Wednesday, 27th April 2016
Screenshot by dltourhistory
Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen was interviewed yesterday by The Zone 96.3 radio and he paid tribute to Prince.
Phil talked about playing in Billings, touring with REO Speedwagon/Tesla, the Hysteria tour, KISS, Delta Deep, Motown, musical influences, his Adrenalized book, the new Def Leppard album, Let's Go, the 2016 tour. his favourite live song to play, Prince's death, acoustic shows and the appearance on the Pawn Stars TV show.
During the interview Phil was asked about Prince and he praised him as an amazing performer.
Prince passed away suddenly on 21st April at his Paisley Park home studio complex outside of Minneapolis aged 57. His exact cause of death has yet to be determined.
Both Phil and Steve Clark attended multiple Prince shows including two notable ones on his 'Parade' tour in Stockholm and Paris during August 1986. When Def Leppard were in the middle of their Monsters Of Rock shows. They attended two of his legendary after party shows and also got to meet him.
This was detailed in the 1987 'Animal Instinct' book and recalled by Phil last December in an online interview.
Phil has also stated in many interviews that Prince was the one artist he'd love to collaborate with and that he once attended 8 consecutive shows of his.
Vivian Campbell once performed 'Purple Rain' with opening act Evan Watson at the 10th September 2011 Def Leppard show in Irvine, CA during the Mirrorball tour.
Listen to the full 13 minute interview below.
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Willy Tyler/The Zone 96.3 - Phil Collen Interview Quotes
Prince's Death/You were a big Bowie fan?
"Yeah and I was a huge Prince fan as well. Since you know way back. I was getting into him when he released 1999 and was a huge Purple Rain fan. Then I got everything including you know bootlegs off the mixing desk and stuff. I've got some killer live stuff that would just float around. You know you when you're in Japan they used to have these bootleg stores and you'd get these albums. And they're immaculate. They sound like a regular album."
"And Prince was so amazing that you know even his worst night would sound like someone's produced album or something. So you know it was pretty cool. So yeah no it's been a real tragic year for that. And I think you know there's less and less new artists coming about that are that important. So it's really tragic when you lose someone that was so inspiring to ya."
December 2015 - Phil Collen Interview Quotes
Purple Rain Album
"Purple Rain has to be in this list; I just think it was just so against the grain. He didn't follow any rules on this one, and yet it was the most commercial album he had."
"I have a good Prince story - I actually met him once. I saw him in Paris at the Bercy and I knew his lighting guy, who said he was doing this club show after. So me and Steve Clark went down. But Prince wasn't playing guitar on the tour, so when I met him, I said, 'What's the deal with the guitar; are you not playing?"
"Then when he got on stage, he started doing Red House by Jimi Hendrix. And he played guitar for the rest of the night - we couldn't believe it."
For evidence of Prince's incredible Jimi Hendrix style guitar playing watch this video. His soloing starts at just after 3:25 mins in.
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