Thursday, 29th October 2015
Screenshot by dltourhistory
Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott was recently interviewed by New Jersey radio and mentioned the new album.
Joe talked about the new 2015 studio album, their musical influences, the 2016 US tour extension, the 2016 Hysteria On The High Seas cruise and the band's longevity/career ups and downs.
As with a few other interviews in recent years you might hear a little person playing in the background (his son Finlay).
Listen to the full 10 minute interview via the show link below.
Visit the Album News section. For more news on new music (based on band member quotes) dating back to January 2011.
105.5 WDHA FM - Joe Elliott Interview Quotes
Making The New Album
"We set about to write a couple of songs. You know just to see - just to test the water and we ended up writing 12. And then we were gonna weed out three of those for an EP. Then we looked at each other and said well why do we have to do that. We like them all. How are we gonna pick three from this and then all of a sudden - (we're like) I think we've got a record. We were just supplying songs into each other's DNA if you like. We were just sitting around having fun. It's like I've got this one song, it's a bit weird and I've got this song that's a bit like Queen. I've got this one that's a bit like Zeppelin. And we've got these songs that sound like Leppard. All of a sudden they all seemed to gel and fit together."
"The thing I like about the record the most is that there isn't a sister or a brother song to any of the other songs on the record. There's no doubt that you know, Let's Go is classic Leppard in that kind of Sugary form and Dangerous has got that kind of Photograph/Promises sort of feel to it. But that's what we like you know. We're not afraid of our past."
"As you say we called it Def Leppard because we thought it sounded like Def Leppard. The first album we've made in 35 years for no reason. And we started recording and we paid for it ourselves and we were just having a good time."
"One of the big major things that we decided to do was to make a proper classic album. In the sense of running order. What people tended to start doing once the CD became or even the digital became the norm was to front load your record because people were just hitting the forward button. You don't lift the needle off the record when it's vinyl or fast forward through the cassette because it's too kind of fiddly. But it's dead easy on a laptop or whatever to just keep hitting the forward button."
"So everybody was front loading their records. So you tended to get totally unbalanced records. Where you had what the artists would consider all the best stuff at the front and all the weaker stuff at the back. And we've always found that if you've got songs that you may consider weak. They're not necessarily weak they're just not out and out rockers. They may have some other kind of message within them and they sandwiched between two other songs can find their own inner strength. So we're gonna make this album as though it's like 1970."
"We've touched on our own past. We've touched on the past of other artists who've influenced us in the first place. And we've also hopefully brought something to the table that's for the long term Leppard fan that's not in his 20s or in her 20s any more. that wants to see a sort of development or a growth within our writing abilities and our performances. That it's not just a shadow image of our past."
"What we've done with this record that for once the stars are in alignment and the personalities within the band were so much so all on the same page. And we know for a fact that musically it doesn't - you know there's obviously gonna be people that don't like it. There's gonna be people that are so-so. There's gonna be that really love it. That's the same with anything we've ever made. And it's not that at all. We genuinely believe that this is a fantastic piece of work that we've made. That stands up to anything that we've ever made. And specifically 35 years into our career. That in itself is almost a miracle. That somebody has the enthusiasm to be that bothered to make a record and stand by it as strongly as we are doing."
- Listen to the full interview at- wdhafm.com
- Def Leppard - Terrie Carr 2015 Show Page
- Def Leppard - Radio 2015
- Def Leppard - Def Leppard Album Section
- Previous News - 29th October 2015