| Man Raze UK | Talking Metal 2008 |
|---|
TUE 1st Apr 2008: Bi-Lo Center, Greenville, SC, USA.
[SETLIST]
This Is, Turn It Up, Def Leppard - Stagefright.
[Show Notes] - 13min interview with Phil Collen live from backstage at Def Leppard's Greenville show. Interviewed by two DJs based in New York for the Talking Metal Podcast show. Included the playing of 'This Is'. The opening track on the debut album 'Surreal'. Much of the interview dealt with Man Raze, Phil's guitars and Girl.
Transcript ::
[DJ] - "We are pretty excited about Man Raze, is it a project or should I call it a band?."
[Phil] - "Yeah. no it's a band actually."
[DJ] - "And it's reuniting you kind of with Simon who you played with a long time ago in the band Girl."
[Phil] - "Right absolutely although it's pretty different - it's a lot different to that stuff. It's a very London band. The three of us are from London. What's interesting about it is that we all listened to the same kind of music growing up. But even the guys in Def Leppard, Joe and everyone you know - Marc Bolan, Bowie, Zeppelin and stuff like that. But actually coming from London we had a lot of other things as well.
Obviously the whole punk thing that kind of started off in London. The Pistols and the Clash and stuff like that. And that was actually influenced by a lot of other different things. Stuff like Iggy Pop, New York Dolls things like that. Also some reggae some like just West Indian, Jamaican reggae stuff that I used to hear as a kid. In fact we all did in London. You'd hear all this music and I think some of that has always been around you know and I was a big fan of The Police and they done that really well. Again the great thing about Man Raze is that we can actually - it's so expressive, you can go off on any tangent and it's like - and it's OK."
[DJ] - "Now the tracks I've heard are 'This Is' and 'Turn It Up'. Both have what I would call a pretty aggressive raw edge to it. Maybe more so than some of your more recent stuff with Def Leppard."
[Phil] - "Definitely, yeah. I think the fact that we done it live and we done it the other way around you know with Def Leppard we usually work the stuff in the studio and then take it out on tour. With Man Raze although we've only done one gig, we'd get together, we'd rehearse the stuff. We played that gig and we changed everything, as soon as we got in the studio it just come to life you know. It was just a really cool experience and the three of us were like - it just clicked. It was like one of them magic things, it was really cool."
[DJ] - "Now the other member who we haven't mentioned of course is Paul Cook who is very famous for being with the Sex Pistols."
[Phil] - "Yeah again we just done a show last week in LA and we videoed it and it's gonna be for VH1 cos that's our record label as well. But we done a documentary, for an English thing that will be later on aired on VH1. So yeah it was really cool and Paul was out because he's gonna be rehearsing with the Pistols cos thery're going out this summer as well in Europe. So it was just perfect we were in LA and here's this London band rehearsing in the sun! It was great."
[DJ] - "Phil I think it's great to hear you singing and I love in 'Turn It Up' some of the lyrics. It caught my ear when you said Electric Ladyland and then right after that you said Communication Breakdown. And I just think it's so cool that you're incorporating all these historic, really cool, not just heavy metal but rock and roll lyrics into Man Raze."
[Phil] - "Absolutely!. I mean of all the songs that one kind of says where we come from. You know it's got all of the rock stuff that we kind of grew up listening to and the first verse it actually namechecks some of the reggae stuff that was like really popular in the early 70s and late 60s you know. Stuff like Big Fire Prince Buster and all these really kind of out there reggae artists. So again it was just a huge melting pot and the Man Raze thing was just so much fun to be able to that and not have any restrictions at all."
[DJ] - "I really think it's great that you're back with Simon again. And I have to tell you that I actually have 'Sheer Greed' by Girl on vinyl."
[Phil] - "Wow. yeah I see them pop up occasionally. I have people bring them to sign and that and it's like 'I didn't know we sold all these copies!'."
[DJ] - "It's interesting because it doesn't seem like it's an easy record to get, 'Sheer Greed' or any of the Girl records for that matter. I saw like one going for 90 bucks on eBay."
[Phil] - "Are you serious? wow!."
[DJ] - "Yeah there was a vinyl copy, I believe it was 'Sheer Greed' going for 90 dollars."
[Phil] - "Geez. Wow that's great though isn't it."
[DJ] - "Any thoughts on re-releasing that on iTunes and stuff like that so people could check out all that old music?."
[Phil] - "Well I hadn't thought about it but perhaps that'd be a really good idea actually. Yeah it was a very cool thing, a very cool time period and the band was great you know. We was very naive and we were playing at being rock stars, we were playing clubs and that and it was just a blast. It was kind of Post-Punk, Pre-Metal and it was kind of a combination of both. We used to get spat at, at gigs because of - cos we had all this make up on. We tried to be more New York Dolls than say Poison I suppose or something like that which was our thing. It was a lot of fun. I was in the band for like three years."
[DJ] - "You left Girl to join Def Leppard right as you guys were going in to record one of the biggest selling records ever, 'Pyromania'."
[Phil] - "Yeah I knew Joe and Steve. Well, I knew all the guys and Joe phoned up and said 'Look, we've got rid of Pete. Can you come down, do you wanna come and just play some solos?.' I said yeah OK so I went down. 'Stagefright' and then it was 'Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)' then 'Photograph' then 'Foolin'' then 'Rock Of Ages'. And then I started singing on some stuff and just finished the record off. And I kind of joined the band without even being asked really. It just kind of evolved you know."
[Talk about Def Leppard album, How 'Nine Lives' came together - recording on tour. Usual stuff.]
[DJ] - "Phil I know you've got some great Jackson stuff out but I wanted to tell you that on eBay just about everyday I look for the Ibanez Destroyer. Black with three pick ups. And I just gotta get one of those one day."
[Phil] - "I've got about four of 'em I think. Well I did have four and one dissappeared we donated it to a museum [Sheffield 1995] and then the museum kind of closed down. So I don't know what happpened to that one. But yeah I've still got my original one. It's such a cool guitar."
[DJ] - "Do you ever use that on tour now?."
[Phil] - "I dug it out a couple of years ago when we were in England. Cos it's over in the UK and it's really hard to play. Especially after I've been playing my Jacksons. Because they're like perfect for me and they're like hybrids and I can fly all over them. The Destroyer was a bit - it was hard work! And that's the guitar I used for the solo in 'Photograph' and actually all of those things 'Rock Of Ages'. Yeah 'Foolin'' all those guys."
[DJ] - "What's cool about that is people came to know that particular guitar as the Phil Collen model. Although I actually don't know if it was ever officially a Phil Collen model."
[Phil] - "It wasn't. It was a Destroyer but then they done a - my one was a custom Destroyer and it had my name on it and everything."
[DJ] - "Hey Phil do you still play Soccer or Football?."
[Phil] - "I don't. Vivian plays all the time, he's really into that."
[DJ] - "Is it true back in the day you guys actually had a soccer match against Iron Maiden?."
[Phil] - "Yeah."
[DJ] - "Who won that one?."
[Phil] - "I think they did actually. But we always like to say they cheated. They brought all these ringers in!, you know. So they were a bit more serious about it than we were. They were too serious!. We were like having fun with it but anyway. No, they're great, those guys, they're neat."
[DJ] - "I know you said you played last week with Man Raze in Los Angeles. Can we expect any other live dates later this year?."
[Phil] - "Definitely. Paul's doing this tour of Europe - he's doing festivals with the Pistols. I'm obviously around the world - after we finish the States we've got like India, Russia, Greece, Turkey all these crazy places. And then we come back here. But in the gaps in between we have like two week breaks so we're gonna try and get some Man Raze shows in. It's just so much fun it's a lot of energy it's kind of. It's great - it's that Punk-energy thing. But we're a rock band so it's cool."
Transcribed by Man Raze UK 2008.