Songs For The Brief

Unquestionably one of the monster albums of the 80s, Hysteria by Sheffield’s Def Leppard transformed the band from being the red-headed stepchild of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene into stadium-shaking, global rock behemoths since its release on August 3, 1987. Shifting 25 mmillion copies (and counting), the Mutt Lange-produced LP revolutionised the genre, giving us evergreen classics such as ‘Animal’, ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ and ‘Rocket’ that are still staples in the collection of any club DJ worth his salt/denim. Up there with the likes of Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction, hard rock’s answer to Thriller is resurrected next month in the form of the new live DVD Viva! Hysteria and the band’s frontman Joe Elliott tells us that he took the matter of getting reacquainted with the record during their residency in Las Vegas last March very seriously indeed.

“When we were offered the residency in Vegas we thought that if we’re going to do Hysteria in sequence and in its entirety, let’s do it just like the album,” he begins. “You see, by tiny degrees the songs change over the years so we had to readdress that. It’s like your hair. You look at yourself in the mirror every day and it doesn’t seem any different. You go visit your auntie six weeks since you’ve last seen her and she’s gonna say your hair’s got long.”
To keep themselves entertained during their stay in Sin City, the band also opened for themselves under the guise of Ded Flatbird (also captured on the DVD), playing rarities and poking fun at themselves.
“We knew that if we were to play 11 shows performing the same songs in the same order every night it will kill us unless we do something completely different.” reveals Joe. “When we opened as Ded Flatbird we curtained off the Hysteria set, didn’t give ourselves a back-line and we had no room onstage – just like a real support band. I’d go out there like the bastard son of Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler and make fun of me, while wearing clothes we would never normally wear.”
In Las Vegas, Def Leppard also filmed a documentary and while there’s no official release date for the six-part fly on the wall TV series, all the footage is done and ready to go.
“I must stress, it’s not a reality show,” he states. “It’s not like The Osbournes. It’s a mixture of interviews and us farting around backstage, dressing up as clowns, eating, fighting and drinking and what have you.”
After enjoying his “first summer off in 35 years” we ask Joe if fans can expect a new Def Leppard album sooner rather than later.
“We’re writing on and off. We’ve got a bit of a healing session going on at the moment. Vivian [Campbell,guitar] has got cancer and he’s about to have his eighth and final Chemo in about five days and Phil [Collen, guitar] has just had hand surgery as he popped a tendon out in the middle finger of his left hand. He couldn’t get his finger to bend. He had it cut open and stitched back together. You know what though? We’ve been working non stop for 35 years now. So we’re letting the movie do the work.
“There will be a new album coming but as everything moves so quick in the record industry these days you can’t predict anything,” he continues. “We’re very fortunate that we got our foot through the door before it slammed shut forever. A lot of rock bands nowadays won’t survive because they don’t have the exposure that we had. It’s like mining for gold trying to find a TV station that plays decent videos these days, isn’t it? I do feel for some of them.”

Viva! Hysteria is out on Oct 18.