Def Leppard News - Def Leppard's Photograph Video (Filmed 34 Years Ago In London)

Def Leppard's Photograph Video (Filmed 34 Years Ago In London)

Friday, 2nd December 2016

Def Leppard 1982.
Screenshot by dltourhistory

Def Leppard filmed their classic Photograph promo video 34 years ago on this day in 1982 in London, England.

The video was filmed at the iconic Battersea Power Station building in central London.

The building had been decommissioned as a power station since the mid 70s. Earlier this year it was bought by Apple to be their new London headquarters.

The same building where the band filmed the 'Rock Of Ages' video in the same month.

Pink Floyd featured the building on their iconic 'Animals' album cover in 1977.

The shoot date on 2nd December 1982 was also Rick Savage's 22nd birthday and the first of two Lep videos to be shot on band members birthdays.

The video was a huge hit on US MTV in early 1983 and helped propel the success of the single and the 'Pyromania' album on the Billboard charts.

One of many videos to be filmed at the same location as other songs from the same album including Rocket in 1988, the three High 'n' Dry videos in Liverpool 1981, 'Armageddon It'/'PSSOM' in Denver 1988 and 'Slang'/'Work It Out' in the same Los Angeles studio in 1996.

The video saw the band performing on a sound stage with a dramatic backdrop. Female dancers performed either side of them in cages (an idea by director David Mallet that the band later said wasn't that cool). The censored UK version replaced the knife scenes with extra shots of the dancers performing (not featured on the version used on various VHS/DVD releases).

Acting sequences featured a Marilyn Monroe lookalike being stalked by a paparazzi photographer.

The model called Kay Kent was a professional Marilyn Monroe lookalike in real life and ended up committing suicide in similar tragic circumstances in June 1989 aged 25.

Her photo was included on the seven inch single cover artwork as shown in the photo below.

Follow the links to read a story about her death from 1989 as posted by People.

Def Leppard 1982.
Seven Inch Cover Art

Steve Clark - 1984 Interview Quotes

"We've always been a visually-oriented band. When your roots are in the clubs, where you often have to play with other bands every night, the ability to strike an image that the fans remember is a necessity. We were noticed not because we dressed and acted so strangely, but because we didn't. All the other bands at that time were concerned with dressing as outrageously as possible, and dying their hair ridiculous colors. We tended to look and act rather conservatively [compared to that]. People remember us, as well as our music."

"At first we were content with just filming ourselves playing a song live - that's basically what we did on our first video for Bringin' On the Heartbreak. By the time we got around to making clips for Pyromania we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do. We did Photograph and Rock of Ages all at one session that lasted three days. That way we could put all our energy into making the clips good, then turn our attention to going on tour."

Joe Elliott 9th September 1992 - MTV Interview Quotes

I didn't mean it that way. When you look back on videos like Photograph and Rock Of Ages. What do you think?.

"I crawl up into a corner and hide and deny that it's me."

What do you know now that you didn't know then?

"Putting women in cages is not really cool. But in 1982 when we shot the videos David Mallet the director was very keen on doing that and we were naive, young and it sorted of looked good just as a visual aspect you know. I think it's a bit tacky now. I think there was a lot of energy in those videos and they didn't open the doors for a lot of other people. Because when you look at Photograph, as old and as dated as it may be getting now, for its time it was a great video."