DEF LEPPARD's RICK ALLEN Talks New York Benefit (Podcast Transcript/Video)

Wednesday, 13th March 2024

Screenshot

Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen has been interviewed for the Darren Paltrowitz Podcast ahead of his benefit show with Lauren Monroe.

Rick and his wife Lauren Monroe will take part in a benefit show in New York.

Read more about the event at the Cutting Room venue in New York on 14th March.

They also have other live shows and events taking place tonight and in April/May.

New Podcast Interview

Rick was interviewed alongside his wife Lauren Monroe earlier this week for the Darren Paltrowitz "Paltrocast" Podcast.

Like their other interviews this week the interview concentrated on their benefit show in New York and work for th Raven Drum Foundation as well as Lauren's music and live shows.

The full transcript and video are available.

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

Rick Allen 2024.

Rick Allen/Lauren Monroe - 12th March 2024 Interview Quotes - (Transcribed by dltourhistory)

Introduction

Question - "So much to talk about when Rick and Lauren are on the line. Because not only are the great musical careers, not only is there that to talk about, but the wonderful charity work that you both do. And there's the show at the Cutting Room on Thursday, which has too many famous people on it. Way too many famous people on it. Who was the first person besides yourselves that came on board for the show on Thursday?."

Rick Allen

"Oh, Peter Criss. Peter Criss was the first person that came on board, which is a huge compliment."

Lauren Monroe

"And then Liberty DeVito. Native New Yorker."

Rick Allen

"And then I think Jim Keltner also agreed to fly in. And from what I've heard, Jim doesn't fly that much. He doesn't like to travel that much these days."

"So for Jim to come in and do this with myself and Lauren and Raven Drum, huge compliment. You know, really, really sweet guy. We have Liberty DeVito. We've got one of my favorite drummers, Simon Kirk Yeah. Who else we got?Yeah. You heard of Dwayne Trucks?."

Question - "Oh yeah. Yeah. It's what I'm saying here is there's too many famous people on board. And what I'm curious about is that a venue like the Cutting Room, do you have two drum kits on stage or does everyone drop the ego and share the same kit?."

Rick Allen

"I think we have two drum kits on stage."

Lauren Monroe

"And a couple of percussion setups too."

Rick Allen

"Yeah. So we're going to be rotating out. I think with a group of musicians like this, you know, everybody kind of leaves their ego at the door and just kind of gets on with it."

"And I think it's really about mutual respect. And I think that's what this whole event is about."

Lauren Monroe

"For the firefighters."

Rick Allen

"Yeah. And I think part of the reason for that is because it's for such a great cause. But we're partnering with Friends of Firefighters, which is an incredible organization in New York."

"So I think we're meeting them for the first time. We meet in the..."

Lauren Monroe

"We've had Zooms, but you know, we haven't met them face to face yet. And we're really, we feel really honored to be partnering with them on this for this benefit. They've served, just last year, they served over 4,500 firefighters with free counselling services."

"And both our organizations focus on complementary and alternative medicine, except we bring rhythm to that experience for people going through crisis. And so we're real excited about Thursday."

Rick Allen

"Yeah, we are. I've just got another note coming. You've heard of Mountain Corky Lang?."

Darren Paltrowitz

"Yes."

Rick Allen

"Have you heard of Matt Starr?. Matt Starr, he's somebody else."

Question - "Ace Frehley and...Or are you supposed to say Freeley? I say Freeley, but I think it's Frehley."

Rick Allen

"I don't know. But I get the idea. But Matt Starr has been2... I've heard it said in many, many different ways. And I'm sure... Yeah, and I'm sure it's been called worse than that. Yeah.

Question - "I'm with you right there. And he also plays with Mr. Big. Excellent credits as well. And Christine from the SNL band. And I don't know if we've talked about Will Lee, who was Paul Schaeffer's right-hand man bass player for decades."

Rick Allen

"Well, we've got Paul Schaeffer and Will Lee are going to be at the event as well, which we're very happy about. Bashiri Johnson, did I mention Bashiri?."

Question - "That one I did, and there's a couple of great singers as well with the last name Collins, right?."

Rick Allen

"Yes. So Christine Oldman is going to be there as well. Sean Pelton. Yeah. And that's all SNL band. So we're really excited to be working with them. And did I say it was for Friends of Firefighters?."

Question - "You sure did. And the Raven Drum Foundation. Now, Lauren, over to you here. You've had some great new music in the past few years. Are you going to be playing any of the originals as part of this event on Thursday?."

Lauren Monroe

"We'll be doing an opening set. It'll be all originals, including some songs that are coming up on my new album I haven't released quite yet. So we'll be debuting those songs in Boston on Wednesday and in New York on Thursday."

"So I'm really excited about that. And yeah, my whole band will be coming from California."

Question - "The ongoing City Winery Partnership, I would assume, for Boston?."

Lauren Monroe

"Yes. Yeah. You know, we'll be playing there. And we're going to be raising some funds. All the merchandise from that show will be going towards firefighters locally here in Boston."

Question - "Well, putting you on the spot here, Lauren, this isn't something that I could easily figure out here. You are from Queens originally, is that correct?."

Lauren Monroe

"I'm from Queens."

Darren Paltrowitz

"Where in Queens are you originally from? Because people outside of Queens might call Long Island Queens."

Lauren Monroe

"No. But where the bridges are, the Frogs Neck and the Whitestone Bridge, I'm from Whitestone, actually."

Darren Paltrowitz

"Oh, okay. Wow. The Bayside and all that."

Lauren Monroe

"Bayside, yep. Bayside, Whitestone, that area. And yeah, well, you know, you can take the girl out of Queens, but you can't kick Queens out of the girl."

The Cutting Room

Question - "Well, where I was going with that is I know Peter Chris has a longstanding relationship with The Cutting Room. I've seen him perform there. But what was your tie-in to doing this event at The Cutting Room, of all places?"

Lauren Monroe

"Billy Amendola. Yeah. He really is the drummer wrangler. He's the music director for this event."

"He brought so many of the drummers forward to us, and it wasn't for him. Basically, we were going to have a small event."

"We were going to play, and we were going to invite some of the 12 drummers drumming, Dwayne Truxtep-Boward and Jim Keltner, the epic Jim Keltner, Liberty DeVito. And then all of a sudden, Billy got the word out."

Rick Allen

"And everybody wanted to come."

Lauren Monroe

"We have so many people now a part of this event. It's mind-blowing. Billy is one of our board members."

"He's the artist relations for our foundation, and he's a mover and a shaker, and he really believes in the mission. So we're very blessed to have him."

Question - "How far ahead are you looking with the Raven Drum Foundation? Because I know there's also the Chateau Diana partnership that's ongoing. We just talked about city winery. Your solo material ties into the whole thing. So is this years ahead that you're looking for Raven Drum??."

Lauren Monroe

"We are looking ahead. And we're really building these collaborative partnerships because we want to build a family. We know a lot of other organizations believe the way we do. We're creating events to move forward."

"We're actually having an event in April with Chateau Diana in Northern California, which is going to be showcasing the wine that they created and with Rick's artwork on it."

"And then each bottle is a song of mine. And it's all really tied into creating exposure around the mission and having people contribute through buying products so we can continue making waves about helping our first responders and veterans."

Rick Allen

"Yeah, we were talking earlier about the Tubbs fire up there and there were people that lost everything. The whole town."

Rick Allen

"Yeah, I mean, just devastation. So this is our attempt to really alleviate any hardships or at least some."

Lauren Monroe

"And we'll be having a special drum circle up there for firefighters and victims of the fire."

Rick Allen

"So we'll have Todd Sucherman."

"Todd's from the 6th coming up there on April 27th, 28th. Wally Ingram, Wally plays with Dead in Company and Sheryl Crow, is best known from Sheryl Crow too. Alvin Taylor, who played with Elvis, Little Richard, Billy Preston."

"Oh, yeah. So Alvin is legendary just in his own right and he'll be there too.

Question - "Now you just mentioned that the Chateau Diana ties in with Rick's painting. First time I had the pleasure of interviewing Rick, it's because he had a Wentworth Gallery exhibition in Jersey, I think Short Hills, New Jersey.

Rick Allen

"Is that where we met for the first time?."

Darren Paltrowitz

"Hey, I don't know. It was hazy. It was before COVID. Who remembers before COVID? But what I'm doing here is you're still painting. You're still very active as a painter. And I say that because a lot of musicians, they do the one show, call themselves a painter, and that's it."

"But painting is still a major part of your life these five, six years later, right?."

Rick Allen

"Well, it's very healing for me to do it. And I think, you know, adding the art into what we do with Raven Drum, it opens many doors. And, you know, the fact that we can auction these things and make money to make life easier for, you know, people that have gone through these terrible, terrible events or helping the first responders."

"And you know, I've told a lot of people, you know, if it wasn't for first responders, I might not be here, you know."

"So it's really the least we can do is to help them because they, you know, they're constantly putting themselves in danger. And we're just concerned that, you know, what do you call that? Compounded?."

Lauren Monroe

"It's complex trauma. There's, you know, once you have a trauma and then you have to keep revisiting and get re-traumatized, it doesn't go away, it just gets compounded."

"And we want to, you know, we bring tools and education around how to heal outside the normal pharmaceutical talk therapy, which works for some people, but not everyone, you know."

"One of the things Rick's doing with his art is during these, all of these events, we're auctioning pieces, especially St. Charlie, which is his Charlie Watts painting that's online. So if you can't come to New York or you can't come to Boston or Northern California and you want to contribute, you just go to ravendrum.org or go to Givesmart at, no, where, no, I'm being guided now, rocksteady.givesmart.com, rocksteady.givesmart.com or ravendrum.com."

Question - "I have two stupid questions and then I let you go. The first question is a music history question guided at Rick. And that's your part of England gave the world the best hard rock ever, in my humble opinion, but it also gave the world some of the best dance music ever."

"Was there ever any overlap in the early days of your band around New Order and the Hacienda and all that kind of stuff from the Peter Hook universe?."

Rick Allen

"Well, we rehearsed, I believe there were quite a few bands. We were around the same circles as the Human League, believe it or not. And I remember, I remember me and Steve Singleton, is it Steve Singleton with Spandau Ballet?."

Darren Paltrowitz

"I think so. Yes."

Rick Allen

"So, so yes, there was, there was, and I think there was a little bit of rivalry because, you know, we were like, you know, playing rock music."

Lauren Monroe

"And he's a great dancer, though."

Rick Allen

"Yeah, well, there was that, you know, yeah, so. I believe it."

Question - "Drummers, drummers have rhythm, therefore they could dance. You're not speaking out of turn there, Lauren.

Lauren Monroe

"That's right. He's a dancer. You got to see him on the dance floor. Rips it up!."

Rick Allen

"Yeah, naked tap dancing is my, is my forte. So apparently I've been given a note by a grown-up and it says there is also a meet and greet with myself and, oh, and pit tickets. There's a chance to get pit tickets for a Def Leppard show, which is fantastic. And that's at Charity Buzz again. So, so go check that out."

Question - "There you go. And last question at Lauren right here. I only know you as a peaceful singer-songwriter, but did you ever have a punk or a metal phase as a musician?."

Lauren Monroe

"No, I mean, I think the hardest rock I really got into was AC/DC and, you know, just the classic rock."

"Oh, well, when I met Rick, I became a Def Leppard fan."

Question - "Well, the band that you mentioned was also a Mutt Lange produced band. So you did that on purpose."

Lauren Monroe

"I guess. I mean, I was just really drawn to ACDC, you know, and Donna Summer.So, you know, both, both elements, both elements."

Rick Allen

"Full of power chords!."

Question - "You know, it's the Queens in you. Well, either way, thank you both for your time. Thank you for the wonderful work that you put out into the world and looking forward to what's to come from Thursday, The City Winery, The Chateau Diana, your next album, et cetera. Keep it up."

Rick Allen

"Thank you very much."

Lauren Monroe

"Thank you so much. Thank you."