Def Leppard |
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Thu. August 15.2002 4:36 PM EDT |
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Def Leppard: Let's Get X-ed.Classic pop-rockers pound it out and play to Creed. by Heather Stas |
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Def Leppard (VH1) |
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What year is it again? While Def Leppard are quite literally working in the present tense with their single Now, the songs video plays upon their status as 80s survivors by tracing the journey of a classic Lep T-shirt. The Sheffield boys are
VH1: The Now video has a great concept, with the Def Leppard T-shirt changing owners and traversing eras. Phil Collen: Getting a treatment for a video is like people giving you demo tapes. Most of the time they arent great, but occasionally theres one thats cool. We chuckled about this one and thought it could really work! Then we met the Malloys, who had done Blink-182s videos. We said, We dont really do the comedy thing like you do with Blink-182, but we can see where youre going to go with the video. Its goofy and funny but also nostalgic. It worked perfectly. Joe Elliott: The nostalgia is the concept. We are current. Its a perfect jigsaw. The T-shirts old and goes all the way through to now. Were the constant in the now. With the song title, it couldnt be any better. Collen: Confused? VH1: Have you ever walked into a store and seen vintage Def Leppard T-shirts on sale? Elliott: I saw a photograph of Faith Hill wearing a classic Def Leppard T-shirt that had been cut, chopped and diamond-studded. Cheesy secondhand T-shirts are now "vintage" shirts. Its like secondhand cars. Now they call them previously enjoyed. They have stores that charge ten times as much for a 1989 Metallica shirt than they do for a brand new one! Were so gullible. Collen: The whole eBay thing is how to sell junk. People line up to buy this crap; theres a bit of a frenzy attached to it. It could be the biggest load of crap on earth, but if you dress it up the right way, somebodys gonna die for it! Elliott: Everybodys got something somebody else wants. Somebodys got a jar, and somewhere on the other side of the world, somebodys got the lid for it. Its getting the two of them together. Thats what eBays all about. Most of the stuff on eBay is rubbish anyway. There was somebody selling autographed Joe Elliott photos and it wasnt my autograph! Yesterday, outside of a radio station, this guy came up with eight-track tapes. He said, Will you sign this? Will you sign that? I said, I aint signing them. Theyre gonna go up on eBay. He said, Hey, Ive got to make a living somehow! Not off me you dont! VH1: I love the fact that while you recorded X you all lived together in Joes house in Dublin. Elliott: The great thing about it is theres no financial clock running. Theres no room service to close down. There was a pool table and a fridge. Everyone had a telly in every room. I really did make it like a hotel. You had 10 or, 20 feet to walk to bed. Our tour manager would make lunch and dinner. We didnt have to think about anything except, Is the next chord the right chord to go to from the previous chord? Is this rhyme the best rhyme we can come up with? And does it mean what we want it to say? Collen: Weve always done this. We very rarely live with our families. When were on tour, people think its like the Beatles and we share the same bed. Ive had someone call my room at a ridiculous time in the morning and ask, This is Def Leppards room, right? Do they think we all sleep in one giant bed? But on this album we all lived together at Joes house. Elliott: But in different rooms. VH1: Whats the first song that you knew would make it on the album and set the bar for the rest of the record? Collen: Now. We heard Jaded, the song Aerosmith wrote with Marty Frederiksen, and thought, Wow, this sounds cool. It sounds contemporary and energetic. But its obviously Aerosmith. Wouldnt it be great if there was a Def Leppard version of that? We got Marty Frederiksen and it was instant. Hes a multi-talented musician with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old boy. It influenced the rest of the album. He came in and said, Its got to have conviction. Its got to be aggressive. Its got to be like you really mean it. That affected all the other songs we did. VH1: Whats Now about? Elliott: Its wanton lust dressed up a little less dramatically. Now is a perfect title. Ive got to have somebody right now. Not tomorrow, not next week. Right now. Its relationship stuff. Most of the lyrics on the album touch on human emotion. Vivian Campbell: This was the love album. We had to curtail it, actually. We were getting a little too Barry White. Elliott: It was getting too lovey-dovey, so we had to write some hate in there as well. Its love and hate and jealousy and envy. Anything that people can go, Yep. Ive been there and done that myself, or seen that in somebody elses life. With Now, its two people needing to get together as soon as possible. VH1: When you record are you thinking about how it will come over live? Collen: No. We cross that bridge when we get to it. We did this gig in New York last night and everybodys was singing along, so you could be doing whatever you want. You could be dancing naked ... playing upside down. The songs important. Everything else is just dressing. Elliott: Id like to see you upside down and naked at the next gig! Ladies and gentlemen, the upside down and naked Mr. Phil Collen! VH1: I heard that Creed were at the show. Its very rare that you hear of a band like Creed going to a show, but it shows how youve inspired so many bands today. Elliott: Its coming 'round. There was a time when we inspired people like Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder to not be like us, although we werent really part of the hair band phenomenon. Collen: There was a lot of bands that came after us that had us going, We dont want to be associated with these people! We always felt that we had a bit of substance. Def Leppard wasnt all based on image. Most artists that have a huge hit, you get many copies and it dilutes the original. Even Nirvana. You had all these bands copying them. That in itself is a contradiction in terms - copying Nirvana. Because they were about not being copied. They were about a backlash. Then you had all these bands copying them and that dilutes the sound. Same with Alanis Morissette and Britney Spears. Elliott: But you come through the 90s having been the antichrist, and all of a sudden System of a Down are on VH1s Ultimate Albums praising Pyromania. I dont hear us influencing what they do, but if they picked up guitars as ten-year-old kids because of Pyromania, thats great. You have to go through a decade of struggling. If you can come through the other side, youre okay. Its amazing how Madonnas never gone away, but even U2 had a little struggle after Pop. Youve got to just stick in, grab hold of the tree and dont let go when the wind blows. VH1: Youve survived the 80s with integrity. Collen: I think so. Our angle and motivation was different. We were really proud of the music we put out. We had more to do with Duran Duran than Iron Maiden. We were trying to cross rock music with pop music and make it palatable for a large audience. It wasnt about, Listen to how fast I can play guitar. Elliott: Its down to perception as well. I find a lot of it is ignorance. Two years ago, they took the absolute piss out of everybody from Billy Ray Cyrus on down because they wore mullets. Bono had a mullet! Whats the difference? Nobody ever goes on about U2 being an 80s band. They put their first record out within about eight weeks of us putting our first record out. Theyre still there and still doing it. Thats what weve been fighting for all our lives. Dont lump us in with Warrant, Ratt, and Poison. We have as much in common with Dolly Parton as we do with the 80s hair bands. We make records: period. Thats why were still doing it and not playing bowling alleys. Well ... we might play one. But only by choice. VH1: What plans are there for the next single? Any favorite tracks you have in mind? Elliott: Theyve already stickered the album with Long Long Way to Go, so my moneys on it being the second single! People who have heard X are coming up and going, I can hear five singles on this record. I havent heard people say that since Hysteria. There are a lot of songs that suit different moods. Thats our market. Weve cornered that little thing. Were really big fans of AC/DCs Back in Black, but we cant make a record like that. Everythings got to be different. Queen is a great example of a band that did that. Bits of Tie Your Mother Down or Bohemian Rhapsody are in our DNA. Our albums reflect that. Weve got an orchestra on a couple of tracks. Weve got a good vocal blend and were not embarrassed to use it. I dont think theres anything wrong with a bunch of guys who can actually sing. There was for a while. It was not cool to be able to play your instrument or sing in tune. Thank God thats gone and its coming back round again! |
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