In a new essay for The Irish Times, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell speaks about his work and his life, living with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and more. An excerpt follows:

“My hair had been long since I was 12 years old and, as a rock guitarist for all of my adult life, I had come to let my hair define a big part of my identity. It seems crazy now, but at first I couldn’t imagine performing bald, so I went out and bought a very expensive, convincing wig.

“I had it on my head for less than 10 minutes before I pulled it off and it’s never been back on since. It was so physically and mentally uncomfortable to me and I kept thinking to myself, when should I wear this? Should I wear it in the hotel? Should I wear it at the airport?

“The fact that I was asking myself all these questions led me to decide to go public with the whole thing rather than try to hide it. I’m really glad I did as it was very cathartic for me to do so. Looking back at it now I can’t believe I was ever even concerned about that.

“But every cloud has a silver lining, and over the past few years of chemo and stem cell transplants, I can honestly say that I’m grateful for the life lessons cancer has taught me. I’m so much more comfortable with who I am as a person and I no longer put as much emphasis on physical appearance, for myself, or anyone else for that matter. It’s our spirit that truly defines who we are.”

Read more at IrishTimes.com.

Campbell and his side band Last In Line recently entered the Billboard album charts with their Heavy Crown album. The album was released worldwide on February 19th as a regular CD, Deluxe Edition CD + DVD and digitally.

Heavy Crown entered the Billboard 200 album chart at #188. The album also landed at #6 on the Hard Rock albums chart, at #22 on the Top Rock chart and is #75 for Top Album Sales. The album failed to make the main Top 100 album chart in the UK, but did enter at #7 on the Rock album chart.

On January 24th, former Rainbow / Dio bassist Jimmy Bain - most recently with Last In Line - passed away at the age of 68 during Def Leppard's Hysteria On The High Seas cruise.

“The album is now more of a tribute to Jimmy than anything”, Vivian Campbell tells MusicLifeMagazine.net. “We never saw it as a Dio tribute band, even though we were paying tribute to the music we created on those first three Dio records [Holy Diver, Last in Line and Sacred Heart]. There is nothing contrived about this project. When Jimmy and Vinny and I play together, that’s the sound. It’s the same three musicians who played on those records, so it’s always going to have that feel and sound. But we didn’t go into this project trying to write songs and make them sound like they were Dio songs. We didn’t give it any thought at all, we just started playing and the songs came together. And we delivered a great record and Jimmy knew that and we all knew that. It’s a fitting testament to his abilities and legacy.”

Read the full interview with Campbell at MusicLifeMagazine.net.

CD tracklisting:

“Devil In Me”
“Martyr”
“Starmaker”
“Burn This House Down”
“I Am Revolution”
“Blame It On Me”
“In Flames” (Bonus Track Deluxe Edition)
“Already Dead”
“Curse The Day”
“Orange Glow”
“Heavy Crown”
“The Sickness”

DVD tracklisting:

“Devil In Me” (video)
“Starmaker” (video)
Making of Heavy Crown

“Blame It On Me” lyric video:

“Starmaker” video:

“Martyr”:

“Devil In Me” video:

Behind-the-scenes “making of” footage: