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Def Leppard Tour History Fan Archive.
Joe Elliott Talks About Rick Allen's Drumming Style

Thursday, 26th February 2015





Rick Allen.
Screenshot by dltourhistory

Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott was interviewed by VH1 Classic On Tap recently and he talked about Rick Allen's drumming.

Joe talked about them meeting at the Classic Rock Awards, Queen/Brian May, Down 'n' Outz, the heavy metal tag, the 2015 studio album, >Rick Allen's accident/his drumming, women at Lep shows, PSSOM, the US tour and 'Gunter Glieben Glouten Globen' intro.

In December 2014 it was the 30th anniversary of Rick's 1984 car accident that happened on the A57 road near Sheffield.

VH1 Classic On Tap - Joe Elliott Interview Quotes

Rick's Drumming

"He certainly became a better drummer after he lost his arm. I wouldn't wish it on anybody and I wish he had his arm back. But with the mentality that he has of the one armed drumming thing. But what he did he simplified his drumming by virtue of the fact that he had no choice. And what that did was because of the way our music was heading. It just happened to just totally slipstream into our way of thinking."

"So there's nothing worse than having a really good song where the drummer just keeps going diddly diddly diddly over all the vocals because he has to get his licks in you know. Rick started to learn to play to the song. Not to his abilities if you like because he was a phenomenal drummer. Still is! and you know everyone who hears him live will know what he's capable of. But the way that he had to learn to play to simplify stuff. Started to fit into the way our song writing was going. So I wouldn't necessarily say a blessing in disguise but it's certainly a fluke of good fortune that it made him more comfortable in his role as a drummer because it wasn't like well I can't keep up with the way they're going. We were going in that direction that suited his drumming. So it was a match made in heaven in that respect yeah."

"But I still wish he had both arms. Just for the fact that he could lift his kid up and you know just do everything else that we all do. We take it for granted lacing up our shoes. He can't wear lacey shoes. You know he has to wear zip stuff or pull ons. It's you know the adjustments that he had to make and he never whinged about it. It was pretty phenomenal stuff and that's another reason why we stood by him. You know it's like you don't kick your brother out of your family if he loses an arm so why - If he wasn't gonna be in this band. It was his decision to tell us not ours to tell him."






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