In a new interview with New Times, Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen discusses how he overcame the amputation of his left arm in 1985, following a car accident on December 31st, 1984. An excerpt from the interview follows:

Q: What was/is the hardest part of learning how to play drums again following the accident?

A: “In many ways, it was quite inexplicable, the experience that I went through. I realized that I could do things with my right hand that I could never do before. At a certain point — because I kept going, I kept doing it, I kept playing — the learning curve takes over. I guess now I'm in the learning curve stage of my experience, my recovery, my forward momentum, as it were.”

Q: You're still in the learning-curve stage 30 years after the accident?

A: “Absolutely. I can't help but move forward. I don't want to stand still. I find new ways of doing old things. I'll discover something a year or two ago that I couldn't do, and all of a sudden, I can do it. It's just a matter of pushing that learning curve and continue studying. I still have the capacity to improve.”

Q: Are you able to mimic your old drumming style?

A: “Yeah, I can mimic it really well. Where I can't do things cleanly, let's say, is consecutive beats on one particular drum. So then I'll play a game of substitution. So I'll play right hand, left foot, and then I'll add kick drum. So what I do is I substitute one of the beats that I was going to play, or that I want to play on one drum, and I'll substitute those beats with other drums so that I can play something that sounds very similar. It's not exact, but it sounds very similar to what I would have played before.”

Read more at New Times.

Rick Allen will present his latest art collection, Angels And Icons, at Boca Raton Town Center’s Wentworth Gallery on Saturday, January 16th, reports Leslie Gray Streeter of myPalmBeachPost.

As he prepares to come to the show in Boca and another one earlier that day in Fort Lauderdale, Allen says he’s “recovering from 102 shows,” with some time off at home with his family in California. “Being Dad, not a rock star, at home, keeps me grounded.”

About a week after the gallery appearances, Def Leppard has another handful of shows, including a cruise out of Miami and then one at Fort Lauderdale’s BB&T Center. As an artist, both musically and visually, one medium informs the other, he says.

“While I’m out (on tour) I’m constantly planning out what I’d like to do, whether that’s planning imagery or taking photographs. Recently I was out taking photos of iconic aspects of London, which is always close to my heart,” he explains. “When I get home, I start painting, in whatever form that comes out. Sometimes it’s just an image that I start painting on top of, or some more graphic pieces like flags. There’s quite a bit of math involved to get the things worked out and put on canvas. And then sometimes, it’s just straight paint.”

The current show, Angels And Icons, focuses on those heavenly creatures, photographed around the world in places like Boston and Dublin. The images “were taken during meaningful times with the family. Some were taken while in Dublin while spending time with my father, who I lost about four years ago. A lot of that conjures up those memories from a time I can’t necessarily experience again. It’s a great way to just remember all those wonderful times, good things that come about between father and son.”

Learn more at this location.