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Interview Highlights Transcript - Phil Collen

MANRAZE - Touring?

Phil Collen - Well, we just done a gig last year we done our first American date. We played The Roxy in LA. I think we're gonna be doing some stuff this summer. Def Leppard's going out again on tour and I think between all the days off and stuff we're actually gonna be hitting some clubs. I haven't got any details on that yet so we're gonna fill them in as we go.

MANRAZE - Touring/New Single/Phil Solo Shows-Appearances

Phil Collen - We wanna tour - we're so desperate to tour the US so it'll be a club tour and we're just waiting for the right time and the right people to get it together, like promotion wise and everything. But we have a new single coming out next month. They've just re-released the album 'punkfunkrootsrock' cause it came out, it kind of just eased itself out. We're doing promo and everything right now we got the single out and 'Fire' is hitting it as well. So we're doing a bit of promo and I'm gonna be playing some live stuff just on my own as well, with some of the songs, coming up. So its all good actually, we're pretty busy. You know and I'm really looking forward to it.

Phil Collen - We just finished mixing and mastering a new MANRAZE song called 'Take On The World' which is gonna be out in February.

MANRAZE - Opening act for Def Leppard?

Phil Collen - Yeah, we actually nearly did that. We booked a leg of a tour, it was Def Leppard, Cheap Trick and MANRAZE was gonna be the opening act but we cancelled that leg of the tour cause we had some time off so that never happened.

Def Leppard - Touring Schedule

Phil Collen - We toured every year for five years straight. We took 2010 off, I got married, we just took time from it all and then we was back again in 2011. We're going back out again this year and I think. Again with the industry changing like it has, like I said, there's very few bands out there that are real and have their original integrity and we're pretty much the original band per se. Obviously Steve passed away and I came in on 'Pyromania' but you know it was from there ir kind of exploded so I think we've remained and retained our integrity.

Phil Collen - So it's very important for us to get out there and do that. I also think it's good to get new songs out there, not necessarily an album but I think it's good to get you know a song every time you go out on tour like a single or an EP or something like that. So we try and do that if we can but like I said it's a very - it's a slower process with Def Leppard for recording which is just the way we've always done it. With MANRAZE it's part of the thing where we actually just record a lot faster because it's a different style of music.

MANRAZE/Def Leppard - Play a Vegas Residency like Motley Crue?

Phil Collen - You know what we've been talking about doing that for years, me and Joe Elliott. Cheap Trick used to do this thing where they would do a whole album. They'd play in a theatre and one night they'd do one album and another night they'd do another album. So, we would love to do something like that it's just getting the time to do it.

Def Leppard - Rock Of Ages Movie Songs/2012 US Tour

Phil Collen - We're gonna be going out, Def Leppard, this year and the 'Rock Of Ages' movie is coming out so we're actually gonna be going out on tour because obviously 'Rock Of Ages' is one of our songs. We got three songs in the movie. It's pretty cool Tom Cruise is in the movie and he's gonna be singing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' so it's really cool and we're gonna be out doing that.

Rock Of Ages - Tom Cruise Performance/Set Visit

Phil Collen - Well I was really impressed I gotta say because he does all the vocals. He actually, he sings the lead, he does all the backing vocals and what got me he's never actually sung before. He'd been practising it. He really gets into the whole character and the method acting so he takes it a whole stage further, he's so driven and ambitious, it's pretty inspiring actually. What got me, we got to meet him, and he said he'd been doing the lessons and practising and doing it over and over again and it's really cool cause I know a lot of musicians and singers who don't do that and for someone not to come from that background and be able to pull it off is actually really impressive.

Def Leppard - Moments that stand out/Amaze him

Phil Collen - Just recently we done this British tour and the shows were amazing. You know different audiences like Manchester was, you know off the hook and Wembley, you know I'm from London, so it was kind of cool that when we played Wembley it was a real killer show as well. So that always amazes me.

MANRAZE - Upcoming Single/Solo MANRAZE Shows-Appearances Mention

Phil Collen - I'm going to the Fitness Expo and I'm gonna be doing a couple of solo things just playing MANRAZE songs. Just me and a guitar - I think I'm gonna be doing it electric actually and may get some loops and drum things going but we'll see how that goes. I've got a few of those coming up . I haven't totally confirmed the dates but I'm looking forward to that and like I said we've got a single coming out February 6th and it's called 'Take On The World'. So yeah it's all happening we'll see everyone out there.