In the Artisan News report below, guitarist Phil Collen talks about the difference between his two bands, DEF LEPPARD and MANRAZE, vocalist Joe Elliott's hurt leg, tour plans and opening for himself.

An update from VideogameWriters.com indicates that, according to a press release posted on PrimaryWaveMusic.com, fans of Rock Band 3 will be given the opportunity to download six of the biggest hits from the Def Leppard catalogue next week. The press release, which is dated August 5th, states “Harmonix today announced that a 6-pack of tracks from rock icons Def Leppard will be available beginning August 9th in the Rock Band 3 Music Store.”

Harmonix has not officially confirmed or denied the rumour, but Community Manager Aaron Trites tweeted the following statement presumably in response to the rumour:

“Any guesses on what @RockBand DLC we’ll announce tomorrow? /facepalm.”

Trites followed that statement up on Twitter with “Face palming because it’s frustrating. Not much you can do when the cat is out of the bag leak wise. We’ll try again next week!”

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Ultimate Classic Rock recently conducted an interview with Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen, in which he spoke about his band Manraze, Def Leppard’s legacy, and more. An excerpt is available below:

Ultimate Classic Rock: There’s a new Def Leppard live album out with a few new studio tracks on it previewing a new album. From your part, how would you describe the new album that Def Leppard is currently working on, as far as how it’s shaping up sound wise?

Phil Collen: “I don’t think we are going to do a new record per-say. Not like a standard thing, because it would take a year to fit in the studio. I really love the fact that we’ve done three songs, I think it reminded me of all of THE BEATLES stuff, all THE STONES stuff, DAVID BOWIE, they’d go in the studio and they would write when they were inspired and they would record when they were inspired. As opposed to going, “we’ve got to go in the studio, we’ve got three good tracks and we’ve got like seven fillers. I don’t like the idea of that. I thought what was really refreshing about the three new songs is that they evolved naturally. They were written and recorded and then we got the opportunity to release them on a live album and I love that. I thought “wow, that’s way more inspired and it’s going to sound a lot more real than anything we’ve done for many years, actually. So, I don’t know, I think perhaps we should doing something like that where it’s not a full blown album per-say, but it’s like an EP or something where you just release certain songs. I think that’d be the way to go. I think the three songs, are very representative of us right now. But say in a year’s time, I think it could be different again. Since we’ve done those three, I’ve finished the Manraze album, Joe’s done some DOWN ‘N’ OUTZ stuff, so already it’s shifted a little bit, dynamic wise and energy wise. So, you have to bear all of that in mind, I think that what we do from this point on would be different to the three songs, which is a very interesting thing when you look at it.”

Read the entire interview here.

Check out BW&BK; scribe Martin Popoff's new Manraze feature at this location.