How ya doin,” booms the voice down the line from Los Angeles. The voice belongs to Joe Elliott, the singer of DEF LEPPARD, probably the largest Rock band on the planet. It's been five long years since the release of the Hysteria album, an album which certified the band’s position at the pinnacle of the Hard Rock tree, against all odds it even surpassed sales of Pyromania. But, despite the super-stardom ensured by these two releases, LEPPARD haven't been afforded the luxury of living a nirvana. Between Pyromania and Hysteria a horrific car accident severed drummer Rick Allen's left arm, the fact that he continued playing bears testament to Allen’s courage.
If that was deemed a monstrous blow to a band on the crest of a wave, worse was to come. Early last year DEF LEPPARD lost guitarist Steve Clark after a lethal booze binge. The subject of Clark was broached early on. Did his death delay the release of the soon to be released Adrenalize. Elliott is realistic on the subject.
“With hindsight it didn’t actually put it back, it more slowed us down from getting started. We spent a long time with this record just getting on an even keel, just trying to get all five of us thinking along the same lines. That was made more difficult by the situation. Steve was in, ‘cos he was in a bad way as far back as eighteen months to two years before he died. He’s always had a problem, which,” Joe admits, “was probably the best kept secret in the business. To be honest he had probably been an alcoholic for twelve years before he died.”
One of the strengths of DEF LEPPARD, at least of the image portrayed, has been that the band are deemed ‘clean-cut’.
“I must admit, even now,” states Elliott “that I still don’t consider alcoholism, not ‘clean-cut’. When they say ‘clean-cut’ I think of that more as saying, we're not sticking needles in our arms, or throwing TVs out of hotel windows. A lot of people, in esteemed positions drink, and nobody thinks twice about it. But Steve did have a problem, I honestly think that there’s a naivete amongst the public to think that alcohol is not really dangerous. You puke and then your fine, y’know, but it doesn’t work like that.”
To return to the delayed release question though.
“I guess the album could have been finished earlier, but he’d been in the band a long time. Certain things to us are a lot more important than other things are to other people, release dates, etc., just pale into insignificance when one of your best friends is dying.”
Clark is obviously a poignant subject of discussion, but Elliott continues on the theme.
“There just came a point where we couldn't help anymore, so he was basically left to his own devices, which is the only way he was ever going to get cleaned up. He'd been in rehab five or six times, I’d played family member for him ‘cos he didn’t want to tell his parents, so we were all covering up for him which was probably the worst thing we could have done.”
Recalling the events around Steve’s death, in particular the statements announcing LEPPARD’s continuation seemed to appear very quickly. Given the condition of the guitarist, was his tenure in the band under threat at that time? Joe is perfectly frank on the topic.
“What happened was, Steve died in January 1991, but in September 1990 when it all came to a head. We said to him ‘this isn’t doing you any good, and it’s not doing us any good’ so we made a very private, open gentleman's agreement that he should go home. He’d been living out of suitcases for twelve years, and it was getting him down. He wanted to settle for a while, so he bought a house in Chelsea and he was going to carry on writing at his own pace as the pressure was getting to him probably more than it was getting to us. We said to him ‘Here’s your chance, go and do it how you wanna do it, you've got six months. But after six months we want you back here in a capable position of working. In other words we want you sober’. We were keeping in touch on a very long string, through friends, so he wouldn't think we were checking up on him, but we knew he was still getting drunk. At this time we were working on the album as a four piece, but it was very hollow and shallow ‘cos nothing was finalised. If he wasn’t totally together by February, the four of us were going to have to sit down and discuss whether we could keep Steve in the band or not.”
Getting on to more productive matters, has Joe been concerned over the length of time it's taken to record albums?
“I guess if they hadn’t sold in the way they have, I would have been, yeah. A thing we've always prided ourselves on though is quality. We'd much prefer quality over quantity. In a perfect world, maybe putting an album out every three years would have been a bit more fun, but I don’t know whether the albums would be as good, ‘cos we do get time to sit with the songs. I would like to put out stuff a bit quicker, but if we put stuff out every four years to the quality of the last two and the new one, ‘cos I do think the new one is easily as good if not better, then I don’t really mind that much. To me albums are forever and release dates are things people forget about.”
Rather than allowing themselves time to recuperate from the Hysteria tour, there was a live video to put together, then in the early part of 1989 studio time was booked in Wisslehord Studios in Holland. It soon became apparent that the job was being rushed as Joe explains.
“It Just seemed too soon, we went through a lot of hell during Hysteria, so we just didn’t really want to be there. We booked eight weeks of studio time and used six of that. We didn’t think we'd done anything productive but with hindsight we did a lot, we made a lot of decisions. We took some time off until the summer. We then took a little studio in Amsterdam for four months and did some work there. We then took some more time off. We're all around thirty now, we’re not twenty any more, so we’ve all got our own responsibilities and we were tired of living in hotels.”
Joe then relates that it was during this time that he decided to set up a studio in his house near Dublin, mainly due to the amount of money being wasted on recording. It was also about the time that work on the record started at his new studio that the serious nature of Steve Clark’s addiction began to set in.
Having been let in on a sneak preview of Adrenalize earlier in the day, I’m glad to report that the wait has been worthwhile. From the one earful, it’s more a continuation of the Hysteria theme, so don’t expect any great variations. Despite the copy I heard being a rough mix, Joe dutifully informs me that it is very close to representing the finished work. So why Adrenalize as the title?
“We were writing potential titles, and no one could come up with anything serious. Our managers were throwing in a few ideas which summarised what happened to the band over the past few years, and they were really depressing. Which I felt was wrong. We had ten really ‘up’ Rock songs and with the titles we were being given it would have sounded like a LEONARD COHEN album.”
It transpires that it was Phil Collen who came up with the basic idea.
“He offered the title ‘Adrenalin’, but it sounded a little like something you'd buy from a chemist. We ended up bastardising the word a bit because (a) the word doesn’t exist which is quite neat and (b) it’s in the present tense, so the word won t date.”
Joe then explains that the cover of the album will feature an eye, with an electrical storm going off inside it because...
“The first thing you look at when you meet somebody, unless you’re a pervert, is the eyes.”
Before we discuss the actual music, I feel it’s important to clear up the situation concerning Mutt Lange. After his production credits on Hysteria, Pyromania, and High And Dry, he had been deemed an honorary sixth member, but for Adrenalize DEF LEPPARD took up production chores along with Mike Shipley. Mutt had apparently been working on BRYAN ADAMS Waking Up the Neighbours LP, but was the split solely down to his unavailability?
"We've actually given Mutt an executive producer credit again cos' we wrote the songs together again. We'd bash around these ideas and he'd suggest improvements, which we'd always done with Mutt. Basically the Bryan Adams record was dragging around, so we couldn't wait anymore. If we had done, we wouldn't have started this album until four months ago, and we weren't prepared to do that. It was all very amicable, he understood, and offered to help in an advisory role."
Mike Shipley, though has worked alongside Mutt Lange whilst recording the previous three LEPPARD albums, making him the natural choice to fill the vacant stool.
"It turned out to be as equally as good in a different way. I'm not knocking Mutt, but the way that we did it gave it a little more of an edge."
Mutt, it seems, is a perfectionist. A little tear in the voice may force retakes to get things spot on. Joe, whilst retaining his admiration for Lange, was undoubtedly freer to bend the rules a little.
"The last album was a little smooth and clean, this one has more energy for being less perfect, but at the same time it's not imperfection through lack of ability, is more imperfection through choice."
Without pausing, Joe then pre-empts my next question, which was to ask him whether they saw this record as a chance to return to their harder roots.
"Not so much in a writing vein," admits the singer, "but the guitars are definitely crunchier than they were, and the vocals are a lot more mannish."
Talking guitars, Phil Collen, assumed responsibility for all guitars on the record. Obviously this put him under extra pressure. The result sounds impressive, indicating he coped admirably.
"I can't tell the difference to be honest," begins Joe's praise for Collen. "It was a big workload on him, and he took it like a man. Because he played the left hand side of the stereo, when he came to play the right hand side, he knew exactly what he had to do, and when one guy does two parts it seemed to blend a lot easier, so he did it relatively quickly."
There were some hiccups however...
"Yeah occasionally it got tricky, but for one track in particular, a track called tonight, Sav (Rick Savage) went in and played the acoustic parts on it."
To be honest here, the punchy atmospheric strain of the ballad Tonight" stuck out on the one listen I was afforded. Apparently Joe tells me that it's the oldest track on the record, one which they couldn't quite get right until the end of last year.
Getting back to the tracks on the album, DEF LEPPARD have never been ones to use their position to make political statements, though the seven-minute "White Lightning," with its focus on addictions, comes closest. Comparatively the song is Adrenalize's "Gods of War."
"Everything we do is serious, even comedy is to an extent," begins Joe on the lyrics of the band, "and white lightning while obviously inspired by what happened to Steve Clark, it is not actually about him. Having said that, if he hadn't died it wouldn't have got written. We tried to be totally open with that lyric. We wanted it to suit whatever position the individual is in. If you read the lyric to it, I could give you names of at least 10 people it could apply to, some not even dead. It is about Steve, it also applies to HENDRIX, BON SCOTT, JANIS JOPLIN, but it's also about the kid at the end of your street who's got a heroin addiction, or some big fat guy with bad gambling debts. We really did try to write it without preaching. I can't stand people preaching at me, I want to make my own mind up, thank you very much. All we're doing is putting the information on a plate, whether you eat it is up to you and we spent a long time getting the lyric right in that sense."
And on the broader spectrum?
"Every other song on the album is the age-old boy-meets-girl, boy-frustrated-at-not-meeting-girl, but not in a crass way, I don't believe. I'm not naming bands, but we even did it ourselves 10 years ago, you know, being macho for the wrong reasons." He is self effacing in this respect. "All that chest beating front man, wild stallion running through the valley crap."
Returning to Adrenalize, the humour behind the words is the main denominator.
"Take a title like 'Make Love Like a Man,' it sounds very macho, but if you listen to it properly, it's a total piss-take (with lines like "don't call me gigolo, don't call me Casanova, just call me on the phone and baby come on over!" can you take it seriously?) There's gonna be some chick hanging out round Sellafield in her dungarees who isn't gonna be too happy, but if they don't get it, they ain't listening properly, all I've got to say to them is get a sense of humour."
Despite the length of time between Hysteria and Adrenalize, it would seem the only in the latter stages did the bulk of the set get finished. The two tracks just mentioned were later additions, though the origins of "White Lightning" lay way back on the last tour.
"Phil wrote most of the music [for that] on the tour, so I asked him about it last summer, he wasn't sure, but I thought we were mad if we didn't do it. He thought that we may need a few more fast ones, I felt it was our chance to be PINK FLOYD and LED ZEPPELIN all in one, so we rewrote it a couple of times due to different melodies that didn't work but we eventually got it finished in October last year, and recorded it in November."
"Let's Get Rocked," a key song as Elliott refers to it, was the last track to be written, indeed it was written and recorded in four days, which turned out to be a de-javu experience, as the same thing was experienced with "Pour Some Sugar On Me" from Hysteria. With the whole album finished, along came "Sugar" which Mutt Lange, upon hearing Joe fiddle around with it on an acoustic guitar thought it the best hook he'd heard in 10 years. The last track on the new album, at least it's the last I heard, is "Tear it Down." Previously available as a B-side to the "Animal" 12-inch single. It's undergone renovation, which isn't surprising considering its history, as Elliott relays.
"It's almost like a Mori poll," he says. "We banged it down in an hour-and-a-half so the quality wasn't anything like that on the rest of Hysteria, which was a shame as we felt it was a really 'up' song. We used to do it live, as an encore and it went down really well in Britain. It wasn't as well known in America but it still got a good reception. It was when we were asked and agreed to do the MTV awards in Los Angeles, and that we knew everyone was expecting 'Animal' or 'Sugar,' that we thought let's do 'Tear it Down' and really put some noses out of joint. So we did it and it went really well and we got loads of mail. You've got to realise," he explains, "that 15 million had bought the album but only 150,000 the single so potentially 14 million haven't heard the song. Even guys from the record company were calling up about it. It then started getting massive airplay, and even got into the top five in some charts just as requests, cause it wasn't even available to buy."
Talk then turns to single releases, it seems let's get rocked was the unanimous choice as the lead due to its humorous angle.
"The jokes never as funny second time around," reasons Elliot, but with each single comes the video. Joe is well happy with the way this one is working out. "It'll be mind blowing," he quips.
Employing the skills of Steve Barron, whose credits include AHA's "Take On Me" and DIRE STRAITS' "Money for Nothing," "Rocked" will use an animation technology never before used. It will boast a "heavy metal fantasia feel," which Joe says made him feel like Bob Hoskins during Roger Rabbit's creation.
"The jokes never as funny second time around," reasons Elliot, but with each single comes the video. Joe is well happy with the way this one is working out. "It'll be mind blowing," he quips.
Employing the skills of Steve Barron, whose credits include AHA's "Take On Me" and DIRE STRAITS' "Money for Nothing," "Rocked" will use an animation technology never before used. It will boast a "heavy metal fantasia feel," which Joe says made him feel like Bob Hoskins during Roger Rabbit's creation.
Before we get onto the forthcoming live work, I regress a couple of years. There was a plan to issue an album which would have been more of a stopgap release featuring B-sides and live out takes.
Joe then goes on to say that the idea now is to wait until there's enough material for a "Pandora's box style" release. The live sector will be represented on an album featuring various stages of the bands career rather than just one show.
In the immediate future Def Leppard will have to recruit a second guitarist to complement the stage work. Despite rumours abounding that John Sykes ex-BLUE MURDER has already been enrolled, Joe is quick to dispel these myths.
On the subject of Sykes:
Three cheers for that man! Provided the right replacement is found to fill the vacant position, early summer should see the beginning of a new world tour. Initial gigs will be low key club dates in may around the continent of Europe.
The next country on the agenda will be Britain in June, with plans afoot for a full tour with the larger arenas in mind, but nothing definite.
"Obviously we'd love to play the Sheffield Arena and Ireland, then we'll be off to Australia, Japan, and then the states because we are now an international band. Even in Europe we won't announce the club days until the day because we've broken box office records there on the last tour, so playing the small venues we'll have to be careful. All of which would seem to scupper any theories that Donington is also on the itinerary.
Things look good for this tour though.
Well, I've had well over my quota of time, Joe's got a million more interviews lined up, so, to round up, I've just a couple more bullets in the barrel. The first of which concerns the recession causing a slump in the world economy. Does this cause any consternation as to whether the album should come out now?
"I'll tell you what put a stop to that," interjects Joe, "Hysteria put a stop to that. At that time, it had sold 5,000,000 albums around the world, the tour was going well, and we were expecting it to tail off at 6 million like Pyromania did. At that time 'Pour Some Sugar' came out as a single in America and the album literally sold 4,000,000 copies in three months. It went mental! It basically altered our whole schedule, so putting out our B-sides became a redundant idea."
Joe then goes on to say that the idea now is to wait until there's enough material for a "Pandora's box style" release. The live sector will be represented on an album featuring various stages of the bands career rather than just one show.
In the immediate future Def Leppard will have to recruit a second guitarist to complement the stage work. Despite rumours abounding that John Sykes ex-BLUE MURDER has already been enrolled, Joe is quick to dispel these myths.
"We haven't made a decision as yet, we're playing it completely by ear." He then surprisingly adds, "we've never had an audition, we don't know what they are! When Phil joined it was just a phone call. Hhe came down and never left."
On the subject of Sykes:
"We were very aware of everybody saying he'd already joined, and he did actually come over to the studio and did some backing vocals for us. We had John and a guy called Dave Steale, who's a session singer, just to give it a huge feel. But I can't see it being John Sykes, he's got his own career, but," and here's the rub, "it's got to be a Brit! We are a British band and we want to remain so."
Three cheers for that man! Provided the right replacement is found to fill the vacant position, early summer should see the beginning of a new world tour. Initial gigs will be low key club dates in may around the continent of Europe.
"Just so the new guy doesn't drop dead the minute he walks onstage," he laughs, "it will be a good way to break in the new guy and test out our new material."
The next country on the agenda will be Britain in June, with plans afoot for a full tour with the larger arenas in mind, but nothing definite.
"Obviously we'd love to play the Sheffield Arena and Ireland, then we'll be off to Australia, Japan, and then the states because we are now an international band. Even in Europe we won't announce the club days until the day because we've broken box office records there on the last tour, so playing the small venues we'll have to be careful. All of which would seem to scupper any theories that Donington is also on the itinerary.
"Definitely not this year, comes the reply and worse is to come as Joe continues, "and probably not next year, and I'll tell you why. We want to play to the British kids, the same way as we play in America. We've never been able to do it before cos' we weren't big enough. We'd be playing arenas in the states but doing Hammersmith at home. All of a sudden we've become popular and doing arenas, but not being able to fit the 'In the Round' show into the venue. We could have done it in Birmingham, but the financial aspects prevented us."
Things look good for this tour though.
"With the possibilities of Sheffield, the NEC, Earls Court, and either Glasgow or Edinburgh, we can do at least four shows 'In the Round'! Which means we can give a big show on our terms rather than a big show with fingers crossed that it's not windy and raining. We'd rather play on our stage than headline Donington. That's no disrespect to Donington cos' we know how popular it is, but it's just that we want to play on our terms first. Maybe we'll do Donington in 93 or 94."
Well, I've had well over my quota of time, Joe's got a million more interviews lined up, so, to round up, I've just a couple more bullets in the barrel. The first of which concerns the recession causing a slump in the world economy. Does this cause any consternation as to whether the album should come out now?
"Without trying to sound a complete twat, I think we're pretty recession proof in that respect. If we're going to go to #1, and if the record is good enough, it will. We may sell two-thirds of what we did with Hysteria but I'm not bothered by that. It's something I have no control over. I just hope it does really well, besides we consider it a success already, as we've recorded 10 great songs. But, I'll be honest, if only two people bought it I'd be a bit pissed off! But we'll see how it goes."
I think we can expect slightly higher sales figures than two, so I wouldn't lose too much sleep over that. Personally, I'd like to hear an album repeatedly before giving an opinion, but having heard Adrenalize just the once I'm just gonna have to tell you to go out and buy it. If Hysteria had you in convulsions, then adrenalize will have you cavorting round the locality like a lunatic.
What all this has to be leading to -- what I'm praying it's leading to -- is the return of Stumpius Maximus, guitar tech, turned tour manager, turned Pavarotti. Will LEPPARD unleash this demon warbler a for fear of being upstaged again?
"He's got that really classic Welsh voice, and he does the best piss-take cabaret voice in the world. He's been around a while, he'll be around a lot longer but where or when his next appearance will be, who knows?" Laughs the singer.
That's it, we are released!
What all this has to be leading to -- what I'm praying it's leading to -- is the return of Stumpius Maximus, guitar tech, turned tour manager, turned Pavarotti. Will LEPPARD unleash this demon warbler a for fear of being upstaged again?
"He's got that really classic Welsh voice, and he does the best piss-take cabaret voice in the world. He's been around a while, he'll be around a lot longer but where or when his next appearance will be, who knows?" Laughs the singer.
That's it, we are released!
Joe Mackett
Riff Raff
April 1992
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