Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 405] Def Leppard: “They Showed the World How to Be a Band” with Scott Robinson

Transcript

[EP 405] Def Leppard: “They Showed the World How to Be a Band” with Scott Robinson · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: These guys are a family. These guys are brothers. They've
0:03
Speaker 1: never stopped being that. They never turn away from each other.
0:06
Speaker 1: It's all for one on one for all. We don't
0:08
Speaker 1: see that in music. We don't see that in bands.
0:11
Speaker 1: I mean, think of any band you could mention. The
0:13
Speaker 1: Beatles themselves came apart van Halen, they couldn't hang in
0:16
Speaker 1: there for each other. Def Leppard they set the standard.
0:19
Speaker 1: They showed the world how to be a band. We're
0:22
Speaker 1: totally booked rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
0:26
Speaker 2: You're reading Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll,
0:29
Speaker 2: rock band, roll out. I totally booked. Welcome back to
0:37
Speaker 2: Booked on Rock conversations with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing
0:41
Speaker 2: the stories behind classic rocks, greatest songs, albums, and artists.
0:46
Speaker 2: If you're enjoying the show and you'd like to support it,
0:48
Speaker 2: you can sign up for the Booked on Rock Backstage
0:50
Speaker 2: Pass on Patreon for just five dollars a month. You
0:53
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0:57
Speaker 2: use the link in the show notes or visit Booked
0:59
Speaker 2: on Rock dot com. Now on to our guest, Scott
1:03
Speaker 2: Robinson is the author of Death Leopard every album, every song.
1:07
Speaker 2: It's part of Sonic Bond's On Track series of books. Scott,
1:10
Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast.
1:12
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I've looked forward to this. It's going
1:14
Speaker 1: to be a blast.
1:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think this is the very first episode I've
1:19
Speaker 2: done in def Leopard. I can't believe it. I've been
1:20
Speaker 2: doing the show for four or five years. So I'm
1:23
Speaker 2: glad we're able to talk. Deaf Lap. When did you
1:25
Speaker 2: become a fan?
1:26
Speaker 1: To be honest, it took me a bit. I didn't
1:30
Speaker 1: jump right on board in the eighties. I was pretty young,
1:34
Speaker 1: but I actually had become a critic right out of college,
1:40
Speaker 1: which meant I got sent to concerts, and I got
1:42
Speaker 1: all these albums that the record companies would send to
1:45
Speaker 1: the paper, and each of us critics there were cubby holes,
1:48
Speaker 1: and they stuffed the cubby holes full of whatever they
1:51
Speaker 1: thought each of us would be interested in. And I
1:54
Speaker 1: missed Pyromania. I was too late to the party for Pyromania.
1:58
Speaker 1: But Hysteria rolls around, and I'm just this kid out
2:01
Speaker 1: of college and there it is in my inbox. And
2:03
Speaker 1: so I took Hysteria home and I taped it and
2:07
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my God, where has this been?
2:10
Speaker 1: So I put it on a cassette and the thing
2:12
Speaker 1: is to just be efficient with my time. When I
2:15
Speaker 1: was that age, I would put albums on cassette and
2:18
Speaker 1: I would play them in my car, and my little
2:22
Speaker 1: baby boy would be in a car seat behind me.
2:25
Speaker 1: And when he started headbanging, I knew he liked whatever
2:28
Speaker 1: I had on, and so he just decided that def
2:32
Speaker 1: Leppard was what he wanted on all the time. And
2:35
Speaker 1: so we played it over and over and over, and
2:38
Speaker 1: that's how I became a fan.
2:39
Speaker 2: Wow, what a great story and what inspires you to
2:43
Speaker 2: take on the challenge of writing a song by song
2:45
Speaker 2: guide to def Lepperd's entire catalog.
2:48
Speaker 1: Well, now, the song by song Guide, as you know,
2:51
Speaker 1: is done by Sonic Bond, and they've got the on
2:53
Speaker 1: Track series, and that's what this book is part of.
2:57
Speaker 1: Just to be honest with you, I'm in love with
3:01
Speaker 1: the series. I as a critic for many many years now,
3:05
Speaker 1: I'm always looking for resources that help fill in the
3:08
Speaker 1: blanks for me when I'm writing about a band, or
3:10
Speaker 1: writing about an artist or an album or whatever. And
3:13
Speaker 1: I have found the Sonic Bond series, the on Track
3:16
Speaker 1: series from Sonic Bond to be just invaluable. I probably
3:19
Speaker 1: have two dozen of them, and so when it turned
3:22
Speaker 1: out that they were, you know, looking for fresh writers,
3:24
Speaker 1: it was like, hey, I'm on this. I'm all over it.
3:27
Speaker 1: I by all means, and I talked to my editor
3:31
Speaker 1: and def Leppard was what we landed on pretty quickly.
3:34
Speaker 2: That's great. I'm a huge fan as well. I've had
3:37
Speaker 2: many many Sonic Bond authors on the podcast over the years.
3:41
Speaker 2: It really is a great series for somebody who's a
3:44
Speaker 2: longtime fan, but also somebody looking to maybe introduce themselves
3:48
Speaker 2: have just become a fan of a band, and it's
3:51
Speaker 2: a great way to It's a great gateway into that
3:53
Speaker 2: band history.
3:54
Speaker 1: It really is. When I read those books, it's like
3:58
Speaker 1: it's like watching a document. It's like you have the
4:01
Speaker 1: whole life of a band compressed into a space you
4:03
Speaker 1: can digest. And I love that about it. You know,
4:06
Speaker 1: it's like the Kansas book. I loved the book they
4:09
Speaker 1: did on Kansas because it goes all the way back
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Speaker 1: to those days when they were living on a dollar
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Speaker 1: a day for food at McDonald's, you know, all the
4:16
Speaker 1: way to today, and you can go every stage of
4:20
Speaker 1: a band's journey and when you let the music lead you,
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Speaker 1: you don't miss anything, and I love that about the series.
4:28
Speaker 2: So let's get to your book. You explain how def
4:30
Speaker 2: Leppard came out of the new wave of British heavy metal,
4:33
Speaker 2: yet they always seem to stand apart from many of
4:36
Speaker 2: their peers. What made them different from bands like Iron
4:39
Speaker 2: Maiden or Saxon or Diamond Head.
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Speaker 1: From the beginning, I hope I'm not controversial when I
4:45
Speaker 1: say this, but from my reading of their history and
4:48
Speaker 1: from my knowledge of that era, I'm going to say
4:52
Speaker 1: because they loved Maiden, they loved Priest, they loved Saxon,
4:56
Speaker 1: they loved Thin Lizzie, they loved all those bands that
5:00
Speaker 1: were specifically two guitar bands, and from the inception they
5:05
Speaker 1: were that they were a two guitar band. But they
5:08
Speaker 1: never did the same style of play all the bands
5:11
Speaker 1: we just named. You know, they're famous for playing, you know,
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Speaker 1: two guitarists playing in harmony. And my controversial opinion here
5:18
Speaker 1: is that when it was Pete Willis and Steve Clark
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Speaker 1: at first the first two guitars for def Leppard, and
5:24
Speaker 1: then Phil Colin and Steve Clark, the fact is no
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Speaker 1: guitarist wants to play harmony with Steve Clark. He's not
5:33
Speaker 1: like any other player. You get Pete Willison there and
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Speaker 1: Pete Willis he's pretty much a precision player, very melodic,
5:41
Speaker 1: and Steve Clark was just kind of unbridled. He was
5:46
Speaker 1: a little bit wild. And it was the same with
5:48
Speaker 1: Phil Colin. And so they would instead of doing the
5:51
Speaker 1: twin guitar thing that all of their idols did, they
5:54
Speaker 1: decided to go back and forth. Now that was a
5:57
Speaker 1: great idea because it took them out of the moment
6:00
Speaker 1: a rhythm guitarist and a lead guitarist and the next
6:02
Speaker 1: song will swap and do it the other way around,
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Speaker 1: like a lot of bands did. Two We're each going
6:08
Speaker 1: to have a lead or more in the song, and
6:11
Speaker 1: that meant they had to change up the songs more
6:13
Speaker 1: to make space for the extra lead or leads, and
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Speaker 1: so that made them better songwriters, it made them better musicians,
6:19
Speaker 1: and it made them sound more unique. Now it's in
6:22
Speaker 1: all fairness, yes, sometimes they would play at the same
6:25
Speaker 1: time the intro to bringing on a Heartbreak. They do
6:27
Speaker 1: play in harmony, but almost never they did the volley
6:31
Speaker 1: thing back and forth and back and forth. Which made
6:33
Speaker 1: them more musically interesting. But it allowed kill Colin to
6:37
Speaker 1: be the technician and allowed Steve Clark to be sloppy.
6:40
Speaker 1: He was very Jimmy Page and Is playing. But that
6:42
Speaker 1: worked because he was wild, he was expressive, he was emotional,
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Speaker 1: and those two different styles playing off each other just
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Speaker 1: sounds great. So from day one, I think they committed
6:52
Speaker 1: to that, and that's why they're different.
6:54
Speaker 2: One thing I love about the chapter on that nineteen
6:56
Speaker 2: seventy ninety p is how diy that whole project was.
7:00
Speaker 2: There are three songs, right into the Sun, get Your
7:03
Speaker 2: Rocks Off, and then the near eight minute tract, the Overture.
7:06
Speaker 2: Joe Elliott's father loaned the band the money, Joe and
7:09
Speaker 2: his mother assembled the sleeves by hand, and then the
7:12
Speaker 2: band sold the records themselves. How important was that entrepreneurial
7:16
Speaker 2: spirit to def Leppard's eventual success.
7:20
Speaker 1: My impression is that that set the whole pattern, the
7:23
Speaker 1: whole template for Leopards, because from day one, they were
7:26
Speaker 1: their own industry, and they were you know, they weren't
7:31
Speaker 1: about climbing a ladder. They were about connecting as directly
7:34
Speaker 1: as they could, and that was the fastest way to
7:36
Speaker 1: connect and It worked out great because they developed the
7:42
Speaker 1: skills you need in order to connect in the way
7:45
Speaker 1: that they did. They you know, they'd play anywhere, and
7:49
Speaker 1: they push that EP on everybody, and they very cleverly
7:53
Speaker 1: put it in the right hands at the right time.
7:56
Speaker 1: But they weren't going to let any red tape or
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Speaker 1: any protocol or any ladder slow them down. And I
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Speaker 1: think they remained that way throughout their career. They were
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Speaker 1: just an entrepreneurial brand of guys.
8:07
Speaker 2: One of the most fascinating stories is that that ap
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Speaker 2: and press Cliff Burnstein so much he actually left Mercury
8:13
Speaker 2: Records to become def Lepper's manager. What did he hear
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Speaker 2: in those three songs that convinced him this band was special?
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Speaker 1: I'm hoping he heard the same thing I hear when
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Speaker 1: I play it. If you listen to those three songs,
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Speaker 1: you know you've got to Right into the Sun is
8:26
Speaker 1: just anthem big time. It's like it just this hits
8:29
Speaker 1: you in the face start of the set. Bam, there
8:32
Speaker 1: they are all the way to overture, which is borderline progressive.
8:38
Speaker 1: And you know you've got this range in just three
8:41
Speaker 1: simple songs. You know, I think the running time is
8:44
Speaker 1: less than fifteen sixteen minutes. If you can mash them
8:46
Speaker 1: all up, you know, in that amount of space, you see,
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Speaker 1: this band can do whatever it wants. And I think
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Speaker 1: that those songs are very well chosen. Now. They never
8:55
Speaker 1: really revisited seriously the overture form. They never really got
8:59
Speaker 1: into law or progressive again. But it showed what they
9:02
Speaker 1: were capable of, and it showed that they had real
9:04
Speaker 1: range of songwriters and performers. I think that's what he heard.
9:08
Speaker 1: I think he heard this is a band that can
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Speaker 1: be shaped and molded in a hundred different ways if
9:14
Speaker 1: they just opened their minds to the possibilities, which is
9:17
Speaker 1: exactly what happened.
9:18
Speaker 2: And then the debut studio album, On Through the Night,
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Speaker 2: released in nineteen eighty, features Wasted, Hello America, and Rock Brigade.
9:26
Speaker 2: One of the most fascinating stories is the backlash the
9:28
Speaker 2: band received at the nineteen eighty Redding Festival, where some
9:31
Speaker 2: fans accused them of selling out because they toured America.
9:35
Speaker 2: Talk about that and why did that perception develop so quickly?
9:39
Speaker 1: That always baffled me. I listened to Hello America, and
9:43
Speaker 1: I don't get any trace of, you know, abandoning written
9:49
Speaker 1: for the States at all. I do see it as
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Speaker 1: Leopard kind of cultivating this. You know, we're here to party,
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Speaker 1: we're here to rocky, We're here for you, and they
10:00
Speaker 1: weren't worried about boundaries. I think that when I look
10:04
Speaker 1: at the history of rock, Britain created so many forms.
10:10
Speaker 1: Britain created heavy metal and America adopted it. Britain created
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Speaker 1: progressive rock, and America adopted the new wave of British
10:17
Speaker 1: heavy metal that was Britain again. And I think that
10:21
Speaker 1: there's a certain sense of especially among the young guys
10:24
Speaker 1: that were at that festival, there's a sense of ownership.
10:27
Speaker 1: There's a sense of it's a proprietary thing. You know,
10:31
Speaker 1: this is ours. And Leopard didn't think twice about boundaries
10:35
Speaker 1: or borders. They just went out and did their thing.
10:38
Speaker 1: I don't blame them, they should have. You know that
10:41
Speaker 1: they did the right thing. And if you've read about them,
10:45
Speaker 1: then you know that they lit up here faster than
10:47
Speaker 1: they lit up there. It was a good long while
10:49
Speaker 1: before they really caught fire in their own homeland, whereas
10:53
Speaker 1: they caught fire immediately in America. Well, you know, that's
10:57
Speaker 1: just how the chips fell. But the fact is, I
10:59
Speaker 1: don't think they ever really cared about orders or boundaries,
11:03
Speaker 1: and I honestly think, you know, they didn't deserve to
11:08
Speaker 1: be treated that way.
11:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, they toured with ac DC that year, didn't they.
11:12
Speaker 1: Oh Yeah, and that worked out really well for obvious reasons.
11:15
Speaker 1: So they ended up meeting Mutt Lang.
11:18
Speaker 2: That's where're going to get two down nineteen eighty one,
11:20
Speaker 2: High and Dry, which introduces Mutt who would become one
11:23
Speaker 2: of the most important figures in def Lepperd's career. It
11:25
Speaker 2: includes let It Go bringing On the Heartbreak, which hit
11:29
Speaker 2: number sixty one on Billboard. Bringing on the Heartbreak. Let's
11:32
Speaker 2: talk about the work that was put in on that
11:35
Speaker 2: song alone and why Mutt felt it should get that
11:38
Speaker 2: much work. He believed it would be a huge hit.
11:41
Speaker 1: He did, and he was right. It took two tries
11:43
Speaker 1: to get it out there as a big hit. The
11:45
Speaker 1: first time they released it, it didn't fly high. The
11:47
Speaker 1: second time it did because they were better known. But
11:50
Speaker 1: the fact is Mutt Lang always had an ear that
11:53
Speaker 1: bent around the genre. You know, he was famous for
11:57
Speaker 1: being able to hear things that the bands he was
11:59
Speaker 1: working couldn't hear in themselves. And I think Mutt kind
12:03
Speaker 1: of foresaw the power ballad. I think that a journey
12:07
Speaker 1: likes to run around saying, oh, we did it, we
12:09
Speaker 1: did it. Open Arms was the first true rock power ballad. Well, no,
12:12
Speaker 1: it wasn't. And I think Mutt could hear it way
12:15
Speaker 1: ahead of everybody else because he had access to that
12:18
Speaker 1: incredible harmonic sense that Leopard naturally had those marvelous voices
12:24
Speaker 1: that they could do. You know, most of the band
12:26
Speaker 1: can sing magnificently, and he just said, Okay, we have
12:31
Speaker 1: the makings of something here, and that was the power ballad,
12:34
Speaker 1: and there weren't any power ballads back then. He was
12:36
Speaker 1: the first to hear that, and he heard it in Leopard.
12:39
Speaker 1: Well three cheers, because I mean, look what happened throughout
12:43
Speaker 1: the eighties on MTV. Leopard was there first, and they
12:46
Speaker 1: were there first because of munt Lang.
12:48
Speaker 2: And then comes Pyromedia from nineteen eighty three, Jef Leppard
12:51
Speaker 2: become Global Stars. Photograph Rock of Ages, Fooling Too Late
12:57
Speaker 2: for Love All Huge Singles Photograph was an unfinished leftover
13:02
Speaker 2: from the hind Dry sessions. Can you share what Joe
13:05
Speaker 2: Elliott said about the poster that inspired that song.
13:08
Speaker 1: It's a great story because it kind of set the
13:13
Speaker 1: pattern for a lot of Joe's inspirations for lyrics for
13:16
Speaker 1: songs about women. He was living in an apartment in
13:20
Speaker 1: a kind of a dump a basement apartment, and there
13:23
Speaker 1: was a hole in the wall that's been covered up
13:25
Speaker 1: by a poster, which makes you think of trash inc redemptions.
13:30
Speaker 1: But that poster was a poster of Marilyn Monroe. And
13:34
Speaker 1: of course Marilyn Monroe has inspired a lot of great songs,
13:37
Speaker 1: just ask Elton. And in this particular case, it had
13:41
Speaker 1: Joe going back to Mutt and saying, how cool would
13:44
Speaker 1: it be to do a song about a woman you
13:47
Speaker 1: just really really want and you just can't have. Now,
13:50
Speaker 1: that's not exactly an original idea, but Hm says why
13:55
Speaker 1: why can't you have her? And Joe says, well, because
13:58
Speaker 1: she's dead? Is pretty original. I mean, who says that?
14:02
Speaker 1: But it turned out to be the kind of the
14:04
Speaker 1: template of a lot of songs that Joe would end
14:07
Speaker 1: up writing. He would find some impossible scenario where there's
14:11
Speaker 1: a love denied, and there are dozens, dozens of leopard
14:14
Speaker 1: songs about frustrated love, you know, most of which came
14:18
Speaker 1: from Joe. This was probably the template for those. You know,
14:21
Speaker 1: let's come up with something that would just be so
14:23
Speaker 1: frustrating you can't even endure it, and POWI you know,
14:27
Speaker 1: a gold an absolute gold mine of music. That song.
14:33
Speaker 1: I mean, to this day, cover bands play that song.
14:35
Speaker 1: It's just a marvelous song it is.
14:38
Speaker 2: And the deep tracks on that album, that's what makes
14:40
Speaker 2: that album so great. You have stage fright, yes, Billy's
14:44
Speaker 2: got a gun. They just round out that entire album.
14:48
Speaker 2: So that's what makes that such a great album. That
14:52
Speaker 2: makes the debate interesting between Pyromania and Hysteria. I mean,
14:56
Speaker 2: if you had to choose one or the other, which
14:58
Speaker 2: one would you go with?
15:00
Speaker 1: I had to choose between the two, I would go
15:02
Speaker 1: with Hysteria just because it went farther in terms of
15:10
Speaker 1: sonic innovation and production innovation. It was just a more
15:16
Speaker 1: groundbreaking accomplishment. I mean, who records an entire album just
15:21
Speaker 1: with a rockman, you know, well, certainly not a metal band.
15:25
Speaker 1: They were the first metal band to do the entire
15:27
Speaker 1: album with a rockman. But I have to say that
15:29
Speaker 1: with both Pyromania and Hysteria, why you've got so many
15:34
Speaker 1: great deep cuts is because Mutt Lang won't let a
15:37
Speaker 1: loser track through. It was the same with he did
15:40
Speaker 1: Foreigners album four. Before he did Pyromania, he did ac
15:44
Speaker 1: DC and there are no loser tracks on any of
15:47
Speaker 1: those albums. He would not let a bad track through,
15:50
Speaker 1: So of course there are deep cuts. Mutlang specializes in
15:54
Speaker 1: digging for deep cuts.
15:55
Speaker 2: Yes. I would say the same about the Cars Heartbeat City.
15:58
Speaker 2: He produced that, yes, example.
16:01
Speaker 1: Yes.
16:02
Speaker 2: And one of the biggest turning points during the recording
16:05
Speaker 2: of Pyromania was that Pete Willis left the band and
16:09
Speaker 2: Phil Collin stepped in. How difficult was that transition and
16:12
Speaker 2: how much did Phil ultimately shape the finished album?
16:15
Speaker 1: Now that's a great question. The fact is that it
16:20
Speaker 1: was both a good thing and a bad thing. It
16:21
Speaker 1: was a bad thing because Pete really had paid his dues,
16:24
Speaker 1: and Pete Willis really was a fine, fine guitarist. Go
16:28
Speaker 1: back and look at any of his work on those
16:30
Speaker 1: first two albums and half of the third album, Great
16:34
Speaker 1: Great Stuff. He was a good player, and he played
16:37
Speaker 1: well off Steve Park. He set the template for the
16:40
Speaker 1: two guitar back and forth. But he had troubles on
16:43
Speaker 1: the road. He had troubles, you know, keeping his head
16:47
Speaker 1: in the in the in the show, and they had
16:50
Speaker 1: called Colin once before he left the band, and they
16:53
Speaker 1: had said, you know, we're shaky with Pete. Can you
16:56
Speaker 1: learn our entire set in a day? And Colin did.
16:59
Speaker 1: He went out. They were going to play some festival,
17:01
Speaker 1: and he learned the set in one day. But then
17:03
Speaker 1: they called him back and said, now it looks like
17:05
Speaker 1: Pete's going to go on, but thank you. But at
17:08
Speaker 1: that point they knew Phil Colin, and they knew he
17:10
Speaker 1: was a trooper. And so when Pete was having trouble
17:13
Speaker 1: getting through Pyromania, Mutt went to Joe and Mutt said,
17:20
Speaker 1: we got to do something Joe, And so Joe took
17:22
Speaker 1: it upon himself and he did the deed, and he said, nah,
17:26
Speaker 1: we got to let you go Pete and called Phil
17:29
Speaker 1: and Phil was instantly on board and got handed more
17:33
Speaker 1: than his share of solos. Steve gave a couple up,
17:36
Speaker 1: and of course he delivered a marvelous, marvelous performance on
17:40
Speaker 1: that album, and you had Leopard complete once and for all,
17:43
Speaker 1: and he sounded great with Steve Clark. The two of them,
17:46
Speaker 1: they became known as the Terror Twins, and rightly so.
17:50
Speaker 2: And Pete's problem was substance abuse. Wasn't it?
17:53
Speaker 1: It was?
17:54
Speaker 2: Yes. Scott Robinson is the author of def Leppard, Every Album,
17:59
Speaker 2: Every Song. It is part of Sonic Bond's On Track series.
18:03
Speaker 2: You devote an entire interim chapter to December thirty first,
18:06
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four because it's impossible to tell def Lepperd's
18:09
Speaker 2: story without it looking back. Just how close did the
18:12
Speaker 2: band come to ending after Rick Allen's accident car accident
18:16
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve where he lost his arm.
18:18
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone in the band actually thought seriously
18:21
Speaker 1: about the band ending, But the band was on very
18:25
Speaker 1: rocky ground with its the handlers and keepers because Allen
18:31
Speaker 1: came in and he said, you know, I'm hanging in there,
18:34
Speaker 1: and he immediately got to work on a way he
18:37
Speaker 1: could continue to play drums, and he started designing the
18:40
Speaker 1: famous kit that allowed him to play with two feet
18:42
Speaker 1: in one hand. And the band stuck with him without
18:47
Speaker 1: even blinking. I mean, if you go back and read
18:49
Speaker 1: the quotes and the stories of how they stuck with him,
18:52
Speaker 1: it's just astonishing. But everyone around him wasn't so sure,
18:56
Speaker 1: including Mutt, and Mutt was eventually sold because Rick just
19:03
Speaker 1: stuck with it and stuck with it and he brought
19:06
Speaker 1: them all in and said here and he played I
19:07
Speaker 1: think it was Zeppelins when the levee breaks and they
19:12
Speaker 1: were just blown away. And so Mutt became the apostle
19:15
Speaker 1: to the Gentiles, convinced the management convention of the label, yes,
19:18
Speaker 1: Rick can do this. Even so, they covered their bets
19:22
Speaker 1: because the first outing happens not long after the band
19:26
Speaker 1: rehearsed and rehearse They were, you know, ramping up for hysteria,
19:30
Speaker 1: and they played at a festival and they had a
19:33
Speaker 1: stand by drummer just in case, and they brought Rick
19:38
Speaker 1: out and the crowd went nuts. And from that moment forward,
19:42
Speaker 1: Rick knew not only was the band behind him, not
19:45
Speaker 1: only was Mutt and their management behind him the label,
19:48
Speaker 1: but the fans were with him too, and it was
19:51
Speaker 1: a done deal.
19:51
Speaker 2: From that, I'm not giving up on this guy is amazing.
19:55
Speaker 2: That's what makes this album my favorite, Nuts is because
19:57
Speaker 2: I love the songs on it, but the store itself.
20:00
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're going to make a movie on
20:02
Speaker 2: Deaf Leopard, you can make a story just on this
20:05
Speaker 2: comeback story. It is absolutely hard to even imagine the
20:11
Speaker 2: idea that you're going to continue with your drummer who
20:14
Speaker 2: just lost his arm, and the story about his brother
20:16
Speaker 2: bringing in the transistor radio into the hospital room, and
20:20
Speaker 2: then Rick starts tapping the pads on the bottom of
20:24
Speaker 2: the bed to keep him from falling down, sliding down
20:26
Speaker 2: those pads that they put up, and that's how it
20:29
Speaker 2: all started, I mean, and then it actually it creates
20:33
Speaker 2: a whole new sound. It becomes the deaf Leopards sound
20:37
Speaker 2: because he plays a lot more space in between the beats.
20:40
Speaker 2: And it just worked in their favor.
20:42
Speaker 1: It really did. It worked in two ways musically. You're
20:45
Speaker 1: exactly right, because it was the creation of a new
20:49
Speaker 1: style of drumming for Leopard. And they had already tackled
20:53
Speaker 1: this before with Mutt, because they would before Rick had
20:57
Speaker 1: his accident. They would be doing sound check and some
20:59
Speaker 1: bigger and Rick would do and and the band would
21:05
Speaker 1: get annoyed with him. It's like, don't do that, will
21:07
Speaker 1: you please stop doing that? And Mutt, you know, talk
21:11
Speaker 1: to Joe about it, because that's what Mutt would do
21:13
Speaker 1: when there was a problem, and he said, you know,
21:15
Speaker 1: you can't be doing that. That doesn't sound good in
21:19
Speaker 1: an arena, you know, And he says, you guys want
21:21
Speaker 1: to be great and play arenas, write songs that sound
21:26
Speaker 1: great in arenas, and that pour some sugar on me
21:30
Speaker 1: kind of where Rick eventually went with his style, which was,
21:36
Speaker 1: you know, not flashy and not flamboyant, but just four
21:39
Speaker 1: on the floor in the groove, which is what he
21:41
Speaker 1: could do with that kit. That became the Leopard sound,
21:45
Speaker 1: and it so worked in arenas. It was, as you say,
21:49
Speaker 1: they had found they they had found their new sound,
21:51
Speaker 1: and they found it for that reason. The other thing
21:53
Speaker 1: is this, I think that because of what happened to Rick,
21:58
Speaker 1: there was a kind of a kin that happened among
22:01
Speaker 1: them that became the all for one and one for
22:04
Speaker 1: all that still thrives here more than three decades later,
22:08
Speaker 1: you know, almost four decades later, you have that that
22:11
Speaker 1: that dynamic of we're not letting go of each other
22:14
Speaker 1: for nothing. Only death can separate us. And I think
22:18
Speaker 1: it started with Rick Allen's accident.
22:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, this album took a while to make the story
22:23
Speaker 2: again with the amazing stories here. Jim Steinman, right from
22:27
Speaker 2: Meatlow Fame, was initially the producer and that didn't work out.
22:32
Speaker 2: So they bring Mutt laying back because I think Mutt
22:34
Speaker 2: was actually I think he was working on a heartbeat
22:37
Speaker 2: city album with the Cars. I think that's why he
22:39
Speaker 2: wouldn't commit to it. But then he came back exactly right.
22:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Steinman. Steinman's problem was he was all vibe
22:49
Speaker 1: and Leopard had learned on the previous album working with Mutt,
22:53
Speaker 1: vibe is fine, but if you're going to be a
22:56
Speaker 1: great player, be a great player. Be great players. And
22:59
Speaker 1: so they learned precision from what they learned how to
23:03
Speaker 1: be the best at what they did. I mean, those
23:07
Speaker 1: albums are musically perfect, and Pyromania was where they crafted
23:13
Speaker 1: that sound. Mutt would have them do take after take
23:15
Speaker 1: after take. He would not settle for less than their
23:18
Speaker 1: very very best, whereas Jim Steinman, his whole thing would be,
23:23
Speaker 1: well you found the groove, all right, cool, let's move on,
23:26
Speaker 1: and they were going, no, we're not even close. We
23:30
Speaker 1: can do way better. So they were doing the Mutt
23:32
Speaker 1: Lang thing at him and saying, we can, we can
23:35
Speaker 1: be far better than this. Why aren't you pushing us?
23:38
Speaker 1: And that's why Jim eventually washed out.
23:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, people may assume or think that the album opened
23:45
Speaker 2: with a bang like pour some Sugar on he was
23:46
Speaker 2: opening single and it just took off, but it didn't.
23:49
Speaker 2: It was I think women was the first single.
23:52
Speaker 1: Yeap women, Women was the first. Okay, it did okay,
23:57
Speaker 1: it didn't do great for some sugar on me is
24:01
Speaker 1: the story there is just amazing.
24:03
Speaker 2: The strip story.
24:04
Speaker 1: And there's two well, there's two parts to that story.
24:07
Speaker 1: The first part is why they did the song at all.
24:10
Speaker 1: The fact is they had wrapped the album. They had
24:12
Speaker 1: all the songs they needed, They had an album's worth
24:14
Speaker 1: of songs. They didn't really need another song. But Mutt,
24:18
Speaker 1: being Mutt, something stuck in him and said, no, we're
24:22
Speaker 1: not done now. He had no reason to say that
24:25
Speaker 1: because they had enough music to fill the album and
24:28
Speaker 1: they had more than enough hit singles already. They had
24:30
Speaker 1: achieved their goal of having an album that was just
24:34
Speaker 1: nothing but killer tracks. They had that, but Mutt wouldn't
24:37
Speaker 1: let it go, and he had the label and he
24:39
Speaker 1: had the management saying we're done, will you turn it
24:41
Speaker 1: over to us? He's like, nah, not quite there. So
24:44
Speaker 1: what happens is he walks into the studio one day
24:47
Speaker 1: and it's Leopard's habit to have acoustic guitar laying around everywhere,
24:51
Speaker 1: or so, see if you if you feel something in
24:54
Speaker 1: your you know, sticking in there. You want to just play,
24:57
Speaker 1: then buy all me, sit down and plate. And that's
24:58
Speaker 1: what Joe did. He was sitting in the kitchen of
25:01
Speaker 1: the studio and he was just noodling ooh some Sugar
25:04
Speaker 1: on Me and it was doing a country tune and
25:09
Speaker 1: he had a country vibe and all that. Mutt walks
25:11
Speaker 1: in and Munt's like, what is that and he says, well,
25:14
Speaker 1: that's all got. It's just a little chorus and that's
25:16
Speaker 1: all he had. And Mutt says, Oh my god, this
25:19
Speaker 1: is it. This is it. And so he and Joe,
25:22
Speaker 1: just the two of them, they rough up a demo
25:25
Speaker 1: of it, and when the other guys come back the
25:27
Speaker 1: next day or whenever, they play it for him and says, oh,
25:30
Speaker 1: come you want to do another song, guys, trust me,
25:34
Speaker 1: this will be the one, and lo and behold that's
25:36
Speaker 1: what happened. Horserom Sugar on Me ended up being the
25:39
Speaker 1: song that wrapped the album. But then they don't release
25:43
Speaker 1: it as a single. As you say, they've released Women
25:45
Speaker 1: and Horserom Sugar on Me actually was the fourth and
25:48
Speaker 1: so the album does okay, it's doing numbers like Pyromania,
25:53
Speaker 1: it's doing five million or something like that. So it
25:55
Speaker 1: was doing okay. Then they released Poor Some Sugar on Me,
25:59
Speaker 1: the fourth single, Howie, they did half a million in
26:04
Speaker 1: one day, Wow, in one day.
26:06
Speaker 2: And from that point sh yeah, there was a strip
26:09
Speaker 2: bar in Florida that was playing it. Right, Phil Collins
26:12
Speaker 2: told that story and they started playing it locally at
26:15
Speaker 2: the station there, and then it took off. That's the
26:18
Speaker 2: old school FM rock radio days. I love those stories. So, yeah,
26:23
Speaker 2: you have. The album eventually topped the charts in both
26:25
Speaker 2: the US and UK, sold over twenty million copies worldwide,
26:30
Speaker 2: seven hit singles, Animal Women, Pour Some Sugar on Me,
26:34
Speaker 2: the title track, Armor Gednet, the number one single, Love Bites,
26:37
Speaker 2: and Rocket It's insane. I know Newsey, New Jersey rivaled that.
26:43
Speaker 2: I think around that same time, those two of them.
26:45
Speaker 2: I remember those being like neck and neck, right, yeah,
26:49
Speaker 2: the seven hit singles was that was the goal with
26:52
Speaker 2: because Thriller had seven singles, right, that was right?
26:55
Speaker 1: Yes, wow, exactly.
26:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's amazing now, but once again tragedy. So you
27:02
Speaker 2: devote another interim chapter to another moment in def Leppard history.
27:09
Speaker 2: That's that's tragic. Steve Clark's passing that was a pivotal
27:12
Speaker 2: moment in def Leopard history. Beyond being an incredible guitarist,
27:17
Speaker 2: what do you think the band lost creatively when they
27:19
Speaker 2: lost Steve.
27:20
Speaker 1: I think the band lost a lot. I've talked about
27:24
Speaker 1: the musical dynamic between Steve and Phil, which which was
27:29
Speaker 1: a defining characteristic of Leopard. It just I mean that
27:32
Speaker 1: that made them that that back and forth, and that
27:35
Speaker 1: the difference between the two. I love viv Campbell and
27:40
Speaker 1: and he is actually a better guitarist in almost every
27:43
Speaker 1: way than Steve Clark was, but he did not have
27:48
Speaker 1: that that wildness, that spark that Steve Clark had. And
27:53
Speaker 1: I think that once they lost that, there was a
27:59
Speaker 1: they would never reach turn to what they were. I
28:01
Speaker 1: think they became other great things, but they could not
28:05
Speaker 1: be the Leopard that they had been without him, and
28:09
Speaker 1: I think that I think that they stopped being the
28:12
Speaker 1: Leopard we remember from the eighties when he died.
28:17
Speaker 2: Find the bookdown Rock website at bookednrock dot com. There
28:21
Speaker 2: you can find all the back episodes of the show,
28:23
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28:26
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28:28
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28:37
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28:40
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28:50
Speaker 2: Adrenalize was intended for Steve Clark to play on nineteen
28:55
Speaker 2: ninety two iss Adrenalize, and he dies during the making
28:59
Speaker 2: of the album. So Phil Colin plays all of Steve
29:04
Speaker 2: Clark's parts on the album.
29:06
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And most people can't really tell because they
29:10
Speaker 1: they're not really tuned into it. Really, it's the Live
29:13
Speaker 1: Leopard where it really jumps out the difference between the two.
29:17
Speaker 1: And Phil is just a consummate professional. He is a marvelous,
29:21
Speaker 1: marvelous player. Far underrated, he's one of the best. But yeah,
29:25
Speaker 1: he did all of that work and it was a
29:28
Speaker 1: great album. But it wasn't just that Steve Clark was missing,
29:35
Speaker 1: you know, among the guitars. It was that the songwriting
29:39
Speaker 1: didn't go that extra mile that it had gone with
29:42
Speaker 1: the previous two albums. Now Muttline contributed, and I think
29:44
Speaker 1: he had a production role on the album, and he
29:47
Speaker 1: wrote on a lot of the tracks, but it wasn't
29:50
Speaker 1: the same. It wasn't Mutt in charge pushing them into
29:54
Speaker 1: new things, and so there really isn't anything new on
29:57
Speaker 1: the album. It does sound like the little brother of Hysteria, right.
30:02
Speaker 2: Six singles from the album Let's Get Rocked was a
30:04
Speaker 2: big hit, make love like a Man? Have you ever
30:07
Speaker 2: needed someone so bad? Here we go again with that's
30:10
Speaker 2: Joe Elliott's theme, right, you want the girl but you
30:14
Speaker 2: can't get her, stand up? Kick love into motion which
30:17
Speaker 2: I love Heaven is great song tonight. Those are the
30:21
Speaker 2: six singles you know, great, great, Yeah to my ears.
30:25
Speaker 2: It's a companion piece to Hysteria. I think everybody would agree,
30:27
Speaker 2: every fan would agree.
30:29
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree with you. It's just a volume two
30:32
Speaker 1: of that album.
30:33
Speaker 2: On Let's Get Rocked. There's something about the verses there
30:36
Speaker 2: that you describe as being laying sparse, quote unquote, something
30:41
Speaker 2: similar to the song rock of Ages, right, talk about.
30:44
Speaker 1: That you don't have much influence there. If Mutt had
30:47
Speaker 1: been there, Let's Get Rocked wouldn't have been full of
30:53
Speaker 1: stock phrases, and it wouldn't have been full of word games,
30:58
Speaker 1: average ordinary everyday kid. I mean, you know these guys
31:02
Speaker 1: have become married with children at this point. You know
31:06
Speaker 1: that's a really dumb law.
31:07
Speaker 2: Let's get the rock out of here.
31:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get the rock out of here. You know,
31:11
Speaker 1: would not have let them get away with that. I mean,
31:13
Speaker 1: it was a great anthem. Another great story there. My
31:18
Speaker 1: son at this point is five years older, but he's
31:20
Speaker 1: still a kid. And I take him to the mall,
31:22
Speaker 1: to the barber shop, and we're sitting there and he's
31:24
Speaker 1: getting his haircut, and over the mall intercom Let's Get
31:27
Speaker 1: Rocked comes on. Now I haven't heard the album yet.
31:30
Speaker 1: I haven't heard the track, but instantly I look up
31:32
Speaker 1: and he looks at me and me and my son
31:34
Speaker 1: is that's Steph lepperd Wow, a new depth and so
31:38
Speaker 1: and he starts headbanging while the barber is trying to
31:41
Speaker 1: cut his hair. That's good, until the barber says, sir,
31:45
Speaker 1: would you please get control of your son? That's the
31:48
Speaker 1: effect Let's get Rocked? How to my boy? But the
31:51
Speaker 1: thing is that a great music on that album, and
31:54
Speaker 1: the guitar work is great, even if there's no Steve Clark.
31:57
Speaker 1: But the songs are B plus songs.
32:00
Speaker 2: The next album was ninety six is Slang. Before we
32:03
Speaker 2: get to that, there was let's see, there were a couple.
32:07
Speaker 2: There was a bet. There was the Vault best of
32:09
Speaker 2: I think right well, which included I think two Steps Behind?
32:14
Speaker 2: Is that where that? Oh? I love that song? I
32:16
Speaker 2: love two steps.
32:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, two Steps Behind. There was also a version of
32:19
Speaker 1: that on Oh the Uh there was a collection they did.
32:25
Speaker 2: Ye, yes, I know what you're talking about. It's got
32:27
Speaker 2: the Woman in the Mirror.
32:28
Speaker 1: The Woman in the Mirror.
32:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll look it up here. But yeah, that that's
32:33
Speaker 2: it's an electric version, an.
32:35
Speaker 1: Electric version, Yeah that that's also on that two Steps.
32:38
Speaker 2: Behind that song and it and it comes at a
32:41
Speaker 2: time when grunge is big, so def Lepperd's still hanging
32:44
Speaker 2: in there right well.
32:45
Speaker 1: And and that that's the tragedy because Steve Clark had
32:49
Speaker 1: just passed. Steve Clark was the grungiest thing about def
32:53
Speaker 1: lepper I mean, Steve Clark was grunge. You know. If
32:58
Speaker 1: he had not died, I think def Leppard could have
33:01
Speaker 1: done something with slang retroactive as retroactive, yeah yeah, retro
33:07
Speaker 1: but they could have done something other than slang that
33:11
Speaker 1: would have fit into the nineties a lot better than
33:13
Speaker 1: slang did. But Two Steps Behind did give us one
33:18
Speaker 1: of the signature Leopard tracks. I consider it one of
33:22
Speaker 1: their probably top three or four ballots. Absolutely, two Steps
33:25
Speaker 1: Behind is a masterful song. I saw them at Fenway
33:29
Speaker 1: Park in Boston on their twenty two tour and he
33:33
Speaker 1: came out and did two Steps Behind on an acoustic
33:36
Speaker 1: guitar and it was glorious, just glorious. I love that song.
33:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other one was when Love and He Collide,
33:46
Speaker 2: which came off of the Best of which is another solad.
33:49
Speaker 1: Song, and it's the same that those just popped up
33:52
Speaker 1: intermittently like they did. Both fantastic tracks. So Valt did
33:57
Speaker 1: offer us something other than just a, you know, a
33:59
Speaker 1: big bucket of best of It did give us some
34:02
Speaker 1: new treats.
34:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could give credit to them on slaying in
34:07
Speaker 2: the sense that they could have easily played it safe,
34:09
Speaker 2: but they made their most adventurous album with ninety six
34:13
Speaker 2: of slang. The singles the title track, work It Out,
34:17
Speaker 2: All in One is Everything, and Breathe a Sigh. Why
34:20
Speaker 2: do you think they felt it was so important to
34:22
Speaker 2: reinvent themselves at this point.
34:24
Speaker 1: I think part of it was that they didn't know
34:27
Speaker 1: who they were without Steve Clark. I think part of
34:29
Speaker 1: it was they were trying to find a new sound
34:33
Speaker 1: that viv Campbell fit into. I think part of it was,
34:37
Speaker 1: you know, hair metal had gone away, and they certainly
34:40
Speaker 1: didn't fit in with grunge. They didn't know who they
34:43
Speaker 1: were anymore. And I think that that's obvious on the album.
34:48
Speaker 1: But I also was one of those people who I
34:50
Speaker 1: got Slang and I brought it home and I played it,
34:53
Speaker 1: and I was blown away. Now I realized I'm an
34:56
Speaker 1: exception most people, you know, I thought this just is
34:59
Speaker 1: not Leopard. I didn't feel that way. I love it
35:02
Speaker 1: when a band experiments. I love it when a band
35:04
Speaker 1: tries something new. I love it when a band really
35:06
Speaker 1: goes for it and swings for the fences. And I
35:09
Speaker 1: felt like they did. And the reason the Beatles are
35:11
Speaker 1: the Beatles is because they never did the same album twice,
35:14
Speaker 1: you know. So I was all for Slang, but of
35:17
Speaker 1: course it didn't fly and they had to go back
35:19
Speaker 1: to the drawing boards.
35:20
Speaker 2: But this was Rick Allen's baby, right. I mean a
35:23
Speaker 2: lot of these songs, if not all of them were
35:26
Speaker 2: built to run beats that he came up with, and
35:28
Speaker 2: they followed his lead. Yeah, and I was all for that.
35:31
Speaker 1: That's another reason I say this is a band that's
35:33
Speaker 1: step by step by step, they grew closer together and
35:37
Speaker 1: they backed each other even more and more. They were
35:40
Speaker 1: a true family. And that's another example of that family
35:43
Speaker 1: at work.
35:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I remember they would talk about def LEPPERD
35:47
Speaker 2: would talk about people getting in their ears saying you
35:49
Speaker 2: should break up and come back and reunite because that
35:52
Speaker 2: would be great, you know, big comeback story. And Joe
35:55
Speaker 2: Eliot said, no, this is we are a band. Sorry
35:58
Speaker 2: to use the corny phrase, but all for one one,
36:00
Speaker 2: all right, we're going down together us you too?
36:04
Speaker 1: Is the same way, same story. You've got to you know,
36:08
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids in the British Isles who in
36:10
Speaker 1: high school they get together and they form a band
36:13
Speaker 1: and they spend the rest of their lives in that band.
36:16
Speaker 1: It's the same story. And I remember one time The
36:19
Speaker 1: Edge was being interviewed and someone says, well, you're kind
36:23
Speaker 1: of the standout here because you're such a unique player.
36:27
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought about moving on? And he said,
36:29
Speaker 1: Why in the world would I do that. I learned
36:31
Speaker 1: how to play guitar to be in this band, and
36:36
Speaker 1: I always love that quote. Well, it's the same with
36:38
Speaker 1: Rick Allen. You know. Rick Allen redefined playing the drums
36:43
Speaker 1: so that you could do it with one arm, you know,
36:46
Speaker 1: and the band rallied around him. Why in the world
36:49
Speaker 1: would they not follow his leave? Why would they not
36:53
Speaker 1: give him every opportunity to innovate and take them in
36:56
Speaker 1: a new direction, which I was all for.
36:58
Speaker 2: I loved that album with slaying commercially commercial disappointment, They
37:03
Speaker 2: made that conscious return to their signature sound on ninety
37:07
Speaker 2: nine's Euphoria. Promise was the big single, great song, but
37:11
Speaker 2: also Paper Sun, Day after Day, great tunes, Goodbye twenty
37:17
Speaker 2: first Century, Shah La La La Girl, the other singles,
37:22
Speaker 2: and you know there's some laying on that hit single
37:25
Speaker 2: from the album Promises. How did he contribute? He contributed
37:29
Speaker 2: to that song.
37:30
Speaker 1: How so the band had trouble letting go of Mud
37:34
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons. They were much more surefooted with him
37:37
Speaker 1: than without him, especially through the nineties. The nineties just
37:41
Speaker 1: they were stumbling in the dark. But it wasn't really
37:44
Speaker 1: their fault. The whole industry was stumbling in the dark.
37:48
Speaker 1: Now at that time he had his card was full
37:52
Speaker 1: and there's no way they were getting them back, and
37:54
Speaker 1: they knew it, but it well. In addition to Promises,
37:58
Speaker 1: which was an outstanding tune and did keep their radio
38:00
Speaker 1: presence up at least for a while. They also, even
38:04
Speaker 1: though it was the Leopard so Leopard sound coming Back
38:08
Speaker 1: paper Sun was just a marvelously innovative track that didn't
38:13
Speaker 1: sound like what they'd done before, and yet it sounded
38:16
Speaker 1: like a Leopard song. H And that shows you that
38:20
Speaker 1: they were still doing their best to innovate, still crying
38:23
Speaker 1: new things, even though they had gone back to safer ground.
38:26
Speaker 2: It's a dark song, it's you know, oh very yeah yeah,
38:32
Speaker 2: which they they didn't do a lot of those. Yeah yeah,
38:38
Speaker 2: but you're right, they didn't do a lot of those,
38:39
Speaker 2: but it worked.
38:41
Speaker 1: It did great, great song.
38:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now things get pretty interesting here. For the first
38:45
Speaker 2: time and their career, def Leppard brought in outside songwriters
38:49
Speaker 2: on O two's X, which includes the single now four
38:52
Speaker 2: Letter Word and Long Long Way to Go. How significant
38:56
Speaker 2: was that decision and do you think it ultimately helped
38:58
Speaker 2: or hurt the album?
38:59
Speaker 1: I think it hurt the album. I think it was
39:02
Speaker 1: another instance of their experimenting in ways that I thought
39:07
Speaker 1: were laudable, and you know, you like a band that experiments.
39:12
Speaker 1: I thought it was a mistake. I have a private
39:15
Speaker 1: theory about why it happened, and I don't have anything
39:19
Speaker 1: to go on just but gut feel. Between Euphoria and
39:24
Speaker 1: X you've got all kinds of change happening in the
39:28
Speaker 1: personal lives of the Leopards the late nineties and the
39:30
Speaker 1: early two thousands. Across that gap of three or four years,
39:34
Speaker 1: there were divorces, there were big legal messes, there were
39:39
Speaker 1: meeting someone new and marrying them right in that space.
39:42
Speaker 1: So you had all this personal personal turmoil, and a
39:46
Speaker 1: lot of bands thrive on that. I mean, Fleetwood Mac
39:49
Speaker 1: wrote rumors over that kind of turmoil, but Leopard's not
39:53
Speaker 1: that kind of band. Leopards a band that's, as you say,
39:56
Speaker 1: all for one on one for all. There an upbeat beat,
39:59
Speaker 1: the less joy filled band, but their lives were not
40:03
Speaker 1: at all joy filled at that articular stretch of time.
40:06
Speaker 1: My theory, and it's just my theory, is that they
40:09
Speaker 1: went dry. You know, they just weren't coming up with
40:12
Speaker 1: enough decent material and so they felt like, well, let's
40:15
Speaker 1: just see if we can get some help. But that's
40:17
Speaker 1: just me.
40:18
Speaker 2: No, I think you got to put this at the
40:20
Speaker 2: bottom on the list of best to worst. I want
40:24
Speaker 2: to like the album, and I wanted to like the
40:27
Speaker 2: songs on there. I think Now is decent, but that
40:30
Speaker 2: was the lead single, and I remember hearing that, thinking
40:33
Speaker 2: this isn't this isn't good, you know, for let a word, okay,
40:36
Speaker 2: long long way to go. I to you, honest with you.
40:38
Speaker 2: I can't even remember how that sounds. I kind of
40:40
Speaker 2: just gave up on it, but I did too. Yeah,
40:43
Speaker 2: but again, I'm always I'm always all for the artists
40:46
Speaker 2: doing what they feel that is what they're most inspired
40:50
Speaker 2: to do. Now, they paid tribute to the artists who
40:53
Speaker 2: inspired them as teenagers with the next one, two thousand
40:56
Speaker 2: and six is yeah, Yeah, Yeah. The singles recovered of
41:00
Speaker 2: bad Fingers No Matter What, which is excellent David Essex,
41:03
Speaker 2: they did rock on from David Essex and t Rex
41:06
Speaker 2: twentieth Century Boy. I found fascinating that they deliberately avoid
41:12
Speaker 2: covering the Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, and Queen. Why were those
41:17
Speaker 2: bands essentially off limits?
41:19
Speaker 1: Well, again, this is just my view. Of it. I
41:22
Speaker 1: think they were deliberately reliving that part of their boyhood,
41:28
Speaker 1: which would have been the early seventies where you had
41:31
Speaker 1: David Essex and you had Bad Finger. They were revisiting
41:36
Speaker 1: a time it wasn't so much about choosing particular artists
41:40
Speaker 1: as it was honoring a stretch of their childhood. Now,
41:44
Speaker 1: certainly those other bands existed in that frame, but those
41:48
Speaker 1: were not the songs they were playing when they got
41:50
Speaker 1: together to jam. You know, they were basically big, big
41:55
Speaker 1: t Rex fans, big thin Lizzie fans, you know, they were.
42:00
Speaker 1: David Essex was one of Joe's affectations. He loved David Essex,
42:05
Speaker 1: and so they went with those artists that spoke their childhood.
42:10
Speaker 1: And I think that probably the four bands you named
42:13
Speaker 1: were probably too big to be, you know, their childhood friends,
42:20
Speaker 1: and so I think that's why they made those particular choices.
42:26
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
42:29
Speaker 2: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
42:32
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42:34
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42:37
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42:43
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42:59
Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
43:02
Speaker 2: to the show. I am very curious to get your
43:06
Speaker 2: thoughts on this next album songs from the Sparkle Lounge
43:09
Speaker 2: from two thousand and eight, because as far as I know,
43:12
Speaker 2: I think I'm the only def LEPPERD fan who likes
43:14
Speaker 2: this album.
43:15
Speaker 1: Oh I love that?
43:16
Speaker 2: Oh good? Oh yeah, somebody else because I always hear
43:20
Speaker 2: people slamming it. I don't Nine Lives I didn't like,
43:24
Speaker 2: but come On come On is a great song. I'm
43:26
Speaker 2: just looking through the track listing now while I do that,
43:29
Speaker 2: give me your thoughts.
43:30
Speaker 1: On well, come on, come On, come On. It really
43:34
Speaker 1: speaks to that album's vibe, which is here's what we
43:39
Speaker 1: do really well. Now we're going to give you some
43:42
Speaker 1: of more the same, but it's not really going to
43:44
Speaker 1: be the same. Come On come On is total on
43:48
Speaker 1: your feet anthem and that's what Leopard does best. And
43:51
Speaker 1: at this point in Leopard's career, you know, this is
43:54
Speaker 1: what two thousand and eight I think it is. You know,
43:56
Speaker 1: they've been out there since the late seventies and they've
44:00
Speaker 1: been cranking out albums or anthems the whole time. Rock
44:03
Speaker 1: from Rock Brigade on anthem, anthem, anthem, anthem, Pour some sugar,
44:07
Speaker 1: Da Da da, Let's get rocked anthem anthem and is
44:11
Speaker 1: there anything new? Can they possibly come up with something new?
44:15
Speaker 1: Come on? Come on? Didn't sound like anything they'd done before,
44:18
Speaker 1: but it wailed. Oh my god. That's what I loved
44:22
Speaker 1: about Sparkle Lounge. It's like, you know what, We're not done.
44:26
Speaker 1: And that's what I heard in that album. And so
44:28
Speaker 1: you know what.
44:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, written by the way, we haven't mentioned him. Written,
44:31
Speaker 2: by by the way by bassist Rick Savage, so credit
44:34
Speaker 2: to him. Yeah, he wrote that song. And by the way,
44:38
Speaker 2: that title, the album title came from. That was like
44:40
Speaker 2: a room when they were on tour. They would call
44:43
Speaker 2: that the room where they go to jam while they're
44:45
Speaker 2: on tour.
44:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Sparkle Lounge. The Sparkle Lounge was what they
44:48
Speaker 1: called their jam room. Yes, I thought that was well
44:51
Speaker 1: charming is is kind of a sissy word to use
44:54
Speaker 1: in this context, but it is charming, you know that.
44:57
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, that's exactly what a great and
45:00
Speaker 1: would do. They would come up with a name just
45:02
Speaker 1: like that, and they would use it all the time.
45:05
Speaker 2: Go great, come on, come on. We mentioned bruise Control
45:09
Speaker 2: only the good Die Young. Yeah, come undone. Yeah, there's
45:15
Speaker 2: some great stuff on there, So I'm glad I'm not
45:18
Speaker 2: alone on that one.
45:19
Speaker 1: Now, No, it didn't. Those songs did not get the
45:22
Speaker 1: hearing they deserved. Now the Leopard has dealt with that
45:25
Speaker 1: a lot, because Leopard is a band that lives in expectations,
45:29
Speaker 1: you know, and the expectations are so huge because they
45:32
Speaker 1: were so huge when they were that it's hard to
45:35
Speaker 1: escape that. And I know that's unfortunate.
45:39
Speaker 2: That next album, twenty fifteen, the self titled one, marks
45:43
Speaker 2: a return to a much more collaborative songwriting process. Great
45:47
Speaker 2: ones on this Let's Go Dangerous Man Enough we Belong,
45:51
Speaker 2: where all the members take a turn on vocals. How
45:56
Speaker 2: much did that renewed collaboration contribute to the album's strength, Well, I.
46:00
Speaker 1: Think it made the album. I don't think they had
46:03
Speaker 1: anything to prove at that point. And like I said,
46:05
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of Sparkle Lynch, but when
46:07
Speaker 1: the def Leopard album came out, it was like, what
46:11
Speaker 1: do they have left? And the fact was that they
46:14
Speaker 1: had been writing a part and then they did come
46:18
Speaker 1: back together and collaborate again. And that's what their whole
46:20
Speaker 1: early years were were just collaboration. And I think they
46:24
Speaker 1: came up with an awful lot of great, great stuff
46:27
Speaker 1: because they were choosing to go that direction again, and
46:30
Speaker 1: I think it spilled over into the next album. I
46:32
Speaker 1: think that that was def Leppard returning to form truly
46:36
Speaker 1: because they were not writing alone, they were back together
46:39
Speaker 1: as collaborators.
46:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, Diamond Star Halo's is the next one seven years later,
46:44
Speaker 2: sound energetic. They sound inspired rather than nostalgic. The singles
46:49
Speaker 2: are kick, take what you Want, and Fired Up. What
46:52
Speaker 2: do you think fueled that burst of creativity so late
46:55
Speaker 2: in their career?
46:56
Speaker 1: I thought about that a lot. When I first got
47:00
Speaker 1: Diamond Star. I played the first three or four songs
47:03
Speaker 1: over and over and over, and I remember thinking, oh,
47:07
Speaker 1: I've waited fifteen years to hear this, you know, because
47:10
Speaker 1: it wasn't just really good Leopard. This was Leopard as
47:15
Speaker 1: they had been in their heyday, and yet these sound
47:18
Speaker 1: like fresh songs. And my theory at the time was
47:21
Speaker 1: its twenty twenty three when this album comes out, and
47:25
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, I bet this is because of COVID. I
47:29
Speaker 1: think these guys were all locked up and cooped up,
47:32
Speaker 1: and all kinds of musicians all over the world have
47:35
Speaker 1: stories to tell about what it was like to be
47:37
Speaker 1: cooped up during COVID. I think that Leopard had to
47:40
Speaker 1: not be Leopard for months and months and months and months,
47:44
Speaker 1: and that that just lit a fuse in every single
47:46
Speaker 1: one of the five of them. And when they finally
47:48
Speaker 1: did come back together, they had tunes in their heads.
47:52
Speaker 1: They were raring to go. They couldn't wait to get
47:54
Speaker 1: back to it. I think Diamond Star was a COVID album,
48:00
Speaker 1: is like, at last, we're out again, and that's what
48:03
Speaker 1: we get now. I'm lost. Like a song like Fired Up,
48:07
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, I mean what that song does.
48:09
Speaker 1: It doesn't just revive they're kicking sound and they're kicking hooks.
48:13
Speaker 1: It dips into their childhood. I think it's it gives
48:17
Speaker 1: a nod to Argent, you know, which is another one
48:21
Speaker 1: of their early bands. You know, a bad company. It
48:25
Speaker 1: echoes those bands. You know, this is them sounding like
48:29
Speaker 1: their childhood's again. Yeah, because that's when Leopard's at its best.
48:34
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, oh, by the way, the band is touring
48:38
Speaker 2: pretty much every year, if not every other year, and
48:40
Speaker 2: the ticket sales are still great. People go out and
48:43
Speaker 2: see that band, and they give the fans what they want.
48:46
Speaker 2: I think they have a nice balance. A lot of
48:49
Speaker 2: the diehard fans will always say, well, you've got to
48:52
Speaker 2: play more of the deeper stuff. But that aside. They
48:56
Speaker 2: know what people want to hear when they go see show,
49:00
Speaker 2: and they deliver that while at the same time still
49:04
Speaker 2: creating new music to keep themselves inspired and you know, refreshed,
49:10
Speaker 2: and they don't feel like a nostalgia act. And as fans,
49:13
Speaker 2: we love I love hearing the new stuff. You know,
49:16
Speaker 2: keep bringing it whatever you want to do, and then
49:19
Speaker 2: you have your final chapters cover this the live albums,
49:23
Speaker 2: the compilations, the box sets. So what do you think
49:26
Speaker 2: fans learn from those archival releases that they can't get
49:30
Speaker 2: from the regular studio albums.
49:32
Speaker 1: We talked about Vault earlier. They don't just put extra
49:36
Speaker 1: tracks on to put extra tracks on. They put some
49:39
Speaker 1: real gems on and then you've got something like the
49:44
Speaker 1: box set that's seventy nine to eighty one, which is
49:47
Speaker 1: a marvelous, marvelous box set. Anyone listening here who hasn't
49:51
Speaker 1: seen that, you won't find it in a story. You'll
49:54
Speaker 1: have to order it. You might have to go out
49:56
Speaker 1: of your way to find a place to order it.
49:58
Speaker 1: But the box set covers those three years, the first
50:01
Speaker 1: three years as a band, seventy nine to eighty one.
50:03
Speaker 1: You get the first two albums, which is fine, most
50:06
Speaker 1: people don't have them, but then you get three more albums.
50:09
Speaker 1: You get the EP we talked about, that first EP
50:12
Speaker 1: that they made by themselves with just the three tracks, marvelous.
50:15
Speaker 1: And then they've got their early BBC appearances, what they
50:19
Speaker 1: sounded like when they were first out there on stage
50:21
Speaker 1: for the first time. They got one of their live shows.
50:23
Speaker 1: From those ears, you hear Leopard at their most jubilant,
50:27
Speaker 1: at their most joyous, at their most reckless young you know,
50:33
Speaker 1: you hear Steve Clark going absolutely nuts. You hear Pete Willis,
50:38
Speaker 1: you know, just absolutely as melodic as can be. You
50:41
Speaker 1: hear Joe not quite himself yet because he's still searching
50:45
Speaker 1: for his voice. It's it's marvelous. And those box sets
50:50
Speaker 1: basically give you assurance that all this came from a
50:56
Speaker 1: very real place, because as much as Leopard has given us,
51:00
Speaker 1: had twelve studio albums, we got, the live albums we had,
51:02
Speaker 1: We've got all that they've given us. But it comes
51:05
Speaker 1: from a very real place. And the fact that there's
51:07
Speaker 1: so much of it and you can still reach out
51:10
Speaker 1: and find more of it if you want, that tells
51:13
Speaker 1: you just how prolific and how talented and how inspired
51:17
Speaker 1: these guys are even in their sixties.
51:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. And they're not on the road this summer yep.
51:22
Speaker 2: And do you know if there's plans for another album?
51:26
Speaker 2: Have they talked about it.
51:28
Speaker 1: If they've talked about it, I have not heard that.
51:30
Speaker 1: I do know that it's problematic. Viv Campbell isn't well
51:35
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah. And it's that they can even be
51:39
Speaker 1: out right now, to me is good news because I
51:44
Speaker 1: would not have thought it.
51:45
Speaker 2: He's battling cancer, right, he's been, yeah, and it's he's.
51:49
Speaker 1: I think he's in for a rough patch. So the
51:52
Speaker 1: fact that they're going out at all to me is marvelous.
51:57
Speaker 2: But he looks I've seen clips. So he looks good.
52:00
Speaker 2: He's out there with them.
52:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he does look good. I don't know what
52:06
Speaker 1: happens next. I would love it if they do another album, because,
52:09
Speaker 1: as I said, I was thrilled with Diamond Star. That
52:12
Speaker 1: was a marvelous, marvelous album. They've still got it, you know,
52:16
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there's another good album in them, and
52:18
Speaker 1: I would love to hear it if they get around
52:20
Speaker 1: to it.
52:21
Speaker 2: We'll see. One last question. If somebody asked you why
52:23
Speaker 2: def Leppard has remained one of the few rock bands
52:26
Speaker 2: from the early eighties that's still selling out arenas around
52:30
Speaker 2: the world, what would your answer be.
52:32
Speaker 1: Well, part of it is the fact that they do
52:34
Speaker 1: keep trying to reinvent themselves. Maybe not as aggressively as
52:37
Speaker 1: the Beatles or a band like that, but they never
52:40
Speaker 1: stopped trying new things. They never rested on the laurels.
52:42
Speaker 1: But mostly it's that factor we've talked about several times now.
52:46
Speaker 1: These guys are a family. These guys are brothers, and
52:50
Speaker 1: you know they've never stopped being that. You know, they
52:54
Speaker 1: never turn away from each other. It's all for one
52:57
Speaker 1: on one for all. We don't see that in me music.
53:00
Speaker 1: We don't see that in bands. I mean, think of
53:02
Speaker 1: any band you could mention. The Beatles themselves came apart
53:05
Speaker 1: Van Halen your T shirt there. You know, band after
53:09
Speaker 1: band they just could not hang Yeah, they couldn't hang
53:12
Speaker 1: in there for each other. Def Leppard, they set the standard.
53:17
Speaker 1: They showed the world how to be a band.
53:21
Speaker 2: The Book Down Rock podcast is part of the Boneless
53:24
Speaker 2: podcasting Network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
53:27
Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
53:30
Speaker 2: dot app to find over twenty great shows. There that's
53:33
Speaker 2: Boneless dot lovable dot app. Or just go to book
53:36
Speaker 2: down Rock dot com the Boneless podcasting network. It is
53:40
Speaker 2: what you want to be. Listen with confidence. Def Leppard
53:45
Speaker 2: Every album, every song is out now find it through
53:49
Speaker 2: Amazon through burningshd dot com. If you're in the UK
53:52
Speaker 2: and Scott can people find.
53:53
Speaker 1: You online, you can find me on Amazon dot com.
53:57
Speaker 1: Olkus to say Amazon dot com, Scott Robin and Beatles
54:01
Speaker 1: and you'll find some of my Beatles books.
54:03
Speaker 2: Oh great, okay, yeah, a lot of Beatles books. Okay cool. Yeah.
54:07
Speaker 2: For those not watching this episode, Scott's got his Beatles shirt. Yes,
54:11
Speaker 2: there you go. This is awesome and I love that
54:15
Speaker 2: background there, man, that's that is that's that's like that
54:18
Speaker 2: reminds you of like the Andy Rooney, you know, the
54:20
Speaker 2: old CBS. Right, he's good. You've got a room full
54:24
Speaker 2: of books. I love it. That's beautiful.
54:26
Speaker 1: Exactly.
54:27
Speaker 2: Yes, Scott Robinson, thanks so much.
54:29
Speaker 1: Thank you, Eric, I appreciate it.
54:37
Speaker 2: That's it, it's in the books.