Def Leppard News - DEF LEPPARD's PHIL COLLEN Recording His First Solo Album

Tuesday, 10th July 2018

DEF LEPPARD's PHIL COLLEN Recording His First Solo Album

Screenshot

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen has been interviewed for a new podcast and revealed plans for his first solo album.

Phil spoke to Mitch Lafon for his Rock Talk podcast.

Phil talked about the 2018 Def Leppard/Journey tour, package tours, leaving the tour/birth of his son, Steve Brown, G3 tour, his new solo album, Delta Deep/Manraze, Slang album, Self-Titled album, Next Def Leppard album, CD Collection 2 box set and producing the Tesla album.

Phil mentioned he is working on a solo album and gave a brief update on the next Def Leppard album including a newly written song. He did not specify whether it was would be an actual instrumental album though.

He also repeated the news about why he left the tour after his son was born and mentions the second box set which is due later this year.

Listen to the full 27 minute interview below.

Phil's part starts at 10:44mins until 37:15mins into the two hour podcast.

Visit the Album News section for more news on new music (based on band member quotes).

Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon - Phil Collen Interview Quotes

Leaving The Tour/His Son's Birth/Steve Brown

"Well Steve, now this is amazing 'cause he was actually coming to the show. I don't know if you know Helen my wife was giving birth to our son, but there was real bad complications. She actually died and they brought her back to life and internal bleeding and just craziness. This isn't common knowledge, but it is now."

"So I was actually on tour and then when this happened I obviously had to go to California. So I flew out there. Steve actually was coming to the show anyway and I said Steve I know you know all Viv's parts. He sings great. He can do all of this stuff. So he learnt my parts and my vocal parts which is more serious than the guitar parts. In our band we have backing vocals and it's an instrument."

"A lot of people when Steve passed away we actually said we want someone who's gonna fit in with us and a lot of guitars players can't actually sing. So with Steve he can sing like a champ. He knows all Joe's parts even. You know he sings amazing and he's a great guitar player. So it was a no brainer and I said ca you step in for me. So everyone was cool they said go and I went and everything was fine. Everything's great now little Jaxson was born. He's doing great and Helen's doing great you know I'm back out on tour. So yeah thanks to Steve he really kind of saved the day there that was wonderful."

Recording A Solo Album

"I already started it actually and it totally did. And again exactly that. So I've already started. I've got a few songs on the go already. And I don't know, you now I was talking to Paul Cook who plays in Mnaraze. And The Professionals and obviously in the Sex Pistols. And he said you know you should do a solo album. He said you know the Manraze album should have been a solo album. He said he thought it would've have had more kind of heat. So he suggested that earlier on just after I did the G3 thing. And I thought that's a great idea. That would be really really super cool."

"So I've actually started doing some stuff already. And it's wide open. It's very diverse you know I'm very disappointed in where Jazz went because it's such an amazing art form and people they lost it after the 70s. It was a real kind of a Jazz fusion thing and then people just got either really self indulgent or they lost the vibe. You hear some of the Stanley Clarke stuff from the 70s it was incredible. Return To Forever. They were trying to achieve something and that kinda stopped. Some of the Jeff Beck stuff from the 70s was amazing and it either went really light and kind of Jazz light or it just got totally self indulgent."

"And I think there was so much room within the Jazz format to make it very creative. Almost like add funk and rock but a commercial version of it. So one of the songs I'm doing I've actually already started. I've got my friend Scott Wilkey who actually plays on the new Tesla album with me. I got him to play and he's incredible. We actually started a song already and yeah I'm really thrilled."

Next Def Leppard Album

"We'e already started that album as well. I was actually writing a song for that the other day. And we got some really great stuff on the go you know. So when everyone goes when are you gonna start that. We've actually already started it. It's just that we haven't gone into a studio per se."

New Joe Song

"Just even talking to Joe. Joe's got this idea for a song that we're talking about earlier on this year and I'm really excited to get into that as well. So we still have. We're excited about the band and if we weren't you'd know about it. You'd see it when we do tours and perform and stuff."

CD Collection Part 2

"There is a CD Collection 2. And we've already got that on the go. So there's other stuff. There's things that we forgot about. You go oh wow, yeah OK do you remember that?."

"We have a lot of stuff sitting around."

Buy 'CD/Vinyl Collection: Volume 1' Online