VIVIAN CAMPBELL On DEF LEPPARD's DIAMOND STAR HALOS Album Title/Recording

Saturday, 9th April 2022

Def Leppard 2022

Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell was recently interviewed and talked about recording the new Diamond Star Halos album.

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

As announced on 17th March it will be released on Friday 27th May 2022.

Vivian spoke to Dean Delray for the Let There Be Talk podcast.

Vivian talked about his early days in Belfast, Sweet Savage, DIO, Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore, Diamond Star Halos, The Stadium Tour 2022 and much more.

Vivian's part starts from 8 mins onwards and lasts for one hour and 20 minutes.

Diamond Star Halos Album Title

Vivian revealed that it was an email from himself to other band members that inspired the album tile.

He also said it was Phil who came up with the idea for the title itself after the songs reminded the band of the 1970s sound that influenced them.

Recording Process

Vivian talked about how the album was recorded remotely on different continents and co-produced with Ronan McHugh.

He mentions as well that Joe was in Spain for a lot of the recording process. Joe is known to have (or did have) a home on the Spanish Island of Lanzarote (in the Canary Islands).

Listen to the full interview below.

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).

Vivian Campbell - April 2022 Interview Quotes - (Transcribed by dltourhistory)

New Single Kick/T. Rex/Marc Bolan

"Marc Bolan was my first hero too. I mean before Rory Gallagher when I was literally 9 years old. I think it was the first. You know a show called Top Of The Pops, you know, was on for 30 or 40 minutes on a Thursday evening. And my sister's a year and change older than me and she was really into T. Rex and she had a couple of the singles."

"So I remember the first time I heard it and the first time I saw Bolan on TV. That's when I had a lightbulb moment and I thought that's what I wanna do with my life. I wanna grow my hair and wear my sister's clothes you know."

"Fortunately I couldn't fit into my sister's clothes but I did grow my hair all curly like Bolan."

"I didn't realise that Joe and I had that in common until 30 years ago on my first tour with Def Leppard. We were doing press together and Joe and I were sat down somewhere in Europe and one of the questions - one of the first questions they asked us was when you were really young what was the first thing that got you into rock and roll. Where you knew that was gonna be your life."

"And I said Marc Bolan on Top Of The Pops. You know 1971. And Joe said 'Me too!'. So it was like, it was one of those sort of things."

"But yeah going back to this new song Kick. It's from the album Diamond Star Halos which is a line from Get It On (Bang A Gong)."

Diamond Star Halos Album Remote Recording

"I mean it's all - when we were first doing this record. We were doing it all remotely. The entire thing. And yeah we're all on different continents."

"I'm on the East Coast. Phil's on the West Coast of American and Sav's in England and Joe's in Ireland. In fact Joe was in Spain I think for a lot of it."

"You know so we weren't in the same time zones so it's not like we picked up the phone and talked to each other. We were all emailing and I remember at some point one of the songs we were working on really really reminded me of the early 1970s."

"Like that whole Top Of The Pops era when we were really being heavily influenced by the music we were listening to. And I remember putting that in an email and Sav writing back saying 'I was thinking exactly the same thing'. he says this record sounds so 1970s to me."

"And I think that's what inspired the title. Phil came up with the title Diamond Star Halos. So we were all in that similar mindset."

"You know of it kind of reminding us of our youth in a lot of ways. But we didn't set out to make a record like that. It was just kind of, it naturally happened. That the more we were doing the record, the more we were thinking hang on, this has got some juicy 1970s parts to it."

Diamond Star Halos Album Production

"We're self produced. We have a very clever technician called Ronan McHugh who lives in Dublin. And so basically we send Ronan a piece of shit and he polishes it and makes it sound like a great record."

"He's a very talented chap. So yeah we produced the record with Ronan."

Let There Be Talk · #640 : Vivian Campbell / Guitarist for Def Leppard, Dio and Whitesnake

Buy 'Diamond Star Halos' Online

Amazon - Regular CD
Amazon - Deluxe CD
Amazon - Vinyl
Amazon - MP3

Diamond Star Halos - Tracklisting

01 - Take What You Want - 4:14
02 - Kick - 3:42 - (Collen) - Amazon - (MP3)
03 - Fire It Up - 3:19
04 - This Guitar [feat. Alison Krauss] - 3:50
05 - SOS Emergency - 3:25
06 - Liquid Dust - 4:01
07 - U Rok Mi - 3:33
08 - Goodbye For Good This Time - 4:27
09 - All We Need - 4:46
10 - Open Your Eyes - 4:19
11 - Gimme A Kiss - 3:12
12 - Angels (Can’t Help You Now) - 4:57
13 - Lifeless [feat. Alison Krauss] - 4:19 - (Collen/Elliott)
14 - Unbreakable - 3:46
15 - From Here To Eternity - 5:37