Sunday, 1st January 2017
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The Planet Rock Soundclash (Joe Elliott/Ian Danter Playlist/Transcript)

Joe Elliott 2016. By Chele Drappel

Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott appeared on the Planet Rock Soundclash show last night and audio plus a transcript is available.

Joe appeared against fellow DJ Ian Danter who plays drums in a KISS tribute act called Dressed To Kill.

They shared stories about their favourite tracks with Joe going into much more details with his stories than he usually does on his own show (which was aired just before this one hour special).

Read an (almost full) transcript below concentrating on Joe's comments which actually revealed one little bit of tour trivia that has been searched for for many years. The location of Lou Gramm's guest appearance with Def Leppard on the 'Adrenalize' tour.

It turns out to have been in Rochester, NY on 31st October 1992. Just four days after Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora appeared on the same song (Bad Company 'Can't Get Enough (Of Your Love)') in New Jersey.

He also reflected on working on the Thin Lizzy remixes/remasters in 2010 at his home studio.

The 'master tape baking' Joe mentions was also done at the same place for the 1983 Los Angeles tapes used on the 'Pyromania Deluxe Edition'. Grouse Lodge Studios in County Meath.

The show is available until next Saturday using the On Demand feature.

The Planet Rock Soundclash (Joe Elliott vs Ian Danter) - 31st December 2016 Playlist

  • 01 - KISS - Deuce (Live) - (Ian)
  • 02 - Frankie Miller - Be Good to Yourself - (Joe)
  • 03 - Thin Lizzy - Waiting For An Alibi - (Ian)
  • 04 - Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back In Town (2010 Remix) - (Joe)
  • 05 - Foo Fighters - My Hero - (Ian)
  • 06 - Queen/David Bowie - Heroes (Live 1992) - (Joe)
  • 07 - Journey - Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) - (Ian)
  • 08 - The Beatles - Come Together - (Joe)
  • 09 - Foreigner - That Was Yesterday - (Ian)
  • 10 - Cheap Trick - Miss Tomorrow - (Joe)

Show Intro

"Evening all and welcome once again to the Joe Elliott show on the mighty Planet ...hang on a minute, didn't I do that like an hour ago?. Oh right, yes of course. This is the whole new segment. This is Soundclash and my partner in crime tonight is one Mr. Ian Danter. Good evening Ian."

"Good evening Mr. Joe. It's lovely to be with you this evening but I'm gonna test you. I'm gonna test your mettle with some great metal and rock."

"Well, there's not much metal in mine but there's some great rock."

"Indeed. Indeed and I'm gonna start off. I'm gonna get things going if you don't mind. I'll set the ball rolling with the song, and the particular version of the song, that utterly changed my life and I still love it and it still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. It is from KISS Alive 1975. Side One, Track one. KISS and Deuce."

Frankie Miller

"Absolutely, great choice. Deuce is a fantastic song but Deuce is only a two. So I'm gonna raise your hand with my full house. Frankie Miller's Full House. He is one of the best rock singers to ever come out of the British Isles. We always talk about Paul Rodgers, David Coverdale, Robert Plant etc. But for anybody that's never heard Frankie Miller sing, he is one of the best Blues Rock singers of all time. Here's the proof."

"Frankie Miller from the album Full House with the phenomenally brilliant Be Good To Yourself. What do you think about that one?."

"Yeah he's had a lot of health issues recently. And I just thought it was a magnificent thing that Spike from The Quireboys befriended him and through his wife, they dug up like 300 unreleased Frankie Miller songs. And he picked out the best ones, or the ones that suited him the best and he actually went in and recorded these 12 I think it was Frankie Miller tracks with all different people and what he did manage to achieve on that record, which nobody ever thought would happen. Was he reunited the rhythm section of Free to play together on a couple of tracks. Where he actually good Andy Fraser and Simon Kirke playing on the same song. It was only about three of four years ago."

"Frankie Miller was a little bit like early Whitesnake. Was a little bit like Free or Bad Company because you know Be Good To Yourself, the title itself is just very uplifting. It's very good."

Thin Lizzy

"Well I'm gonna throw this in just for fun because I'm not trying to usurp you here at all. But I can't help but play this. It's Thin Lizzy again but this is what everybody would class as the classic line-up. It's the Mark II Lizzy with Lynott, Gorham, Roberston and Downey. And it's from the Jailbreak album recognised by both Brian Downey and Scott Gorham, who were involved in it. They really wanted to revisit these songs and try and make them sound a little bit more, which was at the time 2010. So he asked me, having worked in my studio on a Ricky Warwick solo album. If I would be interested in doing a couple of remixes with him. And of course I jumped at it."

"Def Leppard were taking the year off. The studio was sat there waiting to be used. And what a fantastic project to work on. To pull up the tapes of these long lost, you know, I mean you've got to realise when we actually found the master tapes they were in such bad condition. We had to send them down to a baker. I'm not talking about bread baking, there's a studio in County Meath [Grouse Lodge Studios] where Michael Jackson actually used to record. He used to sneak in and out of Ireland. When he was wanting to get away from it all. And they bake the tapes and what it does, it bakes the oxide back on so that you undo them and it doesn't fall off. And you don't lose any of the quality. And we baked the tapes. We imported them into Pro Tools and then we literally put things like Phil Lynott's bass back through a brand new amp. The very same one that was used by Adam Clayton on a lot of the U2 stuff."

"So we had Phil Lynott's, I think it was actually recorded in '75, even though it was released in '76. We had Phil Lynott's 1975 bass playing coming out live through a bass cab miked up in my studio. It was the freakiest thing. But it was great to EQ it because you see you got exactly the same performance time after time and it was the master performance. So there was nothing wrong with it from a playing point of view. But we just managed to make it sound like if Phil Lynott was alive today and playing this, this is what it would have sounded like. As opposed to the inferior, let's be honest, equipment that they had in '75. We did the same thing with Brian's drums. We retuned some of the guitars because Scott was really kind of annoyed that some of them were a little bit out of tune and they had to leave it because they didn't have much budget."

"And this is the final thing and the icing on the cake as we were going through the tapes. There was an unheard vocal. A third verse alternative lyric. And this is the version with alternative lyric. This is Boys Are Back In Town."

"Originally on the album Jailbreak from 1976. That is 2010 remix which is a bonus track obviously on the 2010 re-release. the album Jailbreak. The song The Boys Are Back In Town with that sneaky alternative vocal third verse. Amazing stuff."

Foo Fighters

"I love the Foo Fighters. When we were recording the Slang album I was living just down near Phil in Laguna. On the PCH man, just living the California life. And the Foos album came out. It's the only thing I played for about four years. Just loved it and it was all him. I love people that like, they take you by surprise. You know he was what people may consider just the drummer in Nirvana. Maybe the second most popular person in the band you know after Kurt Cobain. And then he all of people, because it just doesn't happen very often. Phil Collins would be one example, there aren't a million of them where you say the drummer came, and Don Henley would be another, came out from behind the kit and became the star."

"But he, in the last 20 years, they've been my favourite, most consistent band."

Queen/David Bowie

"Great choice. I don't know whether I'm gonna be able to beat that but I'm gonna go from singular to plural. From Hero to Heroes. I'm gonna go with David Bowie. Now I'm not taking the studio version because it's the fact that the words Heroes is there. I saw it as a great opportunity to play the version that Bowie did at the Freddie Mercury Tribute show in April 1992. Why? because it's Queen as his backing band with at last a song that in my ears for 20 odd years always demanded that that lead bit on the guitar, that was done with like a distorted pedal. Should have always been Mick Ronson. It should always have been Mick Ronson and finally we got to hear it with Ronson playing the Robert Fripp guitar part."

"Myself and Phil Collen were just about to get up and do backing vocals with Bowie, Hunter, Ronson and Queen on All The Young Dudes. The best three minutes of my career. Obviously, you know, I mean I was on stage with everybody that I cared about. It was amazing but to watch Ronson play that lead bit. He was using the E-Bow and just phenomenal and it was everything that I wanted. Whenever I heard the song I was lime I wish that had of been Ronson and then it finally was. David Bowie Heroes."

"It's the New Year's Eve Soundclash on the mighty Planet Rock between Ian Danter and my good self Joe Elliott. You just heard from the Freddie Mercury Tribute show, which was in April 1992, Heroes with Queen and Mick Ronson. Fantastic stuff."

Foreigner/Lou Gramm Trivia

"We've toured with Foreigner many times but we've toured with them with the replacement singer, the guy from Hurricane. Kelly's a great singer, he really is and you know it was - we started playing with Foreigner just after I think Lou had been diagnosed with his illness. So obviously he just couldn't do it anyway. But in his day he was the only American singer that sounded like he listened to English singers. When you listen to people like, as we mentioned earlier Frankie Miller and Paul Rodgers, David Coverdale. These guys grew up listening to Ottis Redding and Marvin Gaye and people like that and they brought that sound into the rock world."

"Lou Gramm sounds like he grew up listening to Paul Rodgers and he just happened to have that kind of voice. He's the most American English sounding singer ever. Which is possibly why he got chosen over an English singer back when Mick Jones put the band together. The whole band were English except for Lou who sounded like he could have been from the North East. He could have been from London. I mean you think about great English singers like Terry Reid and Slesser, they were kind of pushed to one side. Frankie Miller was pretty much marginalised as well. Never really made the grade as it were."

"When Foreigner got together, and let's not forget, that Mick Jones had been in Spooky Tooth. Hadn't really had that much success. Goes over to New York, pulls this band together. Puts that first record out with things like Feels Like The First Time on it and boom, they're off. But his voice on that song is just unbelievable. That Was Yesterday is one of the best Foreigner songs ever."

"I should just finish off with a Foreigner story by telling you in 1992 when Def Leppard were playing in Upstate New York. Rochester I believe which is Lou Gramm's home town. He actually did get up on stage with us and we did a great version of Can't Get Enough by Bad Company. Taking a verse each. I have it somewhere on a video. I must dig it out and get you a copy mate. It's actually really cool."

"We did it a couple of times. We did it with Bon Jovi. We did it with Lou. We did it with Bryan Adams. It was a go to encore song if there was a guest in town you know and it worked really well. What a great song. A good choice."

Show Outro

"There you go folks. We're all done on this one. Thanks for tuning in. You have been listening to the Planet Rock Soundclash with me Joe Elliott."

"And me Ian Danter. It's been an absolute pleasure Joe. You're a top man."

"Thank you, enjoyed every minute of it. It's been a great way to spend the last sixty minutes."

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