Ahead of Def Leppard’s show tomorrow night (Friday, August 28th) in Grand Forks, vocalist Joe Elliott took part in a Q&A with Grand Forks Herald.

Asked about Def Leppard’s new studio album, expected in October, Joe states: “Yeah, it's finished. We're just doing simple, last-minute adjustments. The first song is going to go to radio next month. It's a 14-track, 55-minute album. It's just called Def Leppard because that's what it sounds like. It doesn't sounds like any one specific era of Def Leppard. It's got everything.

“You'll listen and you go, ‘Oh, that sounds like Def Leppard’, or you'll go, ‘That is Leppard, but sounds a bit like Led Zeppelin or Queen but you can hear the AC/DC or the Crosby, Stills and Nash coming through.’ We have not shied away from anything that's influenced us in our growing up periods of our life. Just because we've made the kind of music we've made doesn't mean to say we don't like all of this other stuff.

“We made this record as an artistic statement that we'd be happy to play in 10 or 15 years in time and go, ‘You know what? That is a great record. That was a great period in our career.’

“So the future for us is wide open. When you've been together for 35 years, we could split up in 20 minutes as soon as I finish this phone call because that could have happened in our last 20 years, but it didn't. We're realistic to realize that it all comes to a sticky end one day. Nothing ever ends well. When did you ever hear of a band who was having massive success and then saying goodbye to each other with a smile on their face?

“We're lucky that's never happened to us. It will take a nature ending when it does, but right now, we're loving be out on the road. We're loving this new record that's about to come out. So the future is whatever it is. I cannot really predict it, but I'm not staring at some ugliness in the face, and we never really have.

The only times when it got a bit manky for us was when Rick lost his arm and when Steve died. I mean, shoot, we all just went, ‘What's the point for about five seconds?’ But then we said we were all musicians and we all enjoyed each other's company and we like what we do. You wouldn't quit being a plumber, why would you quit being a musician?

“We're really lucky, four members of this five man group have been together for 32 years and this currently lineup has been together for 23.

“You just have to wait for the stars to be aligned. For this new album, they seemed to have been for us, because we all played and sang great and wrote well. There's some great variety on there. Every single aspect of anything we've ever wanted to put out — acoustic, heavy, soft, slow, fast — it's there. That's why we call it "Def Leppard" because, just like Queen were, we're capable of coming up with vastly different kinds of songs.”

Find the full Q&A at Grand Forks Herald.

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen recently talks about the new album in a new interview with Jeb Wright at Classic Rock Revisited:

“The new Def Leppard album is the best thing we’ve made since Hysteria. We approached it differently as the industry has changed. We have done it for the reasons we got into it for in the first place. We are just creating music. We don’t have a record executive telling us we need three singles and five filler tracks.

“Even the fans tend to think you should go one way, but it is really important to go your own way, as that is what got you there in the first place. That is what got the Rolling Stones there, and that is what got Led Zeppelin there, and Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix… they didn’t listen to everyone else. Something has happened in the industry and in life in general for us, and it has allowed us to do what we want to do. We are not just in it for money or fame. It separates the men from the boys, I think."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

 

 

Def Leppard’s tour schedule is as follows:

August
27 - St. Paul - MN - Minnesota State Fair
28 - Grand Forks - ND - Alerus Center
30 - Noblesville - IN - Klipsch Music Center

September
1 - Allentown - PA - The Great Allentown Fair
3 - Louisville - KY - KFC Yum! Center
4 - Maryland Heights - MO - Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
5 - Tinley Park - IL - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
16 - Auburn - WA - White River Amphitheatre
17 - Ridgefield - WA - Amphitheater Northwest
19 - Mountain View - CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
22 - Chula Vista - CA - Sleep Train Amphitheatre
23 - Phoenix - AZ - Ak-Chin Pavilion
25 - Albuquerque - NM - Isleta Amphitheater
26 - Denver - CO - Pepsi Center
28 - West Valley City - UT - USANA Amphitheatre
30 - Spokane - WA - Spokane Arena

October
2 - Bozeman - MT - Brick Breeden Fieldhouse
4 - Bismarck - ND - Bismarck Civic Center