Def Leppard News - JOE ELLIOTT/PHIL COLLEN On Enjoyable 2015 DEF LEPPARD Album Sessions

Saturday, 29th June 2019

JOE ELLIOTT/PHIL COLLEN On Enjoyable 2015 DEF LEPPARD Album Sessions

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Def Leppard members Joe Elliott and Phil Collen were interviewed by Japanese TV in 2015 about the self-titled studio album.

Joe and Phil spoke to Maso Ito's Rock City show whilst on tour - most likely in the USA in summer 2015 promoting the self-titled album.

Joe and Phil talked about the 2015 self-titled album. We Belong, guitar sound, how old the songs on the album are, recording sessions, Invincible, Man Enough, Enjoyable Recording Sessions and health.

They discussed the making of the 2015 self-titled DEF LEPPARD album and how the writing of 'Invincible' shaped the productive recording sessions at Joe's Garage in Dublin which started in May 2014.

Watch the full 7 minute interview video below.

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Masa Ito's Rock City - Joe Elliott/Phil Collen Interview Quotes - (Transcribed by dltourhistory)

We Belong

Phil - "Each song is very different like we have one song called We Belong that Joe wrote and we all sing a line each. Everyone in the band including Rick. So we're not gonna tell anyone who's singing what. So we have a competition with the Japanese fans. But you'll love it. I think it's the best album we've done since Hysteria. We all believe that. We all truly believe that. It's so diverse and we didn't care what anyone else thought. We made this album for us."

"So it has a purity and a kind of a very special dynamic and energy about it that other albums haven't necessarily had you know. We almost, you know, with the Slang album we tried to experiment but it kind of, a lot of people didn't like that. They're gonna love this one I think. So the Japanese fans are gonna go crazy for it. We really believe."

Guitar Sound

Hoe - "It's a very guitar record as well. Something we haven't touched on yet. As much as there's, you know, there's a couple of tracks that are like very acoustic. There's a few little keyboardy bits here and there but it's mostly like mellotron and stuff like that where it kinda has a Beatles thing about it. There's no big piano ballads and all that kinda stuff. It's really a very guitar driven record."

"But, you know, Def Leppard was never just a heavy metal band. We always had melody, and a lot more variety than the average rock bands does. So it does cover a lot of styles. And that's the thing I think that any audience should be looking forward to. Is the fact that the next song that comes on won't sound like the one that just finished."

We Belong/Old Songs?

"Not really I think the backing track for We Belong's been knocking around in my head for a while but we never recorded it. The last album The Sparkle Lounge there was a few songs that had been knocking around for years. But it's not like the Van Halen album. We discovered only a few weeks ago some songs on the last Van Halen album were written before the first Van Halen album. No they were all relatively recent. They've all certainly been written since Sparkle Lounge. And as Phil says literally two or three or four of 'em were written on the spot almost."

Invincible/Rick Allen

"You know when Rick Allen came in with a song called...well it became a song called Invincible. He came in with the motif. And we literally worked on it. In fact Sav wasn't even there. There was only the four of us. Let's just get on with something. We were waiting for him to get off a boat you know. And we just, instead of sitting around and waiting. We just worked on it as a four piece. I think I played bass for the first two hours you know. Just so we had a bass guitar there. And we just worked this song through and in 90 minutes we had a backing track done."

"I ran upstairs and started working on some words while these guys started working on another song and all of a sudden boom we had a song done you know. It was kinda, that was the energy. That actually set the whole thing in motion. It set us up because that was the first song that we did. And we were all looking at each other going: 'Well O hope the rest of the sessions go this well.' because, you know, we were so like just on a roll. It just came out, there was no agenda it just happened by accident. But that's because of the experience that we have. We know what we're doing."

"But the fact that there was something there. We used the energy to actually project it forward and we just keot going and going and going. There was only a couple of songs where we had sticky bits. And those bits were, even that was an enjoyable process.."

Man Enough

"The middle section of the song I mentioned earlier, Man Enough, is um, is a project in itself. It's like a kind of a musical version of the middle bit of Bohemian Rhapsody. Or the middle bit of Whole Lotta Love. It's nothing to do with what's going on either side. So it had to be extremely dynamic with little guitar flourishes here and there. Vocals and kinda gospel sounding hums and oohs and ahhs underneath. And drums had to keep changing all the time. And that took longer to do than the actual song itself took to write. And it's only about 40 second but it was worth it otherwise the song would've had a big dip in it."

"So we knew where to put the energy in if it didn't flow naturally. And that just took, you know, it was a process. We kept revisiting it. If we got bored we'd say OK just leave it and come back to it tomorrow. And we'd move on to something else and go back. 'Cause you don't always get the spark there and then. It's sleep on it and wake up and one of us will go I know exactly what that middle section needs and then we'd try it and if it works we've goot it."

Phil - "It was very inspirational like that, you know, it doesn't always happen like that. You know sometimes you're sitting there for months. The song Animal took three years to get right you know. on Hysteria. We didn't have that, you know, it was like there was something happening all the time. Very weird actually. But we loved it, it was wonderful."

Enjoyable Recording Sessions

Joe - "It was the most enjoyable album I think we've ever made. And normally I've always had this thing in my head that for an album to be good you can't enjoy making it you know. It has to be really hard work. If you enjoy making it. You're probably not trying hard enough. So it's not gonna be a great record. You enjoyed the process but it won't be listenable. To make a record listenable it's like an assault course. You've gotta go through a lot of pain and agony to get it right. Which we did with things like Hysteria and Adrenalize specifically because Steve dying and what have you."

"But with this record we've got the finished product that we enjoyed, we've wanted, without going through all the trauma. And that's the first time that I can remember us ever making a record where there was. We didn't fight about anything. We didn't disagree about anything. And it all flowed naturally. Ot all came quickly and pleasantly really. It was just, it was a joy to do."