JOE ELLIOTT On DEF LEPPARD's Totally Different Show For 2026 Residency/UK Tour

Thursday, 11th September 2025

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Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott was interviewed on UK radio and talked about the new show design for the 2026 tour and Las Vegas Residency.

The Live 2026 UK and European tour was announced on 1st September.

This followed the Las Vegas Residency announcement in July.

Joe appeared on UK radio to promote the tour.

Live 2026 UK Tour/Vegas Residency

The Live 2026 UK/European Tour takes place in June/July/August 2026.

The Las Vegas Residency takes place in February 2026.

Joe said the band will have a - "totally different show." or the residency and tour.

During the interview he also talked about his love of music, remote recording and took part in a short music quiz at the end.

Read some quotes from the interview below 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).

Def Leppard 2026.

Joe Elliott September 2025 Interview Transcript - (Transcribed by dltourhistory)

He is here, Joe Elliott. Good afternoon, sir.

Good evening. Good afternoon.

How are you?

I'm grand, actually. I'm really good, yeah.

Busy old day for you today, flying around, doing the thing, and talking about the UK and European dates, which are coming up for next summer — and we'll get onto those in a moment. But the reason I was really looking forward to you being on the show is that you are such a genuine music fan, right?

You have managed to remain an incredibly contemporary band, OK, and I think that part of that is that your fanbase has sort of kept evolving as well — whether that is younger artists talking about, embracing, or performing your songs, and just the fact that the music is feel-good music.

Is that part of the reason, do you think?

I think so, yeah.
We've never been a band that's strayed too far from the entertainment factor of what it's supposed to be.

When you're a kid and you grow up with what was essentially at the time one radio station to listen to — unless it was a pirate one out in the sea — and it's a Top 40 station, you're not going to be listening to Sabbath and Zeppelin all that much. They're going to be on special shows, two hours a week, normally at 11 o'clock at night, when you're in bed because you're eight or nine years old.

So, you've got this 20–30 minute show on a Thursday night, and you'd see Slade, T. Rex, Bowie, Queen eventually, Suzi Quatro — whatever it was. The guitar pop, big choruses, big guitars, big drums — it seeps into your DNA.

And when you listen to the lyrics of a Mama, We're All Crazee Now, or Cum On Feel the Noize, Devil Gate Drive — they're hardly singing about Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, or the White House. It's just "raise your fists and have a good time," and that's been our mantra.

It's not like we're not capable of being serious.
We touch on the odd bit — like Gods of War from Hysteria — which is like us standing in Finland and watching the futility of missiles flying over our heads from East and West, cancelling each other out.

But generally speaking, we just want to get rocked.

Looking back at albums like Hysteria, Pyromania — they were classic.
They were the classic days of making albums, really.
Days that I think have probably gone for a lot of the business now.

But there was a time — they were the good old days when you'd be working with the biggest producers, and people would be grabbing the records off you because it had to go to press.
And you were like, "No, no — one more song!"
And that song just happens to be something like Pour Some Sugar on Me, or whatever.

That doesn't happen these days, does it?

Not so much, because there's not such a demand.

I mean, let's be honest — Def Leppard now is more known for selling tickets than albums.

Albums — it's Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, etc.

Us? Yeah, we sell records.
I think we just went into some — not the Guinness Book, but whatever — we've top-tenned an album in five different decades, which is pretty cool.
There's a great story for the "antsies" and "uncools" and stuff like that.

But we still want to make records.
That's the great thing.

When the lockdown came along — literally the day that everybody was supposed to fly into Ireland, into my studio — they shut down all flights.
So I got on the phone with Phil and I said, "What are we going to do now?"
He said, "Well, we could do it remotely."
I said, "What you got?"
He said, "Well, I've got three," and I then explained to him we actually had four — because we had this song called This Guitar that we'd been sitting on for years, and we've got to do it.

I had three, and then we brought Sav into the conversation, and he had two.
So in 40 minutes, we had nine songs.

And we decided to do what Queen always did — if we wrote a song and it had a start, middle, and an end — that was it.
No argument. We're doing it.
No, "Can we take that bit out and put my bit in?"
We just trusted each other that we'd written songs — and that's how we did the last album.

It was the most freeing thing we've ever done.
We had the most fun making an album where we were essentially 3,000 miles apart from each other — and gluing it all together in our engineer's studio.
And it sounds like we did it in Abbey Road.

And we're doing it again.

Joe Elliott @ Virgin Radio 2025 Photos

Screenshots by dltourhistory.

Live music really has become the industry.

You were talking about Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift — well, they're also the ones selling all the tickets along with you guys as well, Coldplay, etc.

You've got this huge tour that is coming up next summer — not quite as big as Oasis, but we'll take it.

Because the show — a Def Leppard show — is a big show.

It is, and we keep trying to reinvent it.

We don't rest on our laurels.

For example, we've been doing this kind of under-the-radar American tour this summer — and we are putting that show to bed in a couple of weeks’ time.
And then we've got this Vegas residency starting in February, where we're going to bring a brand new show to the theatre — the Caesars Palace.
And that's going to expand out into the arenas and festivals next summer in the UK and Europe.

It'll be a totally different show.

Now of course, a totally different show doesn't mean we're going to drop every single song and play something else.

The "Hot Chestnuts" or the "Crown Jewels," as you call them — or as we call them — we're not going to do a gig where we don't play Photograph, Sugar, Animal, Love Bites, etc.
Because that's like McCartney or the Stones not doing Lady Madonna or Jumpin’ Jack Flash.

I mean, people come to see what they know — with bands that are legacy bands.

If you've got some new music, you can get away with it.
We don't ram it down people's throats.

Because even the biggest artists in the world — if they walk on stage and go, “I'm going to play 45 minutes of material you've never heard” — half the crowd are going to go buy a beer. It's a fact.

So you've got to be sensible about it.

Yes, you're relying on your back catalogue, I suppose — but anybody that's been around for 48 years will do that.
If you go and see Sting, U2, Duran Duran, us, Iron Maiden — you're going to hear some new stuff.

But the majority of it is going to be things that people want to hear — that they grew up listening to.

The tour kicks off at the tail end of June in Belfast, visiting Glasgow and Sheffield — that'll be a big show, a big homecoming show.

And then in London, Birmingham, Manchester — even going out to Dubai.

Is there anywhere you've played that you haven’t yet?

China.
Yeah, that’s about it.

I can’t think of anywhere.
The Far East, the Middle East — we've never done Lebanon, or Iraq, or Iran — and probably never will.

But you enjoy it still?

Oh man, it’s just the greatest.

Me and Phil share a tent on one side, and Sav and Viv on the other side, and Rick’s got his middle bit.
He paces up and down until he gets onto his kit.
And me and Phil are just poking each other and having jokes before we go on — peering through the curtain if there’s a little hole, and looking at the crowd and going, “Check it out, look at this.”

And you see all those people, and you think: This is why we formed a band.

It’s why Phil formed — he was in Girl in London, while we were up in Sheffield, and we were all doing the similar thing but different.
And then they came to Sheffield opening for UFO.
And instead of going back to Buxton, for some strange reason — which is where the hotel was — he stayed.
Him and the singer Phil Lewis stayed at my mum and dad’s house.

And then when I went down to London, I slept on his couch — and we became mates.
And then we realized we had so much in common that when Pete left, he had to be the guy.

And we realized then — we were destined to be together.
It just needed a moment like that for it to actually come to fruition, if you like.

I love chatting to you.

Your energy, your enthusiasm for music is infectious.
Your live shows — seeing Def Leppard is an experience.
And there aren’t many bands who put on a show quite like Def Leppard.

You're going out with Extreme as well?

Yeah, great guys.

Come back in and see us anytime — because it's always nice to see you.