Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen was interviewed by Inside Out Webzine during the recent Australian tour. He spoke to Cameron Edney about the album, his connections to and memories of Australia and the Man Raze album.

Interview Excerpts

I well mate and truly pleased to be speaking with you today! Growing up on your music; I never thought I'd have the pleasure of speaking to you! Mate, congratulations on the success you have had with 'Songs from the Sparkle Lounge'! Looking back at the recording process six months later, is there anything you would have changed?

"When we do a record there always is actually! We recorded it in a different way than we've ever done before; we actually wrote the songs whilst we were on tour, we put some time aside to finish the album in the same year as we were touring, kind of like the classic Zeppelin and Stones albums were made! It turned out as we wanted it to, the big deal for us and the pleasing thing about it was that we started this one on tour. It was a good process, good for the album, great for the material and we saved so much time, it was like a breath of fresh air. For me that was the most important thing out of the whole lot...the fact that we didn't get bogged down. We've done it before, were we have gotten really clinical and we've ironed out any vibe. We didn't do that this time!

Mate I really want to talk to you about touring and life on the road. Finally after a fifteen year absences you are back in Australia! What comes to mind when you look back on your last Australian visit?

"I always have such a great time down here personally; my cousin and her dad and another of my cousins live in Sydney. That's one of the first things that came to mind. I am trying to get in touch with them, but I've lost my old phone book. We always hear from the Australian fans, asking why haven't we played here for so long, and we have to be invited really!

[Laughs], it certainly has been built up a lot since your last visit! Phil, over the years you guys have hit the road with many amazing bands and fortunately for us Aussies you are playing with Cheap Trick, how did those guys end up on the bill?

"Whenever you play with another band you always get asked, "Was this your idea"? "How was that bill put together"? And it really comes down to availability. It's a lot smaller an issue than what people think to be honest! We get asked "Well, why didn't you take this person on tour"? And it really comes down to tons of different things...the band could have broken up; a member could be in hospital a number of things! We have toured with Cheap Trick a bunch of times and we are huge fans, especially me and Joe. We got to play with them onstage on one of the tours we did with them before, we're really big fans and we're really pleased that they can tour with us again!...

Mate I want to go back for a moment to when you were playing with Girl and Dumb Blondes...Can you remember the hardest time you had as an opening act?

"Well, with Girl we opened up for Kiss. Now, looking back there crew were rather jealous because we used to get so many pretty girls at our concerts. For some reason they all liked these pretty boys in make-up [laughs]. I remember this guy in the crowd was giving me the finger, and I blew him a kiss and he didn't know where to look!...

It's funny that you mention Kiss...A couple of years back I spoke with Phil Lewis and he told me how he hated doing the support for the Kiss tour also and said something about you guys being thrown off the tour is that right?

"Kind of yeah, we did two nights at Wembley, and it wasn't the band, the band was actually great to us, Paul and Gene, all the guys were really super nice. Something had happened with the crew, they wouldn't let us sound check it got a bit weird and we just left!."

Back in 1990 you did some work with Australian band B.B. Steal. You co-produced one of their albums and played on a track or two from memory, how did you become involved with those guys?

"Steve Clark, my mum and I were in Sydney doing some promo for the Hysteria tour and we bumped into the guys. They said they were doing this album and I just ended up in the studio doing the single, and then we just ended up finishing the album after that! We had a bit of time to do it and I really think it was a great album for that time."

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Full Interview -- Here