This section looks at the 'Adrenalize' album entering the USA charts at Number One. The fifth studio album released by the band and second to hit the Top Spot in the USA after 'Hysteria in July 1988.
"It went straight in at Number One on both sides of the Atlantic."
Def Leppard's fifth studio album Adrenalize entered the US album chart at Number One on this day in 1992.
The album was the first to be released after the death of guitarist Steve Clark and was dedicated to him. It was finished off in 1991 as a four piece with Phil Collen playing all of the guitar parts.
This was the band's second Number One album in the USA after 'Hysteria' reached the top in July 1988.
'Adrenalize' entered at the top spot on 18th April 1992 after its North American release on 31st March and would spend the first five weeks at Number One.
It sold 380,000 copies in its first week and almost 100,000 copies a week for the next four weeks alone.
By the end of May the album received simultaneous Gold, Platinum and 3 x Multiplatinum certification. Selling over 3 million copies over two months before the band played its first US shows to support the album in August 1992.
It would go on to spend 65 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart between April 1992 and 10th July 1993.
The run at the top lasted until 16th May and it would spend the first 15 weeks inside the Top 10 (compared to Hysteria's 77 weeks). They were knocked off the top by Kriss Kross with their album 'Totally Krossed out'.
Bruce Springsteen's two new albums had been released on the same day and entered at Number 2 (Human Touch) and Number 3 (Lucky Town). His sister Pamela had taken some of the photos of the band for the 'Adrenalize' album booklet and the promo photo used on the 'Let's Get Rocked' single inlay. 'Human Touch' would only spend two weeks at Number 2 behind 'Adrenalize'.
Other notable albums in the Top 10 on this day were Nirvana at Number 7 with 'Nevermind' and Ugly Kid Joe at Number 8 with their 'As Ugly As They Wanna Be' EP. They would go on to support Def Leppard in Europe, UK and North America in 1993 towards the end of the Adrenalize world tour.
A future Lep friend (who attended a VIVA! Hysteria show and was pictured with the band) Wynonna Judd, was at Number 4 with her self titled 'Wynonna' album. The 'Wayne's World' movie soundtrack was at Number 5 having been at One the previous week.
USA Album Chart - 18th April 1992
- 01 - Def Leppard - Adrenalize - (Peak Position Week #1/Highest New Entry)
- 02 - Bruce Springsteen - Human Touch - (New Entry)
- 03 - Bruce Springsteen - Lucky Town - (New Entry)
- 04 - Wynonna - Wynonna - (New Entry)
- 05 - Soundrack - Wayne's World
Joe Elliott Los Angeles 1992
1996 Work It Out Album Postcards - Joe Elliott Quotes
"Mike Shipley was co-producing, we went to Wisseloord Studios in Hilversum, Holland to make this one. We lost a dear friend in that year. It was tough going, I think that we all felt the strain or recording under these circumstances. But we made a conscious effort to complete the record as a four piece."
"We finished it at my house in Dublin. It went straight in at Number One on both sides of the Atlantic keeping the likes of Bruce Springsteen out of the picture for five weeks (Sorry Boss)."
Adrenalize March 1992 - Joe Elliott Interview Quotes
"I am really, really excited about this album. I'm really looking forward to the future of the band. It's so open and so up in the air and so unpredictable. That you can't help but have that little adrenaline rush going through ya. Because you don't know what's gonna even happen tomorrow. And the slight unpredictability of that mixed in with the predictability of the album being released, the tour happening. All the press that you have to do. all the photo shoots, videos you have to make. It's like a treadmill that you're on."
"It's all part of the process. All we wanna do is get out there and play live. You know entertain people. Get back on the bus. Get on the plane or whatever. Travel to the next city/country and just do it again."
Adrenalize March 1992 - Rick Allen Interview Quote
"I'm really raring to go. To get out on this tour. And get over to fans either new or old. And I think the record speaks for itself. And I think the name Adrenalize really conjures up exactly what this record is about. And I think it's probably gonna be our biggest record to date."
Def Leppard 1992
January/February 1992 - Rehearsing New Guitarists
Vivian Campbell was chosen as the new guitar player after rehearsals with a few other candidates. He was not unveiled until mid-April, just ahead of his first shows in Dublin and at Wembley Stadium in London. The band flew to Los Angeles on 1st January to mix the album, do press and find a new guitarist.
Vivian Campbell April 1992 Quote - "I consider it a great privilege to be a part of this band which, as a fan, I have watched grow from being young hopefuls to a bona fide rock institution."
White Lightning
Originally started by Phil Collen on the Hysteria tour as a demo. Finished off after Steve's death with new lyrics added by Joe. One of four new songs written/completed in 1991 after Steve's death. The others being 'Personal Property', 'HYENSSB' and 'Let's Get Rocked'. Of these only LGR was entirely written from scratch. The others dated from when Steve was still alive.
Joe Elliott 1992 Quote - "'White Lightning' will affect other people who didn't even know Steve. 'White Lightning' wouldn't have got written if Steve hadn't died, but it's not necessarily 100 per cent about Steve, it's also about Hendrix, it's also about Janis Joplin, and it's also about C.C. DeVille, cos if he doesn't get his act together, he's gonna die too. But it's also about the kid on your block who's got a heroin addiction, or a gambling addiction. We didn't want it to come across as finger-wagging, preaching, cos as soon as somebody starts telling you to do something, you do the opposite. The whole intention of the lyric is to say, It's there on a plate, you either do it or you don't. And for once, we got it right, y'now?. I look at these lyrics now, and if I'm thinking about Steve I think 'You silly sod...'. We did say those things to him, but he just didn't hear them."
Phil Collen 1992 Quote - "I like White Lightning. I wrote that one a while ago, while we were on tour, just as a demo. It was one of Joe's favourites. He'd say, "What a f**king great thing, wish we could do some lyrics to it.' Me, Sav and Joe worked on it and Steve died around that time so the inspiration for writing the lyrics was about someone with the same problem as Steve. It's not preaching or anything, it's about someone's personal hell - they can't do anything about it even if they tried."
No Steve Clark On The Final Album
Joe Elliott 1992 Quote - (Steve's writing credits on six songs) "He didn't play on the album, though. There was nothing we could keep, which is a real shame. There's bits of Steve's stuff on tape that hopefully will see the light of day, stuff he demoed straight on to multitrack. There's one song I think we could tart up and I'd like to use it as a B-Side at some stage. We've proven ourselves with the four songs he wasn't involved in; they're of equal standard."
Album Artwork
The eyeball on the sleeve was a photograph of a real human eye and originally the one used on the 'Let's Get Rocked' cover. It was amended for the main album sleeve to look like an exploding or excited eye. The eye belonged to Miles Kendrick who worked for a retouching company called Alchemy and the photograph was taken at their studios on Clerkenwell Road, London, England.
Miles Kendrick April 2011 Quote - "Once the cameras and lights we set up it was a case of having a camera 3 inches from my face and pulling open my eye lids wide enough apart so that the whole iris was visible. This took around 2 hours to achieve the correct shot so as you can imagine this was very uncomfortable as not only are your eyes streaming due to being held apart but you have a very bright light directly shining into your eye."
Album Title
Phil came up with the album title after the band had joke titles written on a board for much of the recording. They were even going to settle for one of these as the final title - 'Dementia'. This prompted Phil to say during a band meeting - "Well, as far as I'm concerned, if you call it that, you might as well call the album Bob!.".
Joe Elliott 1989 Quotes - (album titles?) "Yeah 'Diptheria', 'Listeria', 'Posterior'...oh there's all sorts of things. I don't think any 'isteria' names will rear their heads. That was a total coincidence, I never even noticed that the last two album titles ended in the same two letters. I never even thought about it. As long as the songs are good, that's far more important than any titles can be."
Phil Collen 1992 Quotes - "Yeah. We had a list for two years and every time anyone put anything on it, it was a joke. We couldn't take anything seriously. Dyslexia, Dementia. We were going to settle for that, but then I mentioned Adrenalize."
Recording The Guitars Three Times
Phil recorded the album's guitar tracks three times. Once in Amsterdam and then twice more at Joe's Garage in Dublin using a Rockman.
Phil Collen 1992 Quotes - "The weird thing was I was kind of waiting for Steve to come back. When he was in clinics and stuff I'd leave his parts out when we demoed songs. I thought he was going to come back. When he died, I had to finish it all off. I ended up doing all the guitars at least three times - each time with different equipment. I did them once in Holland, and twice at Joe Elliott's home studio in Dublin."
Phil Collen 'Tom Scholz Rockman Guitar Ace' Ad Quote - "We cut almost all the guitar tracks for the new album with the Ace. We couldn't believe this little box could do so much, but it does!."
"I've done the guitars three times because they sounded dated and we wanted them to sound modern. I got all this Rockman stuff and we used that with a lot of EQ and Randall stuff. I used the same guitars I used on Hysteria."
Album Finished/Album Sound
Phil Collen 1992 Quotes - (Adrenalize Sound?) - "I think it's a different kind of step. We learned from writing the one before, learned from a few little mistakes. Most of the songs were really long on Hysteria, so we made an obvious effort to cut them down a little bit, and it sounds more exciting. With Hysteria, you had to hear it a few times before you got into it."
(Can you put the follow-up pressure aside?) - "Yeah, you can. We never try to fool anyone, put any filler tracks on the album. We always do our best. At this point I honestly wouldn't care if it sold one copy. I know I've done the best I could."
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