DEF LEPPARD Singer Joe Elliott Talks Technology
August 7, 2009, 15 years ago
Mary Colurso from Al.com spoke with DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott recently about a number of topics including embracing changing technology.
Twitter? Not in this lifetime, although Elliott says other members of the hard-rock group are fully plugged in.
"I've got an e-mail address and that's it," he says. "I don't want anyone writing to me that I don't know. I wouldn't have time to answer them."Elliott says he embraces technology that allows him to locate music on the internet and buy songs easily as downloads. Innovations in recording gear also get an enthusiastic thumb's up.
"We can do all kinds of things, ridiculous ideas that would be so difficult in the past," he says. Writing songs via e-mail? "That is just amazing."Maintaining a strong web presence is essential for any band today, famous or not, Elliott says. "Absolutely, you'd have to be an idiot not to do that," he says. "We went through this in a similar way in the 1980s. Other bands would be, `Why are you making a video?' I would be, `Well, why aren't you making one?'"
Def Leppard came to prominence when concert audiences still held lighters aloft in tribute. Now, Elliott says, it's a trip to see glowing cell phones replace Bics and Zippos during power ballads.
"We started noticing it four years ago," he says. "That's progress. There's even a Def Leppard lighter you can get, (as an application) for an iPhone. It's probably safer, and it's funny."Read the entire interview here.
