Def Leppard News - Steve Clark On Def Leppard's Hysteria/Rick Allen (1988 Interview)

Saturday, 4th February 2017

Steve Clark On Def Leppard's Hysteria/Rick Allen (1988 Interview)

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Def Leppard guitarist Steve Clark was interviewed in June 1988 and an archive interview plus audio clip are available.

Steve was interviewed by The Georgia Straight newspaper in 1988 as the band toured Canada.

The journalist (Steve Newton) who spoke to him has since uploaded a few old interviews to his own blog which include the original Steve interview.

He has also added a short audio clip to go with the text version which was posted in 2015.

The interview took place on 6th June 1988 when the band were playing in Moncton, NB at the Moncton Coliseum and published on 17th June by the paper which was based in Vancouver.

Steve talked about the recording of the Hysteria album, finding a producer, firing Jim Steinman (printed as James Diamond), working with Mutt Lange, the album title, Rick Allen's accident and recovery and the Pyromania album.

Read some excerpts from the interview below and follow the links to listen to the just over 1 minute audio clip.

An unofficial audio CD featuring another rare Steve interview from July 1988 was released in December 2016 - read a transcript and listen to the audio.

Steve Clark - June 1988 Interview Quotes

Hysteria Album Title

"For months and months we just couldn't think of a title. We had a working title of Animal Instinct, which eventually became the name of our book. And we had another problem there, because, after everything else, we didn't want the artwork for the record sleeve to be held up. So we all sat around one night and were going through newspapers and things and Rick went, 'Hysteria, that's a good word!' And we all went, 'Yeah, all right, that's good enough.''

Rick Allen's Accident/Recovery (Audio Transcript)

"Oh he's been fine. He's exactly the same as he was at the beginning of the tour. He's rocking. He's been great. It was such we didn't really think about it to tell you the truth. We decided just to, because it happened over New year, the Christmas/New Year period, we'd taken a couple of weeks off anyway. So as we got the news we thought the best thing to do was to just throw ourselves back straight into work on the album. And it didn't really cross us heads what we were gonna do."

"We were just like concerned whether he was gonna live or not you know. But then we just thought, well we're gonna carry on whatever happens. And we just trusted Rick enough that he'd be the first to tell us if he couldn't do it. And well we trusted him enough, if he said he was gonna be able to do it, he would be able to do it. But we obviously just thought that he would be the first to tell us if he couldn't. So we just left it like that and obviously we had a lot of time on the Hysteria album, which bought us a lot of time so he got time to develop the kit."

Joe Elliott's Case Of Mumps

"Joe got the mumps - which isn’t clever when you're 27 years old, especially downstairs, if you know what I mean. But he's all right."

Read the full interview at - earofnewt.com
Listen to the audio clip at - earofnewt.com
Def Leppard - Steve Clark Band Section
Def Leppard - Hysteria Tour 1987/1988
Def Leppard - Hysteria Album Section
Def Leppard - Interviews 2017
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