[ Def Leppard UK - 9th May 2008 News ]
| Def Leppard UK Sparkle Lounge Interviews |
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Def Leppard have been interviewed by various UK newspapers. The band are currently based in London speaking to the UK press. Below are highlights from the various interviews to promote the new album 'Songs From The Sparkle Lounge' and the upcoming June/July UK tour.
Liverpool Echo: with Joe ElliotT of Def Leppard
Joe Elliott: "Of course I've got an iPod," grins Joe. "I've got an iPhone too. I'm a bit of a technophile when it comes to music. I listen to lots of different things. Eclectic, I suppose you'd have to call my tastes."
"Black Parade by My Chemical Romance is a great record," he chuckles. "I love the lyrics, the way they play with words. Muse always surprise me. I don't know the names of any of the songs, but I'm always amazed that just the three of them can make all that noise, all those different sounds."
"Phil's guitar tech gave me a great CD by this new band called Fuzz Bubble. I don't know where they're from, but they sound good. I've got that on my iPod and it's something I keep listening to. You know Orphans by Tom Waits, the album that came out last year? Well, that's taken over from Lou Reid's Berlin as my favourite record to listen to in the bath. I can't listen to it anywhere else. But Lou Reid in the bath? That was just getting too much. I found myself searching for the razor blades, so I knew I'd had enough of Lou."
Manchester Evening News: Def Leppard set to sparkle
Rick 'Sav' Savage, stoically battling a kidney infection when we caught up with him, is primed for when the tour wagons finally roll into Sheffield and Manchester.
Rick Savage: "Sheffield's my home town, so that's always going to be a big one for me," says the 47-year-old, "but I'm also looking forward to the Manchester show. The M.E.N. Arena is such a huge space, the biggest in Europe I think, so that will be special."
"lived in Dublin for 17 years, mainly as a bachelor, but when I met my wife and had kids I knew it was time to move back to where I grew up and give my kids the same upbringing I had - it was a bit of a culture shock for my wife though who was born in London and brought up in Dublin, as although Sheffield's a pretty big city, in many ways she thought she stepped onto the set of Emmerdale Farm!"
"It was a originally two little bedrooms that he demolished a wall between and as technology has evolved the equipment's got smaller and more hi-tech - so it's all Pro Tools and things like that. Joe feels comfortable there and when you want to go to the depths we do it takes time and you don't want to feel like the meter's on.
"It relieved the pressure off Joe and the rest of us, it works great - the band come over and everybody lives in the house so it's a little bit like boy's club."
Phil Collen: "I came up with the idea of it and I gave it to a designer and said Live At Drury Lane, Led Zeppelin II, Sgt Pepper's - something like that with the curtains and stuff, but with the band looking outwards. We had a few little hiccups though as two days before the deadline they said 'you can't use Marilyn Monroe and you can't use Elvis' and all this sort of stuff, so we told them to fill it up with members of our road crew and it made it more personal."
"...14,000 tickets already for their June 20 date here..."
Glasgow Daily Record: Throwing a Def ear to nostalgia
Phil Collen: "My auntie Molly lives in Glasgow. She came to a show for the first time at 82. She put ear plugs in and had a ball. We also got kilts and I wore one a few times in Scotland. They always want me to flash to show I'm not wearing anything underneath, which of course I'm not. You can do that in Scotland but if you did it in America you would get arrested."
Joe Elliott: "I remember we played Ayr Pavilion with the sloping stage and the first gig we did in Scotland was at Aberdeen University. It was freezing and there were six of us in a van. But we are a great live band, that's what we've concentrated on our entire career."
"I want to get in with The Rolling Stones and The Beatles not standing on the heads of Nazareth or Echo & the Bunnymen, because we don't need to. I remember I saw David Bowie do Starman On Top Of The Pops and a musical aneurysm went off."
UK Interview 1 - Liverpool Echo (Joe)
UK Interview 2 - Manchester Evening News (Phil/Sav)
UK Interview 3 - Glasgow Daily Record (Joe/Phil)
Def Leppard - Songs From The Sparkle Lounge
Buy Def Leppard 'Songs From The Sparkle Lounge' - Here
