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Def Leppard Tour History Fan Archive.
Joe Elliott/Rick Savage GTFM 107.9 Interview Transcript

Monday, 16th September 2013





Joe Elliott Sheffield 2008. Rick Savage Sheffield 2008.
Pics By DefDazz/Darren

Def Leppard members Joe Elliott/Rick Savage appeared on The Film Show on GTFM 107.9 yesterday and a full transcript is available.

Joe and Sav talked in detail about the VIVA! Hysteria film, playing in Las Vegas, re-learning the Hysteria album, their success and favourite Lep songs. Read the full transcript below.

The 13 minute interview will be replayed during The Rock Show from 9pm on Thursday 19th.

GTMFM 107.9 - Joe Elliott/Rick Savage Interview Transcript By DefDazz

What does it feel like being on the eve of Def Leppard being on the big screen in cinemas right across the world?

Joe - "Very exciting because we've never been in this situation before and we've been in the band for 25 years. We've done a lot of things mostly what you might call the standard route which is you know starting off in clubs. Building your way up to getting a record contract, making records, having hits, doing big tours. But we've never actually been in a you know in a cinema situation before so it's a whole unqie experience."

Sav - "It's almost like being a movie star for a day. You know it's a different career move."

"Is this film aimed at proper true Def Leppard fans or I guess you can argue it opens up a new generation of people you know to you."

Joe - "Well that depends on the people doesn't it. Obviously I don't think you're gonna get you know The Cure fan club turning up to come and see us. What hopefully you're gonna get is you're gonna get long term Def Leppard fans that want to see us performing hopefully one of their favourite albums in its entirety live on a stage in front of an audience in Las Vegas. Which in itself is a great event and if they bring their kids or their cousins or their neighbours along that are like so-so fans. They're not convinced when they walk in but they're convinced when they walk out then great you know. You know truth is its pretty much aimed at our audience because you know what you're gonna get so people that don't like us aren't gonna go unless they get dragged by their ear by their parents or something."

"And tell me how different was the Las Vegas show then compared to your sort of normal gigs or normal shows cause I guess playing an album in it its entirety, that's slightly different to the norm."

Joe - "Totally different."

Sav - "I mean it's different in the sense that it was the music that was different and the running order. We weren't tied down to doing a Greatest Hits order you know where we're wondering what to put first, what to put seventh, what should we encore with and all that it was all done for us. I mean in true Def Leppard style the production was of a big scale. A big nature which is what we've always gone for you know for as long as I remember. So from that point of view it was a different look but it still had the same vibe. But the biggest difference was the fact that you know we opened the Hysteria part of the evening with Women and we ended it with Love And Affection. Which is something we would never have done had we just been playing a greatest hits set."

"And opening the show - opening the set then you played some sort of unusual songs or different songs just sort of explain that then."

Joe - "Well we knew that doing 11 nights playing Hysteria start to finish in sequence would probably drive us round the bend. So we kind of made a conscious effort to open the show with a different set every - we didn't play the same set twice actually on the 11 nights that we did. And things like Let's Get Rocked got a run out maybe once or twice max you know. We wanted to go a little deeper for the hardcore fans that were gonna be there that weren't expecting it. We gave them stuff like On Through The Night off the High 'n' Dry album. Rock Brigade, Wasted off On Through The Night and even Good Morning Freedom which opened the first night of the run. The first song we played you know when we were there is a B-Side, a 33 year old B-Side which we haven't played live in 33 years."

"So that was fun because I made a conscious effort of going on YouTube about 2am after the gig to see if it was up there and it was and the guy didn't know what it was called. So it was posted as Rainbow's End or something and I thought we've got 'em cause there's a lot of people out there that they always moan and groan that we always play the same songs but when you're touring it's kind of like a no brainer that you're gonna play a collection of your entire career which turns into a Greatest Hits set if you've got 17 songs that went in the Top 20 which we do you know. You can't play 'em all but you - it is always gonna be based around that setlist as McCartney's is, based around his version of that. But to come out there almost as an alias band Ded Flatbird as we called ourselves. And we gave ourselves different names, we actually took on different characters. I said things between songs that I would never have said on a regular Def Leppard tour. So it gave it an air of excitement and humour. Which took the edge off and I think by the time we'd done 45 minutes on front of an audience, went off and got ready for Hysteria all the nerves that you might've had about how can we pull this record off had all gone because you've already loosened up."

"Now revisiting Hysteria have you sort of come to realise now how big a deal it is in terms of you know the fans appreciation. How big it is, the popularity of it. Have your sort of thoughts changed. Have you realised anything sort of different?"

Sav - "I think the main thing that we did when we were rehearsing for this particular show was that it was concentrated on three or four songs because those were the songs that we hadn't played that often throughout the years. And I think when you listen to those songs. For me personally it really hit home again how really well crafted and clever. And the way that the production worked was again - it never failed to amaze me. It's like very often it's to get bored with anything and then just kind of take it for granted but it was just one of those things where you listen to it, cause you know we - once we make a record you don't sit a listen to it for pleasure you know because you've been through all that. You kind of release it into the world and move on. And it's only when you have to revisit for a specific reason and that's what we did with these songs and it just made you realise Jesus there was so much work and so much good work. You know real positive great sounding songs off that particular album."

"Did you have any sort of involvement, any creative input in the film?"

Joe - "Well it's not - the word film or movie for something like this it still kind of makes me a little uncomfortable you know because it's not a movie, there's no script, there's no acting. You know all you're really doing in capturing what we do live. So it's more like a nature film. It's a bit more like Gorillas In The Mist than Apocalypse Now to be quite honest you know. We go up there we do what we do and it's their job to capture it as excitingly as they can. It was shot over two nights. There was 28 cameras. They got a multitude of different angles. So you know they've got to have got it well. They were pretty smart though in fairness. The director came up to us after the Friday show and he said 'Brilliant boys we've got it' you know. 'I'm gonna use tomorrow night just for some cut aways'. And that made us all think OK cause you know there's always a little bit of red light fever when you know you're being filmed."

"And then so we went on stage on the Saturday night knowing full well that the film's in the bag. Of course what did we end up doing?. We ended up playing way better cause we're not thinking about it. He comes back after the Saturday night and goes 'I've changed my mind. Tonight's gonna be the basis of the film and I'm gonna use last night for cut aways. You were way better tonight'. So I believe most of the sound if not all of the sound is from the Saturday night. Some of the cut aways may have been from the Friday night. But it's essentially mostly the Saturday night show. But the director - we went in the truck or I went in the truck on the Saturday afternoon to look at what they'd done on the Friday night and he says this is kinda how it's gonna end up looking. It's like off you go you know. We just let them do it. Of course when it comes to doing the final cut they did send us little 10 minute snippets at a time so we could go 'Take that shot out it's a bit chinny' or take that shot out here my eyes are half closed' you know but other than that they kinda - it took care of itself."

"If you don't mind me saying so you are a British institution in you're own right, Def Leppard. If you could bottle whatever makes you successful or whatever have made Def Leppard successful. What would be inside that bottle?."

Joe - "Jesus..."

Sav - "You know what they very reason why that's a difficult question to answer is because it is special. And it's something - if you could put your finger on it, it wouldn't be special. It's an ever changing thing as well as years go by. The bottom line is you know having respect and love for each other as people and as musicians. Then if you've got that and keeping egos in check then you know you're nine tenths there. I mean that's when you try and analyse it and it sounds a little cold when you do try and explain it but at the end of the day it's, it's just having fun. You know and it's never gonna fun 100 percent of the time. Nothing ever is but it is, it's just having respect and doing what you do."

"A final impossible question then. A favourite Def Leppard track and why?."

Joe - "Well it's an impossible question because as I always say when people ask me this question that's like choosing your favourite child if you've got multiple children. In front of an audience on a regular basis more often than not Sugar. Just because of the reaction that it gets. It's to me. Doing Pour Some Sugar On Me in front of a rabid crowd. I get the same feeling that I think Mick Jagger gets when Keith starts the riff to Satisfaction. It's that kind of thing for me. On record probably completely obscure and weird. Paper Sun or something like that which I just heard by accident the other day and I thought wow that's a really good song. You know it's really hard because we don't really make. I don't think we make bad records you know. Arguably we do, somebody will say we do but I don't think we've ever made a BAD record and consequently we have a good quality control within the band and most of the songs that we do end up sounding pretty good to me. I've gotta be honest."

Sav - "We might have written some bad songs but we certainly never released any."






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