget the words onstage, and I don't have a teleprompter. I believe you should know your own lyrics. On this one occasion, heavily medicated by a doctor, I just had a brain fart - it looked so comical we thought we should leave it in. There's no such thing as perfect. Imperfections are what make an artist good … I screwed up the words, we thought it was funny, we left it in.
Are you pleased with the finished results of the Behind The Music episode?
Yeah I thought Behind The Music was great - we're a fine band for it. We were half way through making Euphoria when they came over [to tape it].
That's right, you recorded the album in your house.
Yeah. They filmed it all at my place. Our manager phoned us up and said they wanted to do a Behind The Music on Def Leppard. We said great. So, we found a couple of days off. It took a couple of hours with each member and we just told it as it is. I was really happy with it and it was well received. After it had been broadcast a couple times, we got the stats back, and it figured in the top three of the requested reruns.
Having been around awhile, do feel the music industry has become more commercial, therefore damaging?
It is a lot more damaging. It's worse for new bands, the whole way that it works now is so different than when we got our deal. When we got our deal we got signed for six albums, and when I was growing up, if I bought the first album that a band released, I knew damn well that they were going to release at least another two. Now, there are bands getting dropped after two albums and their first album may have sold a million and a half but their second only sold 350,000 - No third album. These guys must be shitting themselves. It's very difficult. I find it astonishing that the industry, nowadays, is not into career building. They're into the fast buck, and that's all they're interested in. there are very few bands that never quite made it but were given 10 stabs at it. It doesn't happen anymore. REO Speedwagon's big album was like their 11th album. When your first album goes nuts, everybody expects everything you do after that to do the same thing and you can't. A lot of bands need nurturing. There's a lot of talent that goes by the wayside because some executive that doesn't know a B-flat from a fucking Mercedes Benz decides, "They're losing money so let's throw them in the bin." Speculate to accumulate does not exist in the music business anymore. It's really sad.
Does that commercial pressure affect Def Leppard? Have you ever been asked to produce a "certain type" of record?
No. We've never had an A&R man do the A&R man's job. We've always been left well enough alone. We've never been told go back and write more songs or go back and remix it. They're been happy with what they receive. When we gave the rough mixes of the first seven or either songs of Euphoria to the record company, I got, for the first time ever in my career, a phone call from the [Managing Director] of what used to be Mercury Records. He said, "If the rest of the album sounds like this, you're going to deliver us the biggest album we do this year." They were happy with what they heard, they loved it.
Some critics have said that Def Leppard sacrifices creativity for commercial success. How do you respond to that?
Those people would be uninformed as to what this band is all about. That's just hearsay off the top of their head because they don't necessarily like the band. That's one thing we've never done. If we were just into making profit, we wouldn't spend three years at a time in a studio running up enormous bills. I'll tell you this much, we had to sell at least four million copies of Hysteria to break even. I didn't even know that until after we'd done it. We weren't even concerned about the money, we were just trying to make the best record of all time. So that dispenses that rumor. Quality has always been more important to us than anything else.
Do you hear any Def Leppard influences in any of today's new artists?
There are a couple of songs on the last Marilyn Manson album that were done a totally different way, but had little bits that reminded me of us. Like "Rock Is Dead," that reminded me a bit of us. In fairness, I've actually heard a couple of journalists mention the same thing. More obviously, just the acknowledgment that the band is actually acceptable and cool. When the Offspring got in touch with us and asked if they could sample the beginning of "Rock of Ages" on "Pretty Fly For A White Guy," that was cool. There's this band called Sons of Sacrifice - they're a rap band, I guess - and they just totally reworked "Foolin'." They've actually sampled the beginning, sang the first verse over it in Boys II Men-type harmonies and then go into this whole rap thing. It's great that people form different forms of music are acknowledging our material. I think Euphoria really is the alternative to everything else that's out there right now. It was mainstream in '88 to '92 and there were a million bands trying to sound like us. Now, I don't think there are any bands trying to sound like us, but there are a few that have possibly be influenced by what we've done.
What are the differences between touring now and touring 20 years ago?
It's way better …. The equipment has gotten better, and we're better at it now than we were then. We're actually good at touring, we've a very well-oiled machine, but it still retains a massive amount of electricity and excitement for us. I think that's why it works so well. I mean, we've never said, "Alright, let's just go out an do it." Never, ever, EVER. I do every gig like it's my last. I'm not saying it is, but that's a great way to approach it. I look at the crowd, I smile, I bully them, I'm a singer, I'm a bullfighter, I'm a bully, I'm a romancer, I'm a master of ceremonies, you name it. It's fun because I've learned the art. We've all learned the art of communicating with the crowd in our own way. I'm the only one that does it with my mouth, that's all.
After all you've been through, what keeps Def Leppard together? What keeps you going?
The sensible answer is that we're good at what we do and why the hell should we stop? But we're real good mates, that's the thing - We can travel, we can talk to each other. We have a very common thread humor wise, music style, tastes, we very rarely fight about anything. We discuss things like grown-ups. We don't have drunken, drugged-out, fucking stupid times that could ruin relationships. We like what we do and we're all music fans. The stupid answer would be, 'What the hell else are we going to do?' It's great being in this band. it's what we always wanted to do, and I don't see why it should ever wear off. I wanted to do this since I was 12, why would I want to stop when I'm 40? I would do it for free, I really would, because I can't think of anything I'd rather do. I'm getting paid for doing a hobby, not having a job.