Def Leppard News - Joe Elliott Recalls The Making Of The New Def Leppard Album

Joe Elliott Recalls The Making Of The New Def Leppard Album

Wednesday, 24th February 2016

Joe Elliott 2014.
Screenshot by dltourhistory

Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott was interviewed by 100 Percent Rock in May 2015 and mentioned the new album.

In a lengthy interview Joe talked about playing in Perth on the Adrenalize tour, their first visit in 1984, Hysteria, support bands, cover songs/YEAH! album, the Heavy Metal tag, the new studio album and Vivian's health at the time (May 2015).

The interview was conducted by phone from Prague on 23rd May when the band were on their European tour.

Vivian had to announce he was sitting out the first few US shows a few weeks after this interview was done.

Visit the Album News section. For more news on new music (based on band member quotes) dating back to January 2011.

100 Percent Rock - Joe Elliott Interview Quotes

Making The New Def Leppard Studio Album

"We hadn't written any songs together for Leppard since about 2007, when we were prepping for the Sparkle Lounge album that came out a year later. Consequently, when you haven't written an album for seven years, everybody's backed up and stuff, they're just teeming with ideas. We all played each other what we've got, and the three songs that we were going to do turned into 12!"

"We're looking at each other, and we were really happy with what we had. We had 12 songs and one of them got abandoned, so we were down to 11. That was like February of last year. The four of us got back together in May. Vivian was at home having treatment for his cancer, so the [other] four of us got back together just to work on what we could.

"We wrote two more, so then there [were] 14 songs, and then we went away on tour for four, five months, whatever. Then I'd nibble away at it doing lead vocals while a bunch of the guys were at home. I went away in December on a Down N' Outz tour of the UK, and then we got back together and did a bit more work in February/March again this year, and we finished it off. We were just nibbling at it [here and there].

Album Style

"We ended up with a fantastic record, 14 songs that represent us collectively and individually, because everybody brought finished stuff in and we also wrote things together. The variation within the songwriting is immense, but it still comes under the umbrella of Def Leppard, which is always going to be energetic, hard-pumping melodic rock with big vocals and large guitars and drums, and a few other things thrown in for good measure."