Def Leppard News - VIVIAN CAMPBELL On DEF LEPPARD'S Live Sound/Last In Line

VIVIAN CAMPBELL On DEF LEPPARD'S Live Sound/Last In Line

Wednesday, 31st May 2017

Vivian Campbell 2016.
By Chele Drappel

Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell was interviewed in December 2016 about Last In Line and more of the audio is available.

Vivian talked to Steve Macord of the White Line Fever podcast.

Vivian talked about Def Leppard's sound, the current album, live vocal sound, Last In Line and DIO Disciples.

This interview was conducted backstage in Sheffield on 2nd December 2016 when Last In Line played there on their UK/European tour.

Listen to the full 6 minute interview below.

Vivian's part runs from 1:07 to 7:09 minutes into the one hour podcast.

Last In Line's 'Starmaker' is played after Vivian talks.

The original first part of this interview was uploaded in March and mostly concentrated on Last In Line.

White Line Fever/Steve Mascord - Vivian Campbell Interview Quotes

Def Leppard's Sound/Current Album

"Well Def Leppard is a band that has evolved over the years, over the decades. And really, you know, Def Leppard covers a lot of different genres of music. And particularly on the last album we put out last year. The self-titled record. You know there's a lot of different musical styles. In fact there's some styles on that record that we've never done before. The album closer (Blind Faith) is a psychedelic track. We've never done anything remotely like that before."

"But you know through the years we've grown and developed. Like I think when Def Leppard started you know the first record On Through The Night was you know it was a very. very interesting debut, but it was the second record that really started to bring notoriety to the band. That was High 'n' Dry and it was very in the mould of AC/DC who the band had toured with at the time and I think that a lot of hardcore long time Def Leppard fans long for that sort of thing again. But I gotta tell you that's never gonna happen."

High 'n' Dry Album/Live Vocal Sound

"We're never gonna make an album that's solely like that. There's too much diversity within Def Leppard now. There's too many miles under the wheels. Too many different genres have been sampled and the band couldn't really go back to making an album just like that. We can do tracks like that again by all means, but they'll never be probably an album that's so rock focused as that. You know I think by the time Leppard was doing Pyromania, that's really where the true diversity started and then Hysteria was the zenith of that."

"So when we play live there is much more of a rock element to the band for sure. But the real strength in Leppard is our - not just the diversity of songwriting but in the live performance is the vocal. We all sing pretty strongly and you know we're very proud of the fact that we can replicate, for the most part, what it is we do on record which is very production heavy. A lot of like many, many tracks of vocals and we can actually do a very decent live representation of that because we all can sing."

Last In Line Guitar Style

"So that's the muscle that I exercise more than any other in Def Leppard you know. There's two guitar players in Leppard so I don't have to do all the heavy lifting you know. And obviously we play basically you know anything that Steve Clark played guitar riff or solo, I play that part. And then Phil obviously plays the majority of the solos in the Pyromania and the Hysteria era. And those songs make up the bulk of Def Leppard's show. Even decades after they came out you know they're the really, really big hits."

"But we focus - you don't find us playing a lot of guitar before a Def Leppard show. But you'll hear us doing vocal warm-ups for hours you know. We're here with Last In Line..."

Most people assume it's recorded

"They do actually and we take that as a backhanded compliment. In fact yeah a lot of people actually think that and that's fine. But you know here with Last In Line on this project I don't even wanna sing. I don't even have a mic in front of me. I refuse to sing in this band because I get enough of that in my day job. You know so this band for me, Last In Line, is all about putting my head down and playing guitar."

"I even you know the guitar that I use with Last In Line is a guitar I bought when I was 15. And I used it - we wrote and recorded and toured the Holy Diver record with that guitar and you know I bought that Les Paul. So that, it's kind of come full circle for me that I even went back and used that guitar."

Last In Line Starmaker

"Yeah well you know Starmaker is a song that seems to go over very, very well everywhere we've played it and it's such a dynamic track and yeah it kicks some serious booty. So I'd go with Starmaker."

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