Def Leppard News - DEF LEPPARD's VIVIAN CAMPBELL On His Health/Last In Line (Video)

Friday, 24th May 2019

DEF LEPPARD's VIVIAN CAMPBELL On His Health/Last In Line (Video)

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Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell ad his Last In Line band mates were interviewed recently in Rochester, NY and the full video is available.

Last In Line spoke to Norma Holland for the Good Day Rochester show at the Fox Rochester Studio.

The band were promoting their show at Montage Music Hall which coincided with the 9th anniversary of the death of Ronnie James Dio.

Vivian and the band talked about Def Leppard, Lou Gramm/Shadow King, Vivian's 25th Birthday/Rochester, Whitesnake, Ronnie James Dio Anniversary, Last In Line Formation, Band Experience, Vivian's trousers, Phil Soussan/Ozzy Osbourne Story, Band Longevity/The Rolling Stones, Vivian's health and a John Lennon story.

Vivian spoke about his health situation without giving any new details and as with most recent updates everything is still OK and his Immunotherapy treatment continues.

Watch the full 14 minute interview below in three parts.

Visit the Tour News section. For more news on future tour plans.

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

Good Day Rochester - Vivian Campbell Interview Quotes - (Transcribed by dltourhistory)

Def Leppard/Lou Gramm/Shadow King

"I've been with a lot of bands. I won't even get into that. But I've been with Def Leppard for 27 years. I'm the new guy in Leppard. I did a record...I actually spent a winter here in Rochester. A winter. It couldn't be the summer it had to be a winter. So we were writing and making a record. Yeah so it was cold!."

Vivian's 25th Birthday/Rochester

"I was here with Whitesnake. We were touring with Motley Crue at the time. And it was my 25th birthday and I don't drink hard liquor very much. Back then I didn't even touch the stuff. But I had Tommy Lee on one side and Nikki Sixx on the other at the hotel bar after the show insisting we go shot for shot. Jack Daniels...and it was just. It was horrible and it was dreadful and I've never felt so bad in my life and I'm happy to say I've never felt so bad since. You know maybe it was just a good life lesson. Don't do that again."

Ronnie James Dio Anniversary/Last In Line Formation

"Well yeah Vinny and I started with the original DIO band back in the early 80s. The Holy Diver album. Last In Line album which is what we took our name from. And the Sacred Heart record and then I got fired. Vinny took a couple more years to get fired. And he tried really hard I know. Anyway so the origins of this band. We formed this band about a year or so after Ronnie had passed away. Which was nine years ago."

Band Experience

Andrew - "We just kinda stay out of each other's way. It's pretty easy. It's one of the easiest situations I've ever been in you know. Everybody's...there's a long history between these three guys and, you know, I've known Vinny and Phil for eight/ten years. 'Cause I'm much younger than they are. ."

Vivian's Trousers

"You know he's very envious of my red trousers. That's the biggest problem we've had. In the last couple of months that's been the only problem we've really had."

Phil Soussan/Ozzy Osbourne Song You Wrote?

Phil - "Shot In the Dark. It was a great time. It was a really terrific time. And it was really the time I got to know these guys because Ozzy and DIO were two sort of sister bands that were cut from the same cloth and we were both kind of touring around the same time ."

Band Longevity/The Rolling Stones

"I mean the Stones are great. As long as you're authentic and you're doing it for the right reasons you know. I mean we're here 'cause we love it. We're not here for the cheese sandwiches and the sacks of cash that we're not getting. It's a labour of love this band. It's just, it's a joyous experience. We play our own music. We've got two original albums out now and we mix that up with early DIO songs from the catalogue there and a lot of our audience is people of our age. And it's great to see the joy that it brings them you know."

Phil - "I think you have to evolve with your audience as well. I think one of the mistakes you can make as a band is to try to sort of chase whatever new trends are happening rather than to take your audience with you. You get an audience and then you bring them along and then you evolve. And that makes it much more gratifying as well you know. When you said earlier about bringing our experience together. We've done all this work independently and then we've come together. This is almost like a...adds meaning to all of that 'cause we're all experienced. We know how to play together and we lock together and that really is a very gratifying experience. It seems to be focal point."

Vivian's Current Health

"I started to feel really ill about 2011 and...actually it was right around when this band formed. You guys made me ill. I just realised that. But you know I would like to stress to people you've gotta advocate for your own health 'cause I knew something was wrong with me for about 18 months and my doctor just kept. Ohh you know here have this, take that and sent me to another doctor and they said ahh you're fine have a nasal spray. And I knew something was going on and eventually I talked to my doctor into doing an x-ray and they said Ooh that doesn't look good. Go have a CAT-scan and go see a cancer doctor."

"So anyway but I did the chemo and stem cell transplants and all that and it kept coming back. And I'm very happy to say for the last four years I've been doing Immunotherapy that's this new wonder drug Pembrolizumab which you've probably seen marketed as Keytruda. And yeah it's good. So I'm one of the very fortunate ones. I've responded well to the treatment. And the hardest part honestly the hardest part about doing the treatments is scheduling. And having to go back to LA every month or so."

"Well yeah I've done a couple of them in Boston but with insurance companies it's gets very complicated. You know you;ve gotta jump through a lot of hoops."

What kind of cancer?

"Lymphoma. It's the one to get. If you're gonna get cancer, get lymphoma."

Good Advice

"Well you know doctor's obviously they go to medical school. They're very well educated people. But nobody knows you're own body like yourself. I mean you know when something's wrong. I knew for fully 18 months and, you know, I could have caught it even earlier if my doctor's had been a little bit more active on it but yeah it's all good."

Vinny's John Lennon Story

"Yeah when I was 16 years old in New York. Long story short we wound up working with John Lennon. At 16 yeah. And we did hand claps on the song Whatever Gets You through The Night. They said hey can you guys come down. We were in the Record Plant Studios in new York, and do hand claps. We walk in and there's John Lennon and we're all oh my god. So we did the hand claps and then we used to rehearse upstairs and he'd come and hang out with us."

"No this is my band, my own band. Our friends were Jimmy Iovine who produced John. Interscope Records. So he was John's producer and he asked to come up and then we met John and he used to come up watch us rehearse. So we're sitting there and telling John, we're talking Italian food. I said well I'm Italian, my families from Brooklyn. My mother make sa killer lasagne. And he's talking and I go you know what how about I make you something. So she made the lasagne a couple of days later. I brought the lasagne to the studio. Gave it to him and he'd go Oh thank you. this is lovely. Took it away and then about a month later my brother at that time was playing with Rod Stewart and they were playing Madison Square Garden. A bunch of nights. So OK my other went there and backstage there's John Lennon let's go say hello. So she went over there and said hello. Her and my Dad and she talked to John for a while and it was really great. And then at the end of the conversation she goes do you have my pan?."