In the world of rock, few bands loom larger than Def Leppard. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that the majority of people holding this latest issue will have, at the very least, at one point either brandished an air guitar to ‘Animal,’ bought/downloaded their mega-selling Hysteria (which has shifted 25 million copies and counting), shed a tear during ‘When Love & Hate Collide’ or poured some sugar on a loved one while listening to, yep, ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me.’
As their charismatic frontman with the generations-spanning band, Joe Elliott has achieved it all. And he feels like the luckiest man alive to have been given the opportunity to rock people’s faces off for 37-plus years.
“If someone said I’d be doing this when I’m 56-years-old and selling more tickets than ever, I’d be like ‘Yeah right’,” laughs the Sheffield-born, Dublin-based singer. “There does seem to be something in the air right now though. There’s a lot of heat on the band right now. It takes a lot of stars to be in alignment for something to take off and we seem to have that. There also seems to be a realisation (for some) that we’re not some fly-by- night band who were ‘lucky’ to have worked with [producer] Mutt Lange and we do have what a good group needs.”
Currently nearing the end of a gruelling tour of the States, the Lepps have no time for a breather as they are preparing to unleash their self-titled 11th studio album on November 30. Made in secret at Elliott’s home studio (dubbed “Joe’s Garage”), he says the band loved the freedom of making a record on their own terms, without label suits breathing down their necks.
“Even though I’m the only guy who lives in Ireland these days, everybody still likes to come over to my house, as it’s like Stand By Me or something – the studio is like our little treehouse. They all stay with me so there’s no travel and once they’re in they’re in. It makes for a real focused session.
“It was nice because we didn’t have to deliver a record to a label and rush things. It was the first album we made in 35 years that we didn’t have to make. We had no record company, no demands, no watching the cheque book or budget or that kinda rubbish. We financed it ourselves. We were only going to do three songs and we ended up with 14 eventually, then our management took it to different labels, which resulted in a bidding war, so that was great.”
This December, Def Leppard make a long awaited return to Ireland for a brace of dates in Dublin and Belfast and Joe reveals that fans can expect a perfect blend of new material mixed with classic cuts.
“We’ve got some big production rehearsals before Dublin. We would’ve been rehearsing at Ardmore in Bray but fucking Penny Dreadful have got the place! It’s one of my favourite shows but I wish they could just get the fuck out for like a week, so we’re going to rehearse in Yorkshire instead.
“We’re not going to flood the set with ten new songs because it just sends people to the bar,” he adds. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in an open mic night in somewhere like Whelan’s, but if you’re in the 3Arena and you go ‘Here’s a brand new song,’ people start getting itchy so we’ll mix both – we don’t want to be a nostalgia act either. If you’re playing arenas, they’re not coming because you’ve a new album out, they’re coming for the whole spectacle and I think you have to put your sensible shoes on and realise what you’re doing that night – you’re performing. You can’t forget that your history is what’s selling the tickets, so we’ll do a sweet mixture of the old and new.”