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Joe/Sav Planet Rock Wyatt Show Interview Transcript

Friday, 13th September 2013





Joe Elliott Sheffield 2008. Rick Savage Sheffield 2008.
Pics By DefDazz/Darren

Def Leppard members Joe Elliott/Rick Savage appeared live on the Wyatt show on Planet Rock radio this morning and a full transcript is available.

Joe and Sav talked in detail about the VIVA! Hysteria film and playing in Las Vegas as well as other things. Read the full transcript below.

You can listen again for 7 days to the full interview which starts at just after 1 hour into the show with a playing of 'Love And Affection (Live 2013)' - full version.

Planet Rock - Joe Elliott/Rick Savage Interview Transcript By DefDazz

Wyatt - "Morning chaps."

Joe - "Morning."

Sav - "Good morning."

Did you think the residency would end in a big film premiere/cinema release?

Joe - "Nah, not really."

Sav - "No. We didn't realise we were gonna turn into movie stars!"

Joe - "Yeah, the plot's a bit weird. Nobody dies. "

Sav - "But it's a good ending."

Wyatt - "And Tom Cruise isn't in it!."

Joe - "Nah, he's not."

Sav - "That makes a change doesn't it."

Joe - "No, you know we kinda said yes to this towards the end of the Mirrorball tour. So it would have been about August/September of 2012. About a year ago and they said well we want you in March/April. So we had plenty of time, like six/seven months to prep for it. And it was as we were doing all the production meetings or designing the set. We had a lot of time to rehearse and practice and basically do research on the songs. Then they said well we should film this. It's like OK. We film everything anyway cause we've got cameras and the big screens. And you're kind of filming yourselves it doesn't take much more effort to just hit the record button. So we were doing that anyway but then they brought in like a 28 camera crew and the director and things then it turns into a different animal altogether."

What happens if you don't like it? Scrap it and start all over again.

Joe - "It would've been a tricky one!."

Sav - "It kind of crosses your mind it's like well this is what it is you know. And you just hope - the great thing is is that the director and the cameramen were just you know top class. And you know out of two nights we basically, basically ended up using the Saturday night which was the second night and just used the Friday night for little edits and things like that. And that's basically all it was. The show looked great, the production was different and we were pretty confident that these guys would do a decent job."

How did it go from being a DVD into this big thing? Did a big fat guy in a suit say 'Guys, I got an idea let's get this released across the world!'?

Joe - "Well, that's pretty much exactly how it was said I would imagine. I just wasn't the recipient of that call. But yeah some guy at. You know AEG put it on and our management take the call and like we should put this in cinemas which is starting to happen. I had a kind of a private screening of it a couple of weeks back in Dublin cause my Mum was over and she wanted to see it on the big screen. So we talked them into opening the cinema in the morning and as I was going in and we were walking past the popcorn stand and stuff I was talking to one of - the guy that owns the place and he said that the night before they'd had a Robbie Williams show in on the cinema. Live from Ukraine. Actually live, live. And it'd gone into about 200 cinemas around Great Britain. And you know we've had the Feelgood thing. Dr. Feelgood's Oil City Confidential went in the cinemas last year or the year before. And I think the Rock n Roll going into cinemas is now becoming like you know the thing to do. And so of course we were gonna say yeah because it seems like a great idea if you're a fan. I mean when we were kids we went to see The Song Remains The Same and to see Jimmy and Robert up there like you know 100 foot tall it was, when you're 15 and 16 years old it was pretty impressive."

Sav - "That was awesome."

Joe - "You know you take that into consideration and you remember what it was like to be a fan. It's like we're just kind of carrying on the tradition if you like if nothing else."

UK/USA Cinema release dates.

Joe - "It's two nights over there because there's so many places. It's on the 2nd and the 9th I believe."

Wyatt - "Here's a true fact for you. The new Diana film is only being released for a week it's been panned straight to DVD. So by default you're already going to be more successful than that hugely anticipated Diana film."

Joe - "Very bizarre. And nobody dies in ours! Nobody dies in our one."

Sav - "Nobody gets hurt."

Wyatt - "And still no Tom Cruise!."

Joe - "No."

Fan questions about schedule for a new studio album release?

Sav - "There's no schedule cause we're not very good at sticking to 'em basically. But it's an ongoing process. I mean we're, specifically this point in time, certainly up until the new year we've got the opportunity to actually write. And we haven't really had that opportunity for about a year now. So there's a gonna be a lot that comes out of the next three or four months. You know we've got Phil our stage left guitar player has had an operation on a tendon in his hand which needed to be done cause he physically couldn't play guitar properly. So that's - he's in rehab for that. Obviously it's been well documented about Vivian's overcoming his cancer. So we're in that state where we're really - we've got the opportunity now to actually get down and write some new material which is you know kinda what keeps us going anyway. You know so that's kinda what we'll be doing for the remainder - basically the remainder of this year."

How they get together and write and rehearse? What do you do meet on a boat somewhere in mid-Atlantic?

Sav - "There's many different ways. I mean there's a lots of different combinations."

Wyatt - "Rehearsing by Skype?."

Sav - "It can be done."

Joe - "Not so much the rehearsals, that would be really tricky!. But writings easy. I mean it happens all the time. Phil will say I've got this idea and he just sends an mp3 over of a riff or something and then you mess around with it and you send it back with some la de da over the top and then you eventually write some words or we write as individuals. You look at the three tracks on the end of Mirrorball. Undefeated was pretty much me and Sav added a bit to it. And Kings Of The World was Sav. And It's All About Believin' was Phil's. So we can you know we've kind of turned into Queen in the sense of like we all turn up with songs rather than bits of songs these days. But when we do get in a room as we did in Vegas. We actually wrote a track you know we wrote a backing track. So we've got things on the go. But you know everybody's - we're in a holding pattern because of Viv's cancer and Phil's operation so we can just do other things like - I saw plants in my garden this summer I didn't even know I had! I've never been at home in the summer."

Sav - "He didn't even know he had a garden!"

Joe - "Yeah it was like what's that thing growing down there? I've only ever seen it in winter when there's nothing on it. So it was great to be at home for a while and I've been working on the second Down 'N' Outz album as well. Having a studio at home's the best thing in the world because you can just nip in and out whenever you feel like it."

I can imagine Phil going in for this operation topless.

Joe - "He did actually did wear a shirt when we did the Ded Flatbird set before we - cause you know in Vegas we opened for ourselves as it were. We had like a crappy little backline in front of the big set so we actually looked like the opening act. And Joe Elliott wouldn't let the singer from Ded Flatbird on the ego ramp and all that so we really played it up but we were - we had a lot of fun playing stuff like Good Morning Freedom, Rock Brigade, Wasted we really dug deep. Phil actually wore clothes for that portion of the set so he didn't look like himself."

Sav - "But it wasn't - we were all in character. It wasn't Phil - what was Phil's?"

Joe - "His name was Chingy Chapman."

Sav - "Chingy Chapman, that's right."

Joe - "He was Chingy Chapman, I was Booty Reuben, Rick was Camp Out, Vivian was Linkin Twain and Sav was Fleetwood Beck. As you can tell by the names we used the - you know the porn name theory of your first pet and your Mum's maiden name. Well our dressing room in Vegas was just covered in Rolling Stone covers. So we took the birthday and month of everybody and took the biggest word off the cover so mine being August 1st it was the one and the eight. The biggest two words were Booty and Reuben so I became Booty Reuben. Rick Allen though, he got the kind of crap end of the stick cause he got Camp Out. It was a lot of fun to do that because you go out there and people are looking at us playing in front of a huge Union Jack and this crappy little backline and Rick on a really small riser. Looking and going it's not much of a production is it. We go on for 45 minutes and take the..."

Sav - "Yeah it was all part of the theatre really. I mean one thing it did do, well there's two great things, it allowed us to play songs that we don't normally get to play because in a Greatest Hits set they don't get, we just don't have time for them and the other thing is didn't half make the production of the proper Hysteria set look big cause we were just this tiny support band with no tricks at all. So it was great from that point of view."

Joe - "And you get to say stuff you'd never say as yourself. It's like slagging myself off for example. And wearing just mad clothes I mean he came out he. Sav actually had two characters cause on the last night he came out with this like mad 70s tache on and a wig and you became Spice Biscuit. "

Sav - "Spice Biscuit, yeah, yeah. I looked like the bass player from the D....(? didn't catch that name...)."

Joe - "Yeah like Freddie Mercury on steroids. It was very weird."

Any plans for a UK Tour?.

Joe - "Well let's be honest it's really hard to play the UK for no reason. When we played Donington for the first time we were I think just finishing off the Sparkle Lounge tour. And when we played it for the second time we were just starting off the Mirrorball tour. And then we came back and we did the gigs with Crue at the end of 2011. Till we get a new record out I don't think they're gonna want us back at Donington having done it twice in four years. So we need to get a new record out before we do a tour. We just did Spain and France but we haven't played there for 17 years so that's kind of different. So just turning up in Portsmouth at the Guildhall or in Glasgow or something without a record out. I think we'd actually get crucified like why are you here?."

What about a tour of Yorkshire?.

Sav - "Yeah but Phil and Vivian wouldn't understand what anybody was saying. They have a problem with us!"

Is it a film what do you call it?.

Sav - "Well it's a live performance."

Joe - "It's a film it's not a movie cause there's no script or actors. So it is a film it's like The Last Waltz, it's like Woodstock. It's a performance of a band on stage from start to finish doing an album from start to finish!. But it looks great on the big screen and it sounds great on - huge speakers and everything. And the sound you know our sound guy is an amazing sound guy, Ronan, he does our out front sound, he does our records so he really knows how to get the band kicking. And it's really live by the way. There's not an overdub in sight. Just to put that one to bed. they're always going on about Live And Dangerous is it or is it not. This is, like Mirrorball, this is totally real."

Joe - "Well we use keyboard samples and stuff like that and the noises in Rocket. We don't call the NASA staff in everyday to make these noises. They're all effects. And even on Rocket you know there's some sample stuff. And Rick's only got one arm so he's allowed!. But the guitars, the vocals everything's totally real. We just practice a lot you know and they're actually quite good musicians."

Sav - "Well if we were gonna use samples we'd use better ones than what people think that we're using."

The rest was Joe giving a little preview of his radio show.






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