JOE ELLIOTT On DEF LEPPARD's Next Album/Rejoice Song Meaning

Friday, 8th May 2026

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Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott appeared on French radio last night and talked about the next studio album and the Rejoice single.

The new single 'Rejoice' was released in January with a lyric video.

Joe has talked about the song and the next album.

New Studio Album/Rejoice Single

Last night Joe was a guest on the RTL 2 radio show Pop-Rock Station with host Marjorie Hache (who also interviewed him for France 24 TV this week).

He mentioned the next album and the current Rejoice single.

Joe appeared during the last 40 minutes (after a 2 minute introduction by the host) talking about The Las Vegas Residency, Rejoice, the next album, Mott The Hoople, T. Rex, Animal, David Bowie, The Struts, the Paris show (and that polka dot band from Canada...).

Read some quotes below and listen to the full interview via the link.

The station also posted some video of Joe talking about David Bowie before the show aired and now a second clip talking about Rejoice.

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).

Def Leppard 2026.

RTL2 Pop-Rock Station Show - 7th May 2026 Playlist

01 - Def Leppard - Rejoice
02 - Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes
03 - T. Rex - Metal Guru
04 - Def Leppard - Animal
05 - Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me (2:59min Edit)
06 - David Bowie - Life On Mars
07 - Angine De Poitrine
08 - The Struts - Could've Been Me
09 - Def Leppard - Photograph

Joe Elliott RTL 2 May 2026 Interview Quotes

You also released — to the great delight of Def Leppard fans, as we were saying — a new single called “Rejoice.” What is it about, and what are you rejoicing about?

"I like to think that Def Leppard is an escapism band. We don’t really preach politics — we're aware of them, of course, but we don’t like to use that as our sounding board."

"We like to entertain people, escapism, and the whole song “Rejoice” is literally about that: it's about wanting to get to a higher place that's , more enjoyable than where you are right now."

"The song starts off with the line “I’m bored of doredom,” and it’s I want to go higher, to somewhere that's uplifting."

"And you just hope that’s what your audience wants to hear from a band like Def Leppard."

Can we look forward to a new album soon?

"Yes — it’s the first track from our new album, which is not even finished yet."

"But we were so excited that that song was, we thought, ready to go, so we specifically released it so that we could play it live in Vegas and basicallt from now on."

"We played it in our little trip to India in March. We'll be playing it on the European tour, which of course includes Paris on the 8th of July."

"So it keeps it fresh for us bringing in new material. And just doing one song doesn't over stimulate."

"You can play too many new songs because people want to hear what they know. But you can get anyway with one."

Album Releases

"I wish we could put an album out every three years."

"But it's gonna be five years since Diamond Star Halos when this album comes out."

"But we did at least release Drastic Symphonies, which is the orchestrated version of our kind of not Best Of, but the songs we thought would work the best."

Touring/New Music

"But touring has became just much more important, or as important."

"And putting new music out is important to us, but we don’t have to do it to the clock."

"We do it whenever we’re ready, and I think that works better for us. The songs are more real then, they're not forced."

"'We have to have it finished by Wednesday!', No, it's finished when it's finished and then we out the record out."

Writing/Recording Animal difficult?

"Yes and no — it wasn’t that tough to write. The song melody and the lyrics were all there, but the backing track sounded outdated by the time I got to do the vocals, which I actually recorded in Paris."

"I sang them in a studio that was five minutes from the Champs-Élysées; I can;t even remember what its called, {Studio Des Dames} - but I sang the vocals for “Animal” in Paris."

"And what we did was because the song didn’t sound write but Mutt and the rest of the guys really liked the lead vocal, they took all the track away and played new parts underneath the voice, which made the song sound a lot more timeless."

"And it was our first ever hit. In our home country it went Top Ten in the UK ten years after we foremed."

"We had our first ever legitimate hit single."

"And to this day it's still one of my favourite Def Leppard songs."

Listen to the show and interview here on the RTL2 website.