Issue 56 of Rock Candy Magazine takes on a forensic examination of Def Leppard’s almost 50 years of playing live. From the tiny gigs to the stadium straddling monster tours, Leppard have played them all… many of them ‘In The Round’. Rock Candy editor Howard Johnson spoke to every member of the band and came away with fascinating insights and a massive amount of in-depth information, weaving the story of their discovery in the explosive period of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal through to the current day and their thoughts about playing live shows until they drop!
Vocalist Joe Elliott explained the secret of their long-term success. “The fact that we’re all mates and everybody knows it. The fact that we’ve had the same line-up for 34 years now is insane. A sense of humour has kept this band together, and I think that comes across to the fans. We do what we do and for some bizarre reason people still like it… We have to keep making music. We’ve got heads full of songs and we’re going to die unhappy if we never get them written and if we’re going to make a new album, then we’re going to tour. And we’re making a new record now that will be released next year. Why? Because we’re not done yet.”
Bassist Rick Savage considered their enduring passion for playing live. “The vibe and the feeling are exactly the same as they were. I’ve never got the impression from any of the other four that they’ve ever been going through the motions, and I’ve certainly never felt that. We take so much pride in what we do. We’re always trying to better ourselves, always thinking about how things could be improved. We genuinely love playing live. We really, really do… We really care about what we do and how we do it, and I think that’s what keeps us motivated, and keeps a bit of an edge there.”
Drummer Rick Allen explained the things they had in common from the start, when he was playing on the Sheffield, Northern England, scene before joining Leppard. “I played a lot of the places that Def Leppard played before I joined the band. When I first met [guitarist] Steve Clark and Joe Elliott we realised that we’d been to all the same gigs and loved the same bands. We were into Thin Lizzy, Slade and Sweet. It was almost like I was in the band before they’d even heard me play.”
Guitarist Phil Collen revealed that playing ‘In The Round’, was great but very tiring. “I loved the idea of having four front rows to play to, but it was really exhausting because I had all these different mics to sing into. At the time we had pads near to the monitors and you’d have to step on a pad to activate a particular mic. We had to activate them ourselves, it didn’t happen from the mixing desk, and if you didn’t turn them off then all of the onstage sound would go down the mic and you’d get feedback… I remember that Steve used to be at the mic with his legs on either side of the pad. He’d forget to press it and be singing into the mic, but nothing would be coming out. There was a lot to deal with, but all the same it was an amazing experience.”
And guitarist Vivian Campbell, who joined the band in 1992 after the death in 1991 of Steve Clark, gave an overview of Leppard’s stage craft. “We have a collective focus on putting on the best show that we possibly can, and reinvesting into that show. We’ll spend half a million dollars on a show… We’re thinking ‘People have seen that show. Now it needs to be better.’ We have that mindset, and we’re all on the same page. Other bands get tanked up on beers, and they go, ‘It’s only rock ‘n’ roll’. Well I’ll have a beer but I’ll have it after the show because the show is important to us. We don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take the work very seriously.”
26 pages of fascinating Def Leppard content and Joe Bonamassa on Rory Gallagher, drummer Charlie Benante on the ‘Sound Of White Noise’ period of Anthrax, a Q&A with Mr. Big and Dave Lee Roth bassist Billy Sheehan, a Rapid Fired Recall with Richie Faulkner of Judas Priest, a reappraisal of Poison’s ‘Look What The Cat Dragged In’ and much much more!