Def Leppard News - 8 Years Ago Def Leppard/Tim McGraw Release Nine Lives Collaboration

8 Years Ago Def Leppard/Tim McGraw Release Nine Lives Collaboration

Sunday, 24th April 2016

Def Leppard released their Nine Lives single 8 years ago on this day in 2008 featuring country singer Tim McGraw.

The first single to be released from the 'Songs From The Sparkle Lounge' album.

It was also the first ever duet for the band featuring co-lead vocals by country singer Tim mcGraw.

Tim's tour manager at the time was Rick Allen's older brother Robert (who is now Taylor Swift's main manager). He had attended a show in Nashville where he first suggested the collaboration to Phil.

Tim also appeared in the promo video which featured the band performing the song with him in his trademark cowboy hat.

Tim performed PSSOM with the band on 13th October 2006 at the Hollywood Bowl which then led to him co-writing 'Nine Lives' with Joe and Phil.

In a first for the band the single was debuted on the XBOX 360/Guitar Hero III video game.

Perhaps due to its unique release format the single failed to reach the main singles charts in the UK or the USA.

Tim included the song on his 'Greatest Hits 3' album which was released in October 2008.

USA Today - 2008 News Quotes

Tim McGraw joins Def Leppard on Nine Lives, the first single from the band's Songs From the Sparkle Lounge album. Nine Lives came about after the country singer sang Pour Some Sugar on Me with the band at a 2006 Hollywood Bowl concert. They reconnected at a Nashville show. McGraw tour manager, Robert Allen, is Leppard drummer Rick Allen's brother.

Sparkle Lounge also breaks a 25-year pattern of using single-word album titles. The name refers to a backstage area on the 2006 tour for the members to write songs.

"The whole record's got a '70s feel," Leppard's Joe Elliott says. "By our standards, it's a very adventurous album. It's not OK Computer, but it's got moments that some of our fans are going to think have gone slightly left field. "Sparkle Lounge is out March 18, nine days before the band starts its tour with Styx and REO Speedwagon.

Phil Collen - August 2012 Interview Quote

"But as far as our collaborations, they happened very naturally. In the case of Tim McGraw, I played him something I had been working on, and within a minute and a half we had the nucleus of what became the song 'Nine Lives.' It was just a very natural and organic way of working."

Nine Lives 2008.
Promo Video 2008

Phil Collen - July 2008 Interview Quotes

"Tim said 'I'd love to work with you guys,' and I had that in the back of my head. I ran into him at one of our shows at the Hollywood Bowl and I sang him a bit of it. Before you knew it we had the basis of it, and then it was doing bits and pieces."

"It was a year before he'd done his vocal on it. It took a bit of time but it was pretty cool, it wasn't a hack song-writing thing, it was born out of fun and a bit of real inspiration really. It was the right reasons for doing it.".

Vivian Campbell - July 2008 Interview Quote

"Working with Tim was fantastic," says Campbell. "But I think he was more in our world than the other way around. Put it this way: nobody's ever going to mistake Def Leppard for a country band!".

Tim McGraw - May 2013 Interview Quotes

"Who doesn't love Def Leppard? I grew up listening to Def Leppard from Junior High, High School and PSSOM was always that party track for us in High School. I grew up in the country so I spent a lot of time in cotton fields late at night with tailgates down in our pick ups trucks with a bonfire. You know burning a big fire and having radios cranked up and I can't remember one single night when PSSOM wasn't turned up as loud as it could possibly go where the speakers were crackling."

"And to sort of bring it around full circle my tour manager for a lot of years who's a great friend of mine who now is one of Taylor Swift's managers. Robert Allen who's from Sheffield and his brother's Rick, the drummer in Def Leppard so I have a sort of relationship with those guys and then later on I got to write a song with those guys and perform a song with them on their album, called Nine Lives which was a big thrill for me."