Saturday, 30th March 2019
Prev  |  Next

The Story of DEF LEPPARD's ADRENALIZE Album (Released 27 Years Ago)

Adrenalize 1992. Joe Elliott Los Angeles 1992

Def Leppard released their classic Adrenalize album 27 years ago on 30th March 1992 and this special feature looks at the making of the record.

The band's fifth studio album was released on this day in UK and around the world and in North America a day later.

It was released on CD, LP and cassette and featured ten songs including a re-recording of 1987 B-Side 'Tear It Down'. Co-produced by the band a long time engineer Mike Shipley with guru Mutt Lange credited as Executive Producer. Their first album without him in the main role since 1980.

It included the singles Let's Get Rocked, 'Make Love Like A Man', 'Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad', 'Heaven Is', 'Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)' and 'Tonight'. It went on to sell over 10 million copies around the world. At least six million of those in the first six months of release.

It would also enter the album charts in the UK/USA at Number One, spending the first five weeks at the top of the US Billboard Top 200 chart.

Having spent over three years making their fourth album 'Hysteria', and having dealt with Rick's Allen's car accident, illness and technical problems. The band vowed to make sure their fifth album would not take as long.

Towards the end of the 1988 Hysteria world tour the band stated that they "had a plan". Initially that plan indicated a 'Retro-Active' type album mixing new recordings of B-Sides and some new material with a view to releasing it by Summer 1989 or early 1990, touring more for 'Hysteria' or releasing it and working on a proper fifth album.

As with 'Hysteria', those plans changed with more album delays and the biggest setback of their career to date, the death of band member Steve Clark in January 1991. His illness also hindering the progress of the album in 1989 and 1990 as he was in and our of rehab and battling serious alcohol addiction.

Following his death the band finished the album as a four piece. In February 1992 they would recruit a new guitarist from Belfast for their upcoming world tour.

"New Guy" Vivian Campbell would not be unveiled until after the album's release. The band completing and releasing the album as a four piece as a mark of respect to Steve to whom the album was also dedicated.

Read some quotes below that have not been posted before arranged in a diary form. Showing the progress of the album from when it was first mentioned in 1987 and through the recording process which ended in December 1991.

Sadly producer Mike Shipley died on 25th July 2013 in Studio City, CA aged 56 of an apparent suicide.

Def Leppard 1992.

February-Summer 1987

The song 'Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)' was started by Phil Collen and Steve Clark at Wisseloord Studios in Holland where they recorded a rough demo version.

1987/1988 - First Mentions Of New Album On Tour

The band talked about a possible B-Sides album to be recorded quicker than 'Hysteria' with a release date of April 1989/Summer 1989 - possible mix of new material and redone songs like 'Tear It Down'. That song was performed live on the 1987 UK tour and introduced as "Here's a song from our next album".

May 1988 - Tonight Demo Recorded

Band recorded a demo for 'Tonight' at Wisseloord Studios whilst on a break from the 'Hysteria' tour.

Summer 1988 - Band Work On New Songs On The Road

Up to 5 new songs started on the Hysteria tour according to Steve Clark. Phil came up with the music for 'White Lightning' on the road. The full band came up with the music for 'Personal Property' at a soundcheck in Japan in May 1988 which was given a working title of 'Black Leather Jacket'.

Adrenalize 1992. Joe Elliott Los Angeles 1992

Steve Clark July 1988 Quotes - "Well we're not really sure exactly what we're gonna do yet. On this album what we're doing which we didn't do on Pyromania is were writing on the road and we've already got about five new songs. Which weren't B Side or anything. So they'll definitely be on it. We're gonna take a two weeks break after the tour. Then go straight back into the studio because we wanna try and have a new album out for next April believe it or not. We don't wanna be in the studio again for a long time. And so I suppose if we can write more songs because as I say we've got five or six now. If we can write more that will be the album."

"If there's something that never got used in the past then we'll think about putting that on it. But we're going for a totally different approach on this next record. I think it'll be a lot more spontaneous. As I say Hysteria definitely worked for the time it's out now but that doesn't mean. Just in the same way as Pyromania we don't wanna depend on that sound. So some of it might be slick production but some of it might be a lot more raw than it has been for a couple of albums."

Def Leppard 1992.

November 20th 1988 - Recording In Holland

The band started pre-production for a couple of days in Dublin on 4th November according to Joe and went back to Wisseloord on the 20th (or 24th depending on which interview you read) after a three week end of tour break. By Christmas or early 1989 they decided to relocate and to take more time with the album. The Spring/Summer 1989 release was pushed back. A Rick Allen interview suggests initial studio time was to edit the ITR-IYF live video.

Joe Elliott 1988 Quotes - (Change Of Plans) "The original plan was to rush back into the studio, knock an album into shape fast and get back out on the road in time for this summer. But that ideas been knocked on the head now. The thing is, with Hysteria still doing so well in the charts over here (in America) it would be foolish to rush another album out right now. Instead we plan to record the album a little later in the year and have it ready to go by the end of '89, start of 1990. It should be interesting to see exactly what we come up with this time. We've still got quite a few tracks recorded during the Hysteria sessions that never got used for one reason or another - stuff like you just can't put two ballads on one album."

Joe Elliott Late 1988 Quotes - "We go into pre production Nov 1 for a couple of days, we start in the studio (Wisseloord in Holland) Nov 24, and will be there till just before Christmas. We're going in little blocks this time instead of all at once. A month in, a month off."

Rick Allen Late 1988 Quotes - (talking in studio from Wisseloord-article says - "where the Leppards are putting the finishing touches on a live concert recording from Denver's McNichols Sports Arena in early '88.") "We didn't want to give the whole thing away the whole thing (referring to 'Women (Live)' B-Side). But it's nice for people who missed the live show to be able to see the live video. We're just sitting back to see what we did, what kind of noise we made."

The article continues with - "backing vocals are scheduled to be worked on this evening.". Allen's immediate plans - once the live video tracks are finished - called for some time around Amsterdam with his girlfriend, and then home to his parents in Sheffield, England, for the holidays - "get fat over Christmas".

February 1989 - UK/European Promo

A short break from recording to promote the 'Rocket' single. They played at the Brit Awards in London and made various UK/European TV appearances and performances (all playback).

Summer 1989

The band spent two days in Sheffield filming for the August 1989 BBC documentary 'Rock Of Ages The Def Leppard Story'. In studio footage of Phil recording new song 'Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion)' at Studio 150 with Mike Shipley was featured. The first airing of new material from the in progress album.

Rick Savage 1989 Quote - (B-Side/New Material album) "We write ideas on the road. We never write songs on the road as such, 'cause it's too much of a complex business. But we always come up with ideas that we put on tape, and then when we get off the road, we sit down and listen to all of them and piece the songs together. (new album will have) At least five or six brand new songs that nobody's ever heard. It won't be a legitimate fifth Def Leppard album, but something extra for people to listen to while we're actually doing the proper album."

Joe Elliott 1989 Quote - (B-Side/New Material album) "At this point, your guess is as good as ours as to what this new album's going to be like. It's totally up in the air. We have to listen to the ideas we have on tape and come to a conclusion."

September 1989 - MTV Awards/In The Round-In Your Face

Before resuming recording work the band played at the MTV Awards in Los Angeles. Performing a playback version of 'Tear it Down' which had been recorded earlier that year (Joe on live vocals/music was playback). They also did press for the 'In the Round-In Your Face' live video which came out at the same time. They gave lots of album updates in various interviews. 7 new songs had been written, three fully recorded and the release was now scheduled for Spring 1990.

Joe Elliott August 1989 Quotes - "We're far less paranoid about recording this album than we were recording 'Hysteria'. We're not going to be judging it on sales. So long as we're happy with it, we don't care of it only sells 200,000 worldwide. We've never been money motivated."

"It's definitely a Def Leppard album. It's slightly looser because we've proved to the point of exhaustion that we can handle the technology of recording. We're not sounding like the New York Dolls, but we sound more ragged. We have to have a go on our own. I think our songwriting has come so far. There's one song, a slowy, that I personally think is the best thing we've ever recorded. The album is definitely us, and right now we couldn't be happier with the way it's turning out."

Joe Elliott 1989 Quotes - "We've been dashing about the last few months. We did some work in Amsterdam and then we went to Los Angeles for the MTV Awards. Then we came back and we're writing songs. Everybody is doing their own individual little bits, and I've had my head down over pen and paper. We'll probably start on some more studio work soon. The last lot we did was at Studio 150 in Amsterdam. We went four months there and it's been good - quite a lot faster than the last couple of albums we've done. We are really happy with the results we've got so far."

(Titles of Stand Up/Tonight mentioned along with HYENSSB as 'Have You Ever Needed Something So Bad') - "We have done a re-working of 'Tear It Down' which is the B-Side of 'Animal'. We have got seven more songs but the titles are just like 'Song in E'. Mutt is not producing this album so we are having to do a little bit of this ourselves (producer role). We are keeping in contact with him and we have written some songs together. We didn't particularly want to break up that relationship y'know?. It's a good one. We enjoy working with the guy, but he's not really into production at the moment. And we fancied having a go on our own. We are co-producing it with Mike Shipley who engineered or mixed our last three albums. We know what he can do, and we also know what we can't do. Mutt meanwhile has co-written a couple of songs and we shall do more with him as we get the chance."

Def Leppard 1992. Def Leppard 1992

"We are not doing ten songs at once, we are doing them one at a time, we'll go into the studio when they are 85 per cent complete and finish them off. We don't like to rush a song, and that's a luxury we can afford. We are hoping to have recording finished by January (1990) and get it out by May with a bit of luck. I don't see any problem because it's going along nicely at the moment."

Rick Savage October 1989 Quotes - (Different Sound?) "Yeah, for a couple of reasons. We won't be working with producer Mutt Lange this time. The album's being produced by our longtime engineer, Mike Shipley, so really, the sound won't be too much different than that of Hysteria or Pyromania. And we're changing studios from Wisseloord to another place on Amsterdam. It's not that we don't love Wisseloord - it's probably, technically, the best recording studio in the world. We just needed a change of scenery."

(New Material?) - "One song is called 'Tonight', which is in the 'Foolin'' vein - an acoustic intro and stompin-type chorus. We're also remixing the British B-side of 'Animal' called 'Tear It Down'. We like that song a lot and wanted to give it the full album treatment. We even performed it on the Hysteria tour a few times, and it went over quite well." (When will the album be released?) - "Not until next year, I'm afraid."

May 1990 - Summer Break

The band decided to take break over the Summer of 1990 and wait for Mutt Lange to rejoin them as a full time producer. Phil Collen went to Australia to co-produce the B.B. Steal album 'On The Edge' with Pete Woodroffe. Kerrang! Magazine ran a story saying the band would not release a new album until 1992. Band reps denied they had scrapped recordings and that Steve was to leave the band.

Kerrang! Article Quotes - "Leppard: No new LP until 1992!"

"UK megastars Def Leppard have halted recording work on their long-awaited new album and will now wait for producer Robert 'Mutt' Lange to join the project in September."

"Meanwhile Leppard's management have firmly denied rumours that guitarist Steve Clark is to leave the band. It now seems unlikely that there will be no new Def Leppard studio album release until late next year, or even until 1992, given the length of time that 'Hysteria', their 1987 multi-platinum Lange-produced album, took to complete."

"Def Leppard had begun work on a new album without studio mastermind Lange in Amsterdam's Studio 150 last year, with the results originally scheduled for release this Spring. Last August, vocalist Joe Elliott told Kerrang!: 'We couldn't be happier with the way it's turning out'."

"Lange, renowned for his slow, thorough way of working, is currently producing Canadian star Bryan Adams's latest album, which has no firm release date as yet. Lange will then take a break before linking up with Leppard."

"Rumours that the band had actually scrapped the recordings to date have been firmly denied by Q-Prime, the band's management. However, Leppard's decision to wait for Lange to join the project seems to confirm popular opinion that the producer/songwriter's role within the band, who sold over 20 million albums in the 1980s, is a vital one."

September 1990

The UK press reported the band had resumed work on the album in Dublin having decided not to wait for Mutt to finish working with Bryan Adams on his 'Waking Up the Neighbours' album.

Phil Collen 1992 Quotes - "I went to Australia and Canada to do that album (with B. B. Steal), and then went straight back into the studio with Leppard - only to find Mutt still wasn't ready. That was when we decided to do it ourselves."

UK Article Quotes - "Rock megastars Def Leppard have resumed recording work on the follow-up to their monumental 'Hysteria opus without producer and "sixth band members" Mutt Lange. The band are currently working on the as-yet-untitled album in Dublin, while Lange is finishing work on Bryan Adams' much-touted new album before taking an extended break."

"Mayhem understands that Leppard weren't prepared to continue waiting for Lange to be available, despite halting work once before in order to accommodate the man who produced both 'Pyromania' and 'Hysteria'. It's already been some three years since the release of 'Hysteria', and the latest Lepps offering is unlikely to emerge until 1991."

Def Leppard 1992. Def Leppard 1992

Working Without Mutt Lange

Joe Elliott 1992 Quotes - "We were gonna work with Mutt, but he was taking forever to do the Bryan Adams album, and we just weren't prepared to sit around and wait. We'd done that too many times before, Mike Shipley mixed 'Hysteria' and 'High 'n' Dry' and engineered 'Pyromania', so we figured that is and him co-producing would be the next best thing to Mutt, much more so than another producer, cos it's pretty well documented that when we worked with Jim Steinman it was a massive disaster, and not necessarily all our fault either. If we weren't gonna work with Mutt, we didn't want to work with any other producer, cos we do work in a unique way. The song is the only thing that counts, not the vibe."

"Working with Shipley turned out turned out to be just as good as with Mutt, and in many respects better, cos the imperfections we've left on the record gives it - by our standards at least - a bit more of a rough edge. We gave Mutt an honourary executive producer credit because he's always been there, that's the great thing about him. He wasn't in the control room when we made the record, but he was there when we wrote and arranged the songs as he was for 'Pyromania' and 'Hysteria'. There was no animosity from Mutt about us doing the album without him. He said ' I can understand you guys not wanting to wait around, you should do this record on your own, but it if you ever get stuck or need some advice or you want to play me something over the phone, just give me a ring - Bryan won't mind!. And luckily he didn't'."

"Over two years we spoke to Mutt on the phone probably 40 times, and met up with him a couple of times to finish off a few songs. Luckily for us, Bryan Adams used to bugger off and do some shows while he was making his record. He'd disappear to Helsinki for a few days, so we'd nobble Mutt from Monday to Thursday and get those bits of songs that were missing, and then we could record them."

Rick Savage 1989 - "Yeah. It will change slightly. There are going to be some songs on the new album that he wrote with us anyway, so he'll be credited as a co-writer. There are a lot of the ideas we had for Hysteria but we couldn't fit in. We'll work on them a bit. There's no set formula for who writes the songs - it's anybody that comes up with an idea, it gets used. Nobody writes a song and says 'This is my song and I don't want it changed, this is the way I hear it'. Everybody gets their chance to put their opinions forward. That's where Mutt was great. Apart from everything else, he was a great referee!. When you've got four people writing songs, it can be difficult to come to a decision. The great thing about Mutt, and maybe one of the things we'll miss most, is the fact that he's got an ear and can turn around and say 'I think we should use this idea' and the other five people turn around and say 'OK, fair enough'. We always listen to Mutt, he's like the word of God."

Joe Elliott Mid 1989 Quotes - "Mutt Lange is not producing this album. We decided to see what we could do on our own this time. That could be a good or a bad thing. Obviously, having worked with Mutt for three albums, some of the knowledge will have rubbed off on us. We'll be working with the engineer who mixed the Hysteria album and worked on Pyromania and High 'n' Dry (Mike Shipley); so he knows the band, what we're capable of and what we want."

Steve Clark Mid 1989 Quotes - "It was very frustrating being in the studio for such a long period of time recording an album. We learned a lot from our mistakes during Hysteria. We were swept away with the success we had with Pyromania. And with everything that happened with Rick, when it came time to go into the studio to record the next album, we really didn't have any songs ready. We hadn't really thought about making another album. That held things up for a good six months because we had to write songs before we even started working on the album."

"To correct this on this next album, we began writing on the road. We even went into the studio during the Hysteria tour and spent two weeks recording songs for the new album."

Joe Elliott Mid 1989 Quotes - "We've even got a couple of songs already finished. We went in and recorded them during the first weeks of February (1989). Then we took some time off to write more stuff. The idea is, instead of recording ten numbers straight off and then finding the first three weren't good enough, to do it step by step, in that manner we'll know what we've got, like three hit singles and a ballad or something such."

Steve Clark Mid 1989 Quotes - "We wanted to give you an album by April 1989 so we could tour during the summer, that was our original goal. Now we're shooting for the end of the year. We just want to get back on the road. Def Leppard is a live group - that's why we formed originally. We wanted to make records, of course, but the ultimate thing for forming Def Leppard was to be a live rock band."

"To get caught up in that studio situation for so long like we did was so frustrating, because we weren't able to play. After such a long time off, we're happy to carry on playing. It won't bother me if we complete this record and go on tour. That way I won't see another studio for a couple of years!."

Def Leppard 1992. Def Leppard 1992

September-December 1990 - Dublin/Health Problems

Steve Clark given six month leave of absence from the album sessions which had resumed in Dublin. This came after he was found comatose in Minneapolis, MN having discharged himself from rehab there and continued to drink when back in Dublin.

January 1991 - Steve Clark's Death

Steve died at home when band were on Christmas/New Year break on 8th January 1991 in London, England. His six month leave of absence was due to have ended in February 1991. In the band statement, Joe said they had been due to resume working on the album in the same week. They actually resumed work on 18th January 1991, the day after the funeral.

January 1991 - Recording Resumed

The band continued working on the album for one or two months before restarting and re-doing much of the album at Joe's Garage in March 1991 and were finished by Christmas 1991.

Joe Elliott 1992 Quotes - "When I got the phone call, Cliff Burnstein rang me and said, 'Have you heard?'. I didn't even twig what he was talking about, I didn't think about it. He said, 'Steve's dead', and I wasn't surprised. Steve was the nicest guy in the world, sober or not. You do your best to help people, but towards the end it just got impossible."

"You can see why we didn't get much of the record done. We went back to work the day after the funeral (18th January 1991), but everything we did from that day till the end of March was bullshit. It was therapy for us, but what had gone on tape was very ordinary. I sounded like I was reading off a piece of paper instead of singing from the heart. Finally, we just sat down and said, 'Look, we've gotta get on with our lives. Steve' has gone, he was great, he's always gonna be Steve to us, but he's not here any more and he's never coming back'. We took a big deep breath and in we went and we did the album, and by our standards, we blitzed through it."

"We were asked if we'd considered knocking it on the head when Steve died, like Zeppelin did when Bonzo died. We didn't, because: (a) we had the songs nearly finished, and we weren't gonna lose these songs, cos they were too good: (b) we've got nothing else to do; and then (c) Steve just wouldn't have wanted us to quit anyway."

Joe Elliott 1992 Quote - "Through 1989-90, Clarkie was in rehab at least half a dozen times. When we were working in Dublin, he'd been found unconscious in a gutter in Minneapolis with an alcohol level in his blood of .59. That doesn't mean anything to you and me until I tell you that .41 apparently killed John Bonham, and, .30 is coma, so Steve was double-coma. And he lived, but he looked like a dead man when we saw him."

August/September 1991 - New Guitarist Rumours

The band denied that guitarist John Sykes was to replace Steve Clark. Kerrang! Magazine ran a story with a denial from Joe in response to various press stories.

Joe Elliott Late 1991 Quote - "I wanted to sort this out once and for all. We will be finishing this LP as a four piece, and it will be released by us as a four piece. Phil played all the guitars on it and John Sykes played absolutely nothing. Diddly squit. That's the truth. I don't know why all this stuff gets in the press - we're not really newsworthy at the moment!. It's true that Phil and John met up at Heathrow Airport recently, but that's because they both live in LA and flew in together. It can be very damaging though. We've had people on the phone to the fan club about it, and as Steve always had a very melancholy style, they're looking at John's stuff and going, 'You can f**k off if you get him in'. And none of it's true! We're recording this in our home, for god's sake. There's absolutely nobody else here, nobody walking past who can see what's going on, who's coming and going."

"Obviously when we go on tour we'll need to be a five-piece, because we really are a two guitar band. We don't want to sound like Van Halen, we want to sound like Def Leppard. We'll be looking for the right person then, but at the moment we've got absolutely no intentions to interfere with the recording of this album and its release. It's gonna be brilliant though!."

Rick Savage 1992 Quote - "He came in and helped us with some backing vocals, but he had his own projects on the go, it just didn't work out."

Joe Elliott 1992 Quote - (Extra Backing Vocalists/Studio Issues?) - "In some of the songs, things like Heaven Is and White lightning, we needed voices in numbers. We brought a guy named David Steele in to sing on those, along with John Sykes, who's been a friend of ours for a long time, and they gave us those extra voices. That wasn't really a studio "problem" but it was one of the few situations where we needed a little outside help. But we always have had guest musicians help is out with backing vocals. Rocky Newton, who's played bass with Michael Schenker, did that on the last album, and Terry Slesser, who used to sing in Back Street Crawler, did it on Pyromania. It's nothing new for us. I know people heard about Sykes being in the studio with us, and they assumed he was being hired to replace Steve, but that's not true."

Def Leppard 1992. Def Leppard 1992

January/February 1992 - Rehearsing New Guitarists

Vivian Campbell was chosen as the new guitar player after rehearsals with a few other candidates. He was not unveiled until mid-April, just ahead of his first shows in Dublin and at Wembley Stadium in London. The band flew to Los Angeles on 1st January to mix the album, do press and find a new guitarist.

Vivian Campbell April 1992 Quote - "I consider it a great privilege to be a part of this band which, as a fan, I have watched grow from being young hopefuls to a bona fide rock institution."

White Lightning

Originally started by Phil Collen on the Hysteria tour as a demo. Finished off after Steve's death with new lyrics added by Joe. One of four new songs written/completed in 1991 after Steve's death. The others being 'Personal Property', 'HYENSSB' and 'Let's Get Rocked'. Of these only LGR was entirely written from scratch. The others dated from when Steve was still alive.

Joe Elliott 1992 Quote - "'White Lightning' will affect other people who didn't even know Steve. 'White Lightning' wouldn't have got written if Steve hadn't died, but it's not necessarily 100 per cent about Steve, it's also about Hendrix, it's also about Janis Joplin, and it's also about C.C. DeVille, cos if he doesn't get his act together, he's gonna die too. But it's also about the kid on your block who's got a heroin addiction, or a gambling addiction. We didn't want it to come across as finger-wagging, preaching, cos as soon as somebody starts telling you to do something, you do the opposite. The whole intention of the lyric is to say, It's there on a plate, you either do it or you don't. And for once, we got it right, y'now?. I look at these lyrics now, and if I'm thinking about Steve I think 'You silly sod...'. We did say those things to him, but he just didn't hear them."

Phil Collen 1992 Quote - "I like White Lightning. I wrote that one a while ago, while we were on tour, just as a demo. It was one of Joe's favourites. He'd say, "What a f**king great thing, wish we could do some lyrics to it.' Me, Sav and Joe worked on it and Steve died around that time so the inspiration for writing the lyrics was about someone with the same problem as Steve. It's not preaching or anything, it's about someone's personal hell - they can't do anything about it even if they tried."

No Steve Clark On The Final Album

Joe Elliott 1992 Quote - (Steve's writing credits on six songs) "He didn't play on the album, though. There was nothing we could keep, which is a real shame. There's bits of Steve's stuff on tape that hopefully will see the light of day, stuff he demoed straight on to multitrack. There's one song I think we could tart up and I'd like to use it as a B-Side at some stage. We've proven ourselves with the four songs he wasn't involved in; they're of equal standard."

Def Leppard 1992.

Album Artwork

The eyeball on the sleeve was a photograph of a real human eye and originally the one used on the 'Let's Get Rocked' cover. It was amended for the main album sleeve to look like an exploding or excited eye. The eye belonged to Miles Kendrick who worked for a retouching company called Alchemy and the photograph was taken at their studios on Clerkenwell Road, London, England.

Miles Kendrick April 2011 Quote - "Once the cameras and lights we set up it was a case of having a camera 3 inches from my face and pulling open my eye lids wide enough apart so that the whole iris was visible. This took around 2 hours to achieve the correct shot so as you can imagine this was very uncomfortable as not only are your eyes streaming due to being held apart but you have a very bright light directly shining into your eye."

Album Title

Phil came up with the album title after the band had joke titles written on a board for much of the recording. They were even going to settle for one of these as the final title - 'Dementia'. This prompted Phil to say during a band meeting - "Well, as far as I'm concerned, if you call it that, you might as well call the album Bob!.".

Joe Elliott 1989 Quotes - (album titles?) "Yeah 'Diptheria', 'Listeria', 'Posterior'...oh there's all sorts of things. I don't think any 'isteria' names will rear their heads. That was a total coincidence, I never even noticed that the last two album titles ended in the same two letters. I never even thought about it. As long as the songs are good, that's far more important than any titles can be."

Phil Collen 1992 Quotes - "Yeah. We had a list for two years and every time anyone put anything on it, it was a joke. We couldn't take anything seriously. Dyslexia, Dementia. We were going to settle for that, but then I mentioned Adrenalize."

Recording The Guitars Three Times

Phil recorded the album's guitar tracks three times. Once in Amsterdam and then twice more at Joe's Garage in Dublin using a Rockman.

Phil Collen 1992 Quotes - "The weird thing was I was kind of waiting for Steve to come back. When he was in clinics and stuff I'd leave his parts out when we demoed songs. I thought he was going to come back. When he died, I had to finish it all off. I ended up doing all the guitars at least three times - each time with different equipment. I did them once in Holland, and twice at Joe Elliott's home studio in Dublin."

Phil Collen 'Tom Scholz Rockman Guitar Ace' Ad Quote - "We cut almost all the guitar tracks for the new album with the Ace. We couldn't believe this little box could do so much, but it does!."

"I've done the guitars three times because they sounded dated and we wanted them to sound modern. I got all this Rockman stuff and we used that with a lot of EQ and Randall stuff. I used the same guitars I used on Hysteria."

Album Finished/Album Sound

Phil Collen 1992 Quotes - (Adrenalize Sound?) - "I think it's a different kind of step. We learned from writing the one before, learned from a few little mistakes. Most of the songs were really long on Hysteria, so we made an obvious effort to cut them down a little bit, and it sounds more exciting. With Hysteria, you had to hear it a few times before you got into it."

(Can you put the follow-up pressure aside?) - "Yeah, you can. We never try to fool anyone, put any filler tracks on the album. We always do our best. At this point I honestly wouldn't care if it sold one copy. I know I've done the best I could."


share this story:





get def leppard news

Stay in touch with the latest updates.


explore def leppard tour history
All News
Tour News
Album News
All Tours