Def Leppard's Joe Elliott on life, death and new songs
Gunter, glieben, glauten globen: Def Leppard is coming to Klispch tonight on tour with REO Speedwagon and Tesla, continuing their three-part tour promoting their new, self-titled, “accidental” eleventh studio album.
Lead singer, Joe Elliot, chattedwith us earlier this week about the ongoing tour, the fans, and the realities of life and death as a rock star. The oldies, the goodies, and definitely some new anthems will be performed at the outdoor arena tonight.
NUVO: How is the tour going so far?
Joe Elliott: So far so good! It’s 47 shows in total. ... It’s broken into three sections, 15, 15 and 13. We’ve done four so far, and then we’ve got 11 before we get a little break. Mostly on the East Coast all at the moment… but it’s been great at the moment. Great crowds, really really great crowds.
The weather is starting to heat up now, and it’s getting rather sweaty. But, we’re kinda used to that because we tour the States in the summer all the time, so it’s just part of the live experience seeing five guys on stage covered in sweat [laughing]. It makes for a fun night.
NUVO: I noticed that this isn’t an international tour. Why is that?
Elliott: It’s a continuation of last year. We started the tour in Canada, we did twelve shows in Canada, then we did 12 shows in Europe, we did five shows I believe in the States last summer. And then we went down to Singapore, Japan and Australia. Then we toured the UK and Ireland.
We finished up in December, and now we’re back in the States again. So, it’s a more of continuation of the album promotion and into the brand new starting tour. The rest of the world is very different from America, you can’t do Australia every year. There’s only seven or eight major cities. Same with the UK, and obviously same with Japan. But with the States, you could play one hundred shows one summer, and one hundred shows in totally different towns the next. The opportunity to play in the States more often is just there because of the vastness of the actual country and how many cities there are.
NUVO: Can you talk a little bit about Def Leppard’s involvement with Tesla’s upcoming album?
Elliott: Well, there’s no Def Leppard involvement in it, but there’s Phil Collen's [lead guitarist] involvement in it. We’ve known these guys since 1987 when they opened for us on the Hysteria tour. We’ve always been really tight with them. ... Phil got heavily involved with them about a year or so ago. They just started talking one night, I think it was Brian who said, “Why don’t you produce our next record,” and Phil said, “All right.” And then, they’ve actually been working on it throughout the tour.
They have a recording studio set up back stage, very similar to the way we did Sparkle Lounge in 2008. They’re demoing songs, they’re writing songs, Phil is overseeing the whole thing, obviously, in his spare time. I know he was recording some stuff with them during their last break, about six weeks ago, and during the next upcoming break I have no doubt that he’ll go in and do a little bit more, and then they’ll do a short tour at the end of the year. But me, Sav [Rick Savage] Vivian [Campbell] and Rick [Allen] aren’t involved. It’s totally Phil’s thing.
NUVO: What was the motivation behind your new studio album?
Elliott: Just to make some new music. That was the whole motivation. We haven’t made an album of new music, such as a full project, since 2008, which was the Sparkle Lounge album. Since then it’s been mostly either touring, or we did the live album, Mirror Ball, in 2011. We put the Viva Hysteria album out in 2013, I think it was. And there were three new songs on the end of the live album.
Read the full interview at: Nuvo.