DEF LEPPARD's PHIL COLLEN DIAMOND STAR HALOS Track By Track Guide

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Thursday, 26th May 2022

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Def Leppard 2022

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen has given his track by track guide to the new Diamond Star Halos album.

'Diamond Star Halos' is the band's 12th studio album.

The first studio album since 2015 was announced on 17th March and is out on Friday 27th May 2022.

Phil recently spoke to Apple Music and gave a track by track guide to the new album.

He discusses each of the 15 songs including the ones he wrote himself giving more insight into their origin.

The album is already out in countries such as New Zealand, Australia and was followed into other time zones across Asia where it is now out in Singapore, China, Malaysia and Taiwan.

This will soon be followed by the Middle East, Africa and on to all of Europe (and the UK!). The world and elsewhere.

Read some quotes from Phil's guide below and read the full thing on Apple Music (click on the album BIO).

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).

Diamond Star Halos - Phil Collen Track By Track

SOS Emergency

“I started writing this one a few years ago, around 2014. I had the music and the chorus, and to me it sounded like a blend between latter-day Police and the Foo Fighters. That was the vibe, melodically. Then I sent it to Joe, and he just couldn’t stop writing lyrics. He took the chorus and made it something completely different. It’s got an energy that’s different to the rest of the album, and I just love that.”

Liquid Dust

"I’ve travelled to India a bunch of times, and I’ve always had melodies floating through my head. So, I kind of annexed this rough idea of a melody, and I wanted to have some almost Indian percussion and mix it with trap and hip-hop drum loops—which I did. It’s about coming towards the end of your life and realising that you need more time. What happens after that? So, it’s about self-reflection and wondering whether there’s reincarnation.”

U Rok Mi

“The song is about being inspired—it’s not a reference to a person. The spelling could be from a text message, but it’s also something that Prince used to do all the time as well. My daughter wanted a ukulele a few years ago, so I got her one—and then we all got ukuleles on tour. So, I ended up playing one pretty much every day, and this idea came out. It starts as, like, a folky-type thing that sounds like it should be on Zeppelin III, but then I used these hip-hop drum loops, and it explodes into this big rock chorus.”

All We Need

“This is a real hopeful song, a kind of celebration. It was one of the first ones that me and Joe wrote during the pandemic, when we were sending ideas back and forth to each other and talking about the album as we went into lockdown. He was in Dublin, I’m in California, so we’d each wake up to the other’s new ideas. I really enjoyed that process of writing and recording. I done all my guitars and vocals on a laptop, and Joe did some of his vocals on his laptop with a real cheap little microphone. It sounds great, and I’d hate to go back to the other way of recording.”

Open Your Eyes

“This was the very first one that Joe and I did during lockdown, and we realised that working this way was a total energy-saver. I had ordered this Squier bass and wrote the opening riff straight out of the box. I sent it to Joe and before you knew it, we had a song. Rick Savage replaced my bass with a killer sound he had at home—a bass he pulled out of his closet—and boom! We sent our demo over to Ronan McHugh, our producer, engineer and out-front live guy, and he put it all in a session and made it sound incredible.”

Unbreakable

"Joe had the idea for this one a while ago—I remember him playing bits of it when we were on tour last. We initially tried it like a rock thing—it almost sounded like AC/DC—but it wasn’t working. So, we shifted tracks and almost took on an element of INXS—not that we’re trying to copy Australian bands, but it sounds better with this vibe. We used a whole different palette of guitar tones because the standard ones weren’t working. Joe had already written the lyrics, but he then presented them in a different way, almost like an actor choosing a role.”

Read the full 15 track guide on the Apple Music website (click MORE on the Album Bio).

Diamond Star Halos - Writing Credits