Ahead of Def Leppard's Radio 2 In The Park headline performance, here's a chance to read our 2024 interview with frontman Joe Elliott...
UK rock titans Def Leppard are one of only five bands, including The Beatles and Pink Floyd, to have more than one diamond-certified studio album in the US. Here, frontman Joe Elliott reflects on early bad reviews, making tapes for David Bowie and working with Taylor Swift...
INTERVIEW: James Hickie PHOTO: Ross Halfin
We went through a lot of stinging reviews in our early days...
“Who hasn’t? The one that sticks out the most was when we opened for The Human League at a free festival in Sheffield. [The critic] said we were ‘bludgeon riffola’. I remember [former Def Leppard guitarist] Pete Willis saying that sounded like Italian canned food. It became an in-joke. So when we did the The Def Leppard EP in 1979, we named our label Bludgeon Riffola. We’ve always tried to find a silver lining with everything we do.”
We’ve achieved things even bands like the Rolling Stones haven’t…
“I only allow myself to bask in our achievements when we’re doing a press release or something. Only five rock bands have multiple diamond-selling albums – a list that includes The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin and us. They had a one-off diamond award ceremony in New York around 1999 or 2000 and we were there because both [1983’s] Pyromania and [1987’s] Hysteria were diamond-certified. When we were there, we were looking through the list of all these names in gold leaf and I said, ‘Where the fuck’s the Stones?’ They weren’t there. The biggest album they sold was about four million, apparently. Then you’re thinking of all the other bands that haven’t sold 10 million and you think, ‘My god, we are in rarefied air.’”
Taylor Swift was a darling to work with at the 2008 CMT Awards...
“A total pro. We went in, we did the work, then she threw a barbecue afterwards. Nobody could have predicted Taylor Swift’s success – including her. You could have posed this question in 1969 to someone and asked, ‘Did you see The Beatles getting as big as they did?’ It goes beyond talent. It’s about the right place, right time. Taylor is obviously talented, writes great songs and knows how to collaborate with the right people. But she also survived that horrible bit [with Kanye West at the 2009 MTV VMAs] when she was collecting her award. Now she’s on this Eras tour and bigger than The Beatles and the Stones combined. She’s a workaholic; she’s like Mick Jagger and doesn’t turn off.”
It took me years to realise that David Bowie was just a bloke…
“For many years he was this otherworldly guy to me, but in reality, as I found out when I met him, he was actually just a bloke who was putting on these many personas. I met him at Bono’s house. Bono took me into his snooker room and said, ‘Somebody wants to say hi.’ We walked in and it was David Bowie, sitting on the snooker table. I said to Bono, ‘For fuck’s sake, you could have told me who it was going to be!’ I actually once made David Bowie a tape of his own music. I spoke to him about All The Young Dudes and he said he hadn’t heard his version in years and didn’t have a copy of it. I told him I had it, so I went home and recorded it over an old Def Leppard cassette. I saw him in the corridor as he was about to go onstage and said, ‘Dudes’ – so he took it, put it in his top pocket and walked on stage.”
I actually take on personas as a performer, too…
“Our record [2023’s] Drastic Symphonies included versions of Def Leppard songs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. And while I was disparaging about classical musical music on Let’s Get Rocked [from 1992’s Adrenalize], you have to remember that’s not me, but the character of Flynn in that song. I love classical music. I’m playing a part. It’s like saying to an actor, ‘What’s it like to be an axe murderer?’ Well I’m not – I’m an actor, you fucking idiot!”
It was great to get our highest charting album in 32 years in 2023…
“With Drastic Symphonies, we went into another elite bracket of being one of the few bands to have a Top 10 album in five different decades in America. I’m just glad that it’s part of the catalogue and sees us maintaining a modicum of success, even if we might not be in Taylor Swift’s stratosphere!”
