Saturday, 4th January 2014
Def Leppard released their classic single Action 20 years ago on this day in 1994.
The song was the first cover version to be released as a single by the band.
It was first released as the B-Side to 'Make Love Like A Man' in June 1992 with a more electronic sounding snare drum. When putting together the 1993 'Retro-Active' collection of B-Sides and unreleased songs/versions the band decided to revamp it with a new snare drum sound. Vivian Campbell (along with friend P.J. Smith) sang backing vocals in one of his first contributions to the band.
The song was included on the 'Retro-Active' compilation album and it reached Number 14 on the UK Top 40 single chart in January 1994.
Joe Elliott - Vault Inner Sleeve Quote
"If you're going to cover a song there's two choices: either copy it exactly or do it completely different. We opted for the former and got Andy Scott's enthusiastic approval."
Def Leppard - Retro-Active Inner Sleeve Quote
"We wanted to do a couple of cover tunes for the 'Adrenalize' album B-Sides. We did this tune because we were all Big Sweet fans. Nuff said."
- Def Leppard - Action Single Section
- Def Leppard - Retro-Active Album Section
- Previous News - 25th November 2013