DEF LEPPARD and MANRAZE guitarist Phil Collen stopped by Ultimate Classic Rock recently for an extensive two-part interview, an excerpt from the first half can be read below. Collen also brought along his guitar to deliver a solo acoustic rendition of the title track off Def Leppard’s 1987 album Hysteria.

You released the live disc Mirrorball last year but it’s been four years since the last proper studio album. I just wanted to know if there is any plan in place for another Def Leppard album?

"No, there’s not and I’ll tell you why: We actually did three new songs, three studio songs for Mirrorball, which was great. I really believe in this day and age unless you’re going to do an album like [Manraze's] PunkFunkRootsRock which we did in less than two weeks; I don’t think there’s much point in doing an album because it’s such a quick turnaround, you have a song and then it’s gone. For us to do an album, it’d take at least eight months unless we were doing it on tour.

What I think is going to happen — I’ve already started writing some of the songs — [is that] we release two or three at a time or something like that it’s kind of more like an EP or something attached to another project but a full blown album would just take us away for too long and by the rate everything is going by the time we finish the album and we go 'okay here it is,' there’s no more recording industry left. I think you have to be careful with it, we’ve got some great ideas, I’ve got this killer song that’s totally Def Leppard, it’s not totally finished yet but I’m looking forward to getting that on the go as well. I think we’ll be doing it in dribs and drabs. I think there will be an album that comes out of something while we’ve been recording three songs at a time or all at once. That’ll be a bit later. I think for the very near future it’d be one or two songs attached to something else."

To read the interview in its entirety, click here.

In live news, Def Leppard has confirmed a North American summer tour with POISON. Thus far only one date has been announced: July 22nd in Caddott, Wisconsin at Rock Fest.