Metal-Rules.com's Marko Syrjala caught up with guitarist Vivian Campbell at Sweden Rock, just before Def Leppard’s headlining show, and talked to him about his past with Dio, Last In Line, and the current state of Def Leppard. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Marko Syrjala: So, what’s going on with Def Leppard? You haven’t released any new albums for a while, but you have been touring a lot. In fact, you’ve done extensive tours recently!

Vivian Campbell - "Yeah. That’s Def Leppard. We don’t make records that often. The last one came out at the end of 2015. I know that a few new song ideas are going around, so I would suspect something new will come next year. I don’t know if it’ll be an album, maybe just a track or three or four. I think it’s definitely about time.

"But, yeah, we’ve been really busy touring, and the touring aspect of what we do has just been so successful and thus very time consuming for the last few years. I’d say that last year in North America, we did our biggest ever tour, certainly in the 27 years that I’ve been with Def Leppard. I mean, we were playing stadiums with Journey, and I very happy to say that – I watch the audience a lot. I always do. I always have. So, by watching the audience in North America last year, I think 40% of them are young enough to be our children. We’ve crossed this generational divide, and we’re no longer playing to people who are our age, we’re playing to our children. That’s a great feeling because it’s a whole different energy that comes into the show. It’s more exuberant, and we really feed off the audience. We need that energy. Otherwise, we’re just playing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' again for the millionth time. When an audience is excited about the song, then we play it better, so that’s good, and we hope that keeps growing. As I mentioned, we played some stadium shows last year, and I do feel that the bigger the show, the more Def Leppard brings to it. I think everything about Def Leppard’s music – it’s bombastic. It’s big.

Read the full interview at Metal-Rules.com.

(Photo - Marko Syrjala)