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Def Leppard Tour History Fan Archive.
Phil Collen On Hysteria Cruise Disasters/Meeting Prince In 1986

Saturday, 7th May 2016





Phil Collen 2014.
Phil Collen Auburn 2014

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen was recently interviewed by Boise radio and mentioned the Hysteria Cruise.

Phil talked about the Hysteria Cruise, Jimmy Bain's death, Lemmy, David Bowie and meeting Prince.

It sounds likely that this interview dates from the April 1st interviews or the ones done just before Phil left for the Florida tour rehearsals.

The interview was done to promote the show in Boise, ID on 28th September.

The audio for this was recorded live last night.

Full transcript below of the short 3 minute segment below. PSSOM and Love Bites were also played.

Updated - Listen to the full 4 minute interview below.

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

Forrest/96.9 The Eagle/KKGL - Phil Collen Interview Quotes

Are you wearing a shirt today?

"Like I said. Shirt but no pants."

No pants today?

"I am in a car though. But I'm fully dressed."

Hysteria On The High Seas Cruise/How did that go?

"We had an awful time. Everything went wrong. Someone died. Jimmy Bain, a friend of ours, the bass played who used to play with Vivian in DIO. He passed away on the boat."

On the cruise itself?

"On the cruise yeah. We couldn't dock because the weather was so bad. So you know poor Jimmy's stuck on this boat till we landed back in Florida. And then we went to perform and then Joe's voice went out."

"So it was a bunch of disasters. Like non stop. So I don't know whether we'd do that again."

So then you know you're on a boat with your friends body. That's a little awkward.

"It's really weird. It was really weird. Saw him just as we got on the boat and he wasn't well at all. And it ended up being I think with cancer. Which he didn't know he had. And very weird."

Lemmy/David Bowie/Did you ever meet any of them?

"Well I knew Lemmy from London. You know I'm from London and he lived in London for a long time. So I would bump into him back in the day you know when he was playing in Motorhead. David Bowie I was fortunate enough to meet a couple of times."

Meeting Prince/His Guitar Playing

"And Prince. I had a really wonderful experience meeting Prince years ago. He actually played guitar for me. Which was really brilliant. This was in the 80s. We were in Paris. I knew his lighting guy and he said yeah we're doing a little club. Come on down."

"Prince wasn't playing on that tour. I think it was the Parade tour. And I got to meet him and I said how come no guitar?. And he said yeah. it's just for this tour. But I'll do it next tour probably. And then he got on stage and done a bunch - done Hendrix's Red House. Got a guitar and played guitar for the rest of the night. I thought wow that is so cool. Thank you."

Was Prince a good guitarist?

"Prince was good at anything. Anything he picked up. You know he was amazing pianist. He was an amazing guitar player. He was a phenomenal singer. Purple Rain, the actual vocal on the record was him doing it live for the first time. That was actually the live vocal that he took from the club you know that he played a few nights before. Before they done that. So he was just everything that he put his hands on or sung down. He was just that talented."

Purple Rain vocal was a live performance?

"Yeah. I think verse one, two and the choruses. Yeah absolutely."

We'll see you at Taco Bell Arena in August with Tesla and REO Speedwagon - (...no you won't, it's in September...)

"Absolute pleasure. Thank you. Take care."

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