Article -- Hit Parader Mar 1991

Steve Clark Remembered: We Take A Fond Look Back At A Great Guitarist

Tuesday, January 8th, 1991, was indeed a sad day. Def Leppard's guitar ace, "Steamin'" Steve Clark, died in his London home. His death, like so many others in rock and roll, was due to alcohol excess. Toxicology reports said that he absorbed a bottle of liquor into his system the day before he died.

A black pall filled the air. Hearts were heavy. While fans were broken up, Def Leppard members Joe Elliott, Rick Savage, Phil Collen and Rick Allen struggled with a roster of mixed emotions.

"When you've been in a band together for thirteen years and lived in each other's pockets for that long, your bandmates become more than just the guy who plays the guitar," offered Def Leppard frontman, Joe Elliott. "Steve was my friend, my brother, part of the family. I'll miss him like a brother."

While the Leps' sentiments are sincere, truth of the matter has it that his drinking problem was getting in the way of Def Leppard's musical process. "Getting into the studio and working as a five piece was getting increasingly difficult," noted Joe. "Steve was getting more and more difficult, it was getting hard to pin him down and keep his attention on making a record. As a human being, he was struggling with life. We had to nursemaid Steve through a very traumatized time that he was having."

Steve took his own life, in a manner of speaking while bandmates Joe and Phil stopped their alcohol binges for good during the Hysteria tour, Steve kept right on drinking.

Joe expressed that, "I have just as good a time without drinking all the time," but Steve didn't buy sober reality.

"Steve was in rehab five or six times between the end of the tour and when he died," stated Joe. "In America, in England, in Ireland. The time he was at rehab in Ireland, I played family member for him because he begged me not to tell his parents the condition he was in," Joe recalled. "Now I regret not having told them, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. My loyalties, I thought - as wrong as they may appear now - were to Steve."

Joe notes that it was his responsibility to show up at rehab meetings. "Steve sat there on one side of a room with addicts - whether it be gambling, or alcohol, or drugs - and the family members are on the other side. You have to say all the things they did that were destroying themselves. I found that very difficult, but it had to be done. Steve didn't seem to have any interest in it, he'd just sit there picking his nails, not really taking any notice."

The phenomenal success of selling more than 30 million albums worldwide was more than Steve had ever, in his wildest dreams, imagined, and Def Leppard's incredible success left him somewhat overwhelmed.

"We were all rather shocked that everything exploded with the Pyromania album," Steve stated in a 1988 interview. "It was really unexpected so it blew everybody away."

Steve Clark was a quiet bloke, he never expected the exalted international success that Def Leppard experienced. The attention, the adulation, and all the money he could ever imagine was more than he could handle. Sometimes he found it hard to cope. He just wanted to be a musician, not a lathe operator in a Sheffield factory.

"The ultimate thing is to be in a live rock band," Steve said. "We're just happy to carry on playing. It won't bother me if I don't see another studio for a couple of years."

But fame changed the band. Def Leppard evolved from playing for small club advances into a group capable of filling 20,000-seat arenas, something much more than Steve, an introverted cigarettes-and-guitar fetishist, had ever anticipated. He was fine while Def Leppard was on a touring regime, "he'd just lose it on a day off once a month," recalled Joe. "But when you're just recording an album, you're recording at your own pace, and unfortunately, the band pace was doing him in. I don't know why, it never did before, but the older you get, the worse bad habits get."

Steve learned about drinking in Sheffield. Everybody drank. The first night Steve met Joe and ex-Leppard guitarist Pete Willis at a Judas Priest concert, they sat in the bar lifting pints and talking music. Alcohol was a pleasant release from the dingy grey chill of Northern England.

So was music. Steve learned about music from his family. He was born in Hillsborough, in the north of Sheffield on April 23rd, 1960, and ever since he could remember, music had been a part of the Clark household. Steve's parents had a collection of early rock and roll records that included historic sides by the Shadows and guitarist Duane Eddy, as well as an array of classics from Vivaldi to Bach.

Steve witnessed his first concert at the tender age of six. "My mum took me to the Sheffield City Hall to see Cliff Richard and the Shadows, because she liked them. I thought it was great, it took my breath away," Steve recalled. "It was about a 3,000-seater, and I didn't exactly understand what was happening. But I was quite blown away."

Thanks to the wonders of Christmas giving, in his eleventh year, Steve was given the top thing on his 'want list', an acoustic guitar - and lessons! Steve was mesmerized by this extraordinary toy; he spent his days practicing classical fingering techniques.

One day, in his fourteenth year, while listening to the radio, he heard the most incredible sound. "I used to listen to the radio, watch TV and hear groups all the time, and I knew that I wanted to make music, but I wasn't sure exactly what kind of music, until I heard Jimmy Page," remembered Steve. "I heard the first Led Zeppelin album at a friend's house - and that was it. I had to have an electric. That was what I wanted to do. It all just dawned on me straight away."

Steve's classical training helped him pick up songs by ear. Once he heard the Led Zeppelin album his playing took a turn towards the Zeppelinesque. Steve would play their songs until he had them down note for note. After months of practicing 'Communication Breakdown' in his room, Steve formed the band Electric Chicken and played for the public.

After finishing his O Level school exams, Steve went to work in a factory as a lathe operator. He spent his nights with his guitar. It was his best friend.
"I had this old guitar that my dad gave me, that was my favorite thing," remembered Steve.

Fate brought fame when Steve approached Def Leppard guitarist Pete Willis at the Stannington College library. Pete was reading a guitar effects manual when Steve wandered over and asked, "Do you play?" They talked awhile about style and technique and Pete invited Steve to a rehearsal. Steve didn't follow up on the invitation.

Shortly thereafter, Steve ran into Pete and Joe at that Judas Priest concert, and Steve promised to show up at a future rehearsal. This time he kept his word. On January 29th, 1978, Steve shoved his face into the "real grotty place" that was Def Leppards rehearsal studio. They jammed on 'Freebird', the signature tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sav suggested that he, Pete, Joe and Rick play Steve two of the songs they had written. The fact that Def Leppard wrote their own songs really blew Steve away, as he had only been in a cover band. He immediately joined the group and started composing. When he had an idea, Steve was known to walk into the rehearsal studio and immediately play the new tunes before bothering to talk to anyone.

'Wasted' from the On Through The Night album was Steve's first contribution to Def Leppard. He shared dozens of ideas after that.

Just as Rick Allen's 1984 car accident changed Def Leppard's sound, giving the Leps a more basic and graphic bottom to build upon, the untimely loss of Steve Clark has created a void that cannot be easily filled.
Jodi Summers © 1991 - Submitted by Shaz.