Def Leppard News - JOE ELLIOTT Recalls The Story Of DEF LEPPARD'S Two Steps Behind

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Tuesday, 5th June 2018

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JOE ELLIOTT Recalls The Story Of DEF LEPPARD'S Two Steps Behind

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Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott was interviewed for a new podcast and talked about some of the band most famous songs.

Joe spoke to Rolling Stone magazine for their Music Now podcast.

The interview was done a few months ago, probably January, before the tour started.

Joe talked about Journey's line-up, AC/DC/Brian Johnson, Arnel Pineda, Taylor Swift/Crossroads, reacting to a Drake song, being fans of different music, Excitable, Depeche Mode, selling records, musical influences, 2018 tour setlists, opening with a new song, writing/recording Animal, Let It Go, Foolin' recording, Love Bites, Armageddon It, Two Steps Behind/Last Action Hero, Rocket, Bringin' On The Heartbreak and Switch 625.

Joe briefly mentioned the tour but then concentrated on going through the songs on the 2017 tour setlist and talking about how they were written and recorded.

Watch the full 43 minute interview via the link below.

Visit the Album News section for more news on new music (based on band member quotes).

Def Leppard 2018.

Music Now Podcast - Joe Elliott Interview Quotes

Two Steps Behind

"We've never done the electric version. In fact the electric version was just a demo that I wrote in '89. And when we came to do the Euphoria [Joe meant 'Adrenalize obviously....'] album we had so many slow songs. W had Love And Hate Collide, which came out eventually six years later on Vault. We had Have You ever Needed Someone So Bad. We had Tonight. We had Two Steps Behind and it's like well pick two."

"And cut to finishing the album off. It was kind of fashionable in the day in '92/'93 to release CD singles with three bonus tracks. And it's like well we just finished a ten track record and you consider maybe there's six singles. So now we have to come up with 18 more songs. OK so we went through the vaults and we found a few things and first thing we did was record Only After Dark as a kind of a helping hand for Mick Ronson who was going through cancer treatment and didn't have any money. So we figured we'd record one of his songs, he can get the royalties for that. That was the first B-Side we did."

Last Action Hero

"And then we started to like go through the stuff that we elbowed off other records. And Two Steps Behind, it was Phil Collen that said: 'Look we're running out of time, let's just do it on acoustics.' Let's just do an acoustic version. Some banged it out in like 30 minutes or something like that. I put a vocal on it. And there it was an it went out as a B-Side. And it was a B-Side for a year. And then one day we got a phonecall from the powers that be that were making this movie called Last Action Hero and they said: 'We're looking for a Def Leppard song but we want something that's not really that well known.'."

Def Leppard 2018.

Strings Version

"And we were just in the process of putting together the Retro-Active album which was gonna feature a lot of these B-Sides and stuff in remixed form. So we sent them the cassette of all the tracks that were gonna go on Retro-Active and said well look, see if there's anything on here that you like. And Michael Kamen was the musical director and he didn't really hear anything until he came in to work after a long weekend and one of his secretaries was whistling this song. Which obviously registered in his mind and he says what is that that you're whistling. She says it's one of those songs off the Leppard cassette. Put it on again and what passed him by on first listen. He listened to it and he went Oh yeah that'll work. And it was Two Steps Behind."

Hit Single

"And he phoned us up and he says I've actually, I've just fallen in love with your song Two Steps Behind. Can I put a string arrangement on it?. And we're lile going...yeah!. Of course you can, please. Be our guest.. And lo and behold the thing came out on Columbia Records and went Top Ten."

"And went to Number One in France and Number One in South Africa and Number Two in Canada and all of a sudden this song that seriously if Phil hadn't have said Oh let's just do it acoustically, it wouldn't have got done. Happy accidents you gotta love 'em."

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