Download Festival host Kylie Olsson recently caught up with Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott. During their interview, which can be seen below, the singer reveals that his band has been working on new material. An excerpt has been transcribed as follows:

What have you been doing with your time off? Have you been making music?

Joe Elliott: "We've been writing, which is great. We have no fixed ending to any particular project. We have written some songs — I can't deny that we have written some songs remotely as an exercise to see if we could, and I can announce it was very successful. What are we gonna do with those songs? That's to be seen. We've gotta wait and see, because, obviously, everybody's in different continents, in different cities and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot of work to be done before we get to a finished product. But we have not let the year go to waste."

On June 11, Def Leppard will release Def Leppard - Volume Three, a new limited edition box set UMe/Virgin. Pre-order here.

This set marks the third of four volumes of the band’s complete recorded output in both 180gm vinyl and limited-edition CD box sets. They contain all the recordings from the band in the 2000’s and features the original packaging on both formats. To date, X, Yeah! and Songs From The Sparkle Lounge have never been available on vinyl before.

The albums were mastered by Ronan McHugh and Joe Elliott at Joe’s Garage with assistance from Andy Pearce and cut by Greg Moore. Housed in rigid boxes the sets also contain a hard-backed book with rare photos by Ross Halfin and notes by Classic Rock Magazine’s Paul Elliott. Band members Joe Elliott, Rick Savage, Rick Allen and Phil Collen have also contributed to the set.

Def Leppard - Volume Three features 2002’s X, which was the groups sixth consecutive Top 20 record on the Billboard 200 chart and features songs such as “Now,” “Four Letter Word” and “Long Long Way to Go”, 2006’s Yeah!, the band’s first covers album featuring a collection of the groups favorite tracks re-recorded with the iconic Leppard sound, this is the first time this album will be available on vinyl. Also Def Leppard’s tenth studio album Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, released in 2008 the record marked the bands return to their signature sound and hitting the Top 10 both sides of the Atlantic, the album included the hit single “Nine Lives” which featured Grammy Award winning country legend Tim McGraw.

Also included are B-Sides, Yeah! Studio Covers and Yeah! Live. These albums have specially been compiled by Joe Elliott for this limited-edition release. B-Sides contains a rare compilation of B-sides that have never appeared on vinyl before. Yeah! Studio Covers includes some never before released on vinyl covers, Yeah! bonus disc exclusive release tracks and a compilation of the various covers recorded by the band over their career. Yeah! Live is a compilation of live recordings of covers by the band which include both tracks from 2006’s Yeah!, as well as previously unreleased live tracks from the past 30 years.