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Def Leppard Shows More Than Just Nostalgia

 

There’s a lot more young-at-heart out on the summer-amphitheater circuit than youth itself.

 

Classic rock sells tickets, and in the year 2016, classic rock can now include ‘80s bands.

“I’ll be 60 next year, and I’m still running around like a teenager,” says Phil Collen, longtime guitarist of ‘80s hard rockers Def Leppard.

 

Collen believes it’s more than nostalgia bringing people to Def Leppard shows. During a phone interview, he noted that that the band has done an annual tour for the last several years, so it has never really gone away. In 2015 Def Leppard released a self-titled album, its first in seven years.

 

Question: Do you sense that there a hunger for ‘80s rock or big-hair music, whatever you want to call it?

 

Answer: I think it’s more than that. We hate that association, because a lot of those bands tried to copy a sound that we created and really messed it up. That’s why you had bands like Nirvana and that coming out later on, because they were sick of the pale imitations.

 

Q: There’s another band of that era making news with its comeback tour this summer. Would you call Guns N’ Roses a pale imitation of Def Leppard?

 

A: I love Guns N’ Roses, I got to say. Always did. I think it’s a shame that they broke up in the first place. So, no, I don’t think they were pale imitations. I think they were real. I remember when the first album came out. I remember meeting a couple of the guys, and they were genuinely into it, and they had a sound that was really needed. It was very aggressive. It actually reminded me of some of the English punk bands and the New York Dolls and stuff like that, but it had an American-rock thing, almost like an Aerosmith thing. I thought they were a perfect hybrid, actually. They were a real rock band. There were a lot of other ones that came out. I can even remember what their names were. But with anything, what destroys a genre of music is all the pale imitations coming out.

 

Q: I associate the Def Leppard song “Photograph” with a memory from 1983 of a grammar-school dance, looking at girls from across the room. Was that the band’s objective with its music, to put suburban American pre-teenagers in touch with their sexuality for the first time?

 

A: With Mutt Lange, who’s our producer on all those records, he tried to make a classic hybrid. He tried to fuse pop with hard rock. As we know, hard rock is very machismo, and it’s got a beat in your chest, and it attracts girls. If you’re of that age, and you got that thing going, an infectious pop song or a groove, mission accomplished.  Mutt Lange, he was a genius. He was trying to create something different. He was married to Shania Twain and made her popular to the masses – people who never even liked country. I remember being in Japan, and hearing Shania Twain in an elevator. It was creating that hybrid with the rock thing.

 

You’re beating your chest, your hormones are going crazy. It was like Duran Duran on steroids, and the music sounded that way. It was commercial as the pop stuff, but it had a rock thing, so you had all the bases covered. If you were that age, it was a perfect recipe. We didn’t plan it, but looking back in retrospect that’s really what happened.

 

Q: Do you still use tricks that Mutt Lange taught you back then?

 

A: Absolutely. I think the real trick is groove and melody. You got to be able to tap your foot, bang your head, dance to it or get motivated by it. And I think melody is an absolute must, even with guitar solos, and drums even. You got to be able to play air drums. You can’t play stuff that’s too complicated, because most people are not going to get it. With hip-hop, one of the great things about that is a great groove. A drum machine doesn’t move. It’s just got this thing, and you got this aggression over it, and that’s why it works so well.

 

Read the full article at Cincinnati.com.