Interview Transcript - Joe Elliott

"Like most people my age, discovered Lizzy via Top Of The Pops. 1973, I would be 13, and they did 'Whiskey In The Jar'. Which I knew because I had an Irish Uncle who used to play it every Christmas on his guitar and drive me nuts. And then all of a sudden I hear this real version of it and you know I can live with this one. The they kind of disappeared for three years and the next thing I heard was 'Boys Are Back In Town'. And it's like WOW you know. It was that kind of gang anthem, three minute pop/rock song that just set my life alight."

"He was fantastic on stage. I mean he was absolutely - Thin Lizzy as a band were influence on Def Leppard. And for me, even though he played an instrument and I don't, he was an enormous inspiration as a frontman. Just the things that he used to do, the bass with the silver scratch plate where he'd bounce the light back off it. And you know 'Are you out there?!' and all that kind of stuff that he used to do. This like answer/response thing. He asked a question and two thousand, three thousand people would scream back YEAH!"

"When I was sixteen, just last week, I saw Lizzy about four, five times at the Sheffield City Hall and every year they came round with a new album. And every year the kids queued up down the back for autographs and every year they let them in four at a time and I've still got somewhere a leather cowboy hat with all their signatures on and a bunch of photographs with Scott and Phil and Brian Roberstson. They always let the kids in and consequently when Leppard started selling a few tickets and doing gigs and stuff we actually started doing the same thing. It was totally because Lizzy did it."