Saturday, 18th April 2015
Phil Collen April 2013
Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen was interviewed by Todd Hancock for his TODDCast podcast in late February and the full audio is now available.
Phil talked about the Pyromania album, joining the band in 1982, the Hysteria album, 40th anniversary of the band, how he got into music, Rick Allen's 1984 car accident/recovery, Steve Clark's death, Vivian's health, the Summer Tour 2014 with KISS, his career highlight, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, streaming music, Delta Deep, health and fitness, being a vegetarian, favourite sports and sci-fi movies.
Def Leppard play in Vancouver later tonight. The interview was taped on 27th February.
Listen to the full 27 minute interview clip below. Plus another short clip talking about Rick's car accident.
TODDCast Podcast - Phil Collen Interview Quotes
Steve Clark's Death
"It was - we kind of saw it coming because you know that whole alcohol thing. You know it would get so many people in this society. Especially in this industry and stuff. So you know it's a dangerous thing and we saw the danger and so did Steve actually. You know we'd talk about it for hours about the thing and that's really why I stopped. I stopped before he died actually and again we'd have long conversations about it and just trying to get off it. I was really lucky you know I didn't kind of have that kind of personality I guess but he wasn't able to stop."
Career Highlight Diamond Award
"Yeah I think all of it. It's not a blur. It's amazing, it's an amazing thing. But I think one moment that stands out, that kind of shocked me, is when we got, we went to receive our Diamond album for Hysteria and it was in the Roseland Theatre in New York City. It was the first time they'd ever had this event."
"So there was only 68 artists who'd ever achieved it and there's Elton John, there's Billy Joel. ZZ Top there's the Pink Floyd guys. Zeppelin with us, Metallica, MC Hammer was in there. I mean it was just right across the board all in this one room and I remember going up to the podium. You know because everyone went up and said thank you and all that. And I said well this is great and I looked out at the audience and then I just saw Jimmy Page, Elton John and it was like wow!."
"They're peers and we'd done this thing that's an amazing - So that kind of hit home to me how kind of popular you know some of our music had become - so that was kind of a highlight."
- Interview Source - toddhancock.ca
- Def Leppard - TODDCast Podcast 2015 Show Page
- Def Leppard - Radio 2015
- Previous News - 6th April 2015