Def Leppard News - VIVIAN CAMPBELL On DEF LEPPARD's Fantastic Masterpiece HYSTERIA Album

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Friday, 24th May 2019

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VIVIAN CAMPBELL On DEF LEPPARD's Fantastic Masterpiece HYSTERIA Album

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Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell was interviewed in December 2018 and the full video is now available.

Vivian spoke to Jonathan Graham for Guitar Interactive.

The interview was conducted in December backstage at a show on the UK/Irish Hysteria tour.

Vivian talked about his new Gibson Les Paul signature model, Rory Gallagher/First Guitars, Plays DL/Last In Line Riffs, DIO Guitar Copy, Last In Line II Album, Phil Soussan Joining Last In Line and His Thoughts On Def Leppard's Hysteria Album.

He spoke about Last In Line's new II album and praised Def Leppard's own 'Hysteria' album.

Watch the full 18 minute interview below.

From 6:40mins to 7:40mins Vivian plays a few guitar parts from the DIO/Last In Line albums.

As shown below Phil and Vivian were the cover starts of Issue 63 of Guitar Interactive. Follow the link below to view the full article and interviews on their site which also include the two YT videos embedded within the magazine.

Read parts of the Phil Interview mentioned yesterday and view the full video.

Visit the Tour News section. For more news on future tour plans.

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

Guitar Interactive - Vivian Campbell Interview Quotes - (Transcribed by dltourhistory)

DIO Guitar Copy

"There's gonna be a version of 72987537 the DIO guitar coming out next year. Actually a couple of different versions. So working on that and it's great having. So now when I go do Last In Line I can play this as well as the original one you know."

Whe will that guitar be out?

"I would reckon about halfway through 2019. You'll start to see something then."

Last In Line II Album

"Well no. We had no idea how it was gonna come out. I mean obviously we lost Jimmy Bain immediately prior to releasing Heavy Crown our first record in 2016. And when Jimmy passed away, you know, we really didn't know what we were gonna do. We had a tour booked. We cancelled the tour and about a month or six weeks after that we thought you know what the album was out and was getting great reviews. People were excited about it and we thought the album it meant so much to Jimmy. You know he was really really really into that record. And really into the band and it meant a lot to us and we thought we owe it to Jimmy's memory. We owe it to ourselves. We need to find a suitable guy to fill in for Jimmy and continue this thing."

"And we played with a few bass players, and some big names too, you know, came in and played with us and fantastic players but they did have the right tone or the right attitude and then Phil Soussan came in. And Phil, you know, obviously he played with Ozzy back in the 80s and he has a similar kind of sensibility and he's English. You know Jimmy was Scottish so, you know, kinda he's funny. He's got a sense of humour that we can play off of. And that's important because you spend a lot of time when you're with people in a band. You gotta be able to get along with them you know."

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Last In Line Songwriting

"So Phil joined the band. We went out and we did a bunch of shows. And he's really gelled well with the band. But I wasn't sure how it would work from a creative point of view when we got into writing and recording. And I explained to Phil, and to his credit he got it, he understood. I said you don't come in with songs in Last In Line. I said the way this band works, and the way it's always worked. It goes back to the original DIO band. The way we work is, you know, Jimmy and Vinny and I would go into a room and we'd kick around a riff. And we'd find a musical bed and Ronnie would come in and we wouldn't try and write lyrics you know. Obviously Ronnie was gonna do that."

"But you'd play him something and sometimes Ronnie would go totally get it and he'd look through his lyric books and he'd step up to the mic and start singing. And other times he'd say well what if you did this part there and kind of move move that over there and Andrew in Last In Line. Andrew Freeman works exactly the same way. I mean we get a music bed together for Andy, send it to him and sometimes he'll say that works perfect and write to that. Other times he puts it in Pro Tools and chops it about."

"And with Phil coming in to this situation, you know, it was a little. I think we had to real him in a little bit at first. You know he was getting 'Well what about this? what about this?!'. Whoah! slow down. His personalities a little bit different to Jimmy's. Jimmy was really laid back. Jimmy wouldn't say much in a writing session but when he did he'd say well what abut this and it was always golden. It was like he hit the bullseye if we were missing a part. Jimmy would just sit there and listen and he'd find the part. Whereas with Phil and maybe it's because he was new in the band. Whoah let's just kind of feel it. And like I said to his credit he got it. So within one or two writing sessions we were all on the same wavelength and the record happened very very quickly and painlessly and that's the way we like to do it."

Last In Line II Album

"And another thing about the new II album. It feels like a second album. It really feels like there's development in the songwriting and the growth of the band to me. You know the songs are a bit more intricate, a bit more riffy, a bit more involved. And complicated but not too complicated. You know there's some songs on the record that start off sounding like just basic songs and OK there's the verse, there's the bridge and there's the chorus. And then they go off into some weird tangent and take some mad left turn. But yet come back at the same time, but don't veer off into being like wanky Prog Rock or anything like that, you know, it's still hard rock."

"I think we've really found our sound with this record. You know it sounds like Last In Line. I think we've finally hit upon something that's identifiable and I'm very excited about it."

His Thoughts On Def Leppard's Hysteria Album

"I loved it. I mean I was a Leppard fan. I remember buying the Wasted single. And then the first album and the second album. Pyromania of course. I was very excited for Hysteria coming out. You know as every Def Leppard fan was 'cause with Rick's accident and taking so long and so the anticipation was building."

"Now when the record came out I bought it on cassette firstly. And I remember when I first played it I thought there's not a lot of guitar on here. Where's the guitar's?, because the way the record was structured, the way Mutt had approached it. There actually is an awful lot of guitar on it it's just not the big saturated typical hard rock guitar. So at first, that was my very first impression a bit shocking like whoah. You know there's a lot of low end. A lot of bombast in the record comes from the size of the drum sound and the massive low end bass that's underneath it. But the guitars are layered. It's like a layer cake you know."

"And I played it so much I practically wore the cassette out and it was also around the time when CDs were becoming popular and I'd just gotten a CD player. So I went out and got it on CD. It was one of the first CDs that I owned. And then when I listened to it on CD, especially on headphones, then I was starting to hear Oh yeah there's a guitar part over there and there's another one over there."

"There's so much going on on the record and so many layers in the vocals too. So it's one of those records that as a listener from a sonic point of view you can always find something even after 31 years I could put that record on headphones and I'll find something I've never heard before."

Learning To Play Def Leppard Guitar Parts

"And when I was joining the band I really really listened to it intensely and I thought I don't know what guitar part to play. You know I'm going in to play with Def Leppard tomorrow for the first time and there's like 40 guitar parts. Which one do I learn?."

"So you know I sat with Phil and he basically said well what they do and what we do and what they did with Steve back then is you listen to it and you pick out the more prominent parts and you distil that sound and separate it into two parts. And the one thing about Leppard is that we're very seldom Phil and I playing the same thing. Like a typical Hard Rock thing where one guitar played is reinforcing the other until one takes the solo. It's guitar orchestration you know. We'll play things in different inversions or whatever or different registers on the scale. Just make it sort of more orchestral and more interesting."

"But aside from all of that and the sonics of it I mean what really sells Hysteria a kagillion million times over is the quality of the songwriting. I mean right there and then, you know, under Mutt's guidance I mean the guys wrote just a fantastic masterpiece of a record. And that's why people wanna come out here 31 years later and hear it you know."