Page 102 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019
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Towards the end it just got impossible. But Leppard’s popular painkillers”. What haunted Elliott was the Even so, Collen struggled. “There was
you don’t think he’s actually going to die.” in-the-round live call he made to Clark on the day before he a period when I just didn’t want to do it,”
In September 1990, the band delivered stage set for the died. “I got his answering machine,” he he says. “It felt really wrong doing it
Adrenalize tour.
an ultimatum to Clark. “We gave him Inset: Elliott and said. “That killed me for weeks. If I’d without Steve. Joe had to talk me off the
a totally unconditional, very informal six Collen get cheeky. spoken to him, maybe it would have ledge: ‘Come on, we wrote these songs with
months’ leave of absence,” Elliott said. changed the next twenty-four hours…” Steve…’ In the end I knew he was right.”
“He absolutely hadn’t been fired, we Elliott might not have cried when Steve
weren’t gonna look for somebody else.” Clark died, but he did as he said that to me. ef Leppard stuck together, just
Clark returned to London, where he had Clark was laid to rest at Wisewood as they had after the trauma
a new home in Chelsea. Elliott told him: Cemetery in Sheffield. Phil Collen didn’t Dexperienced by Rick Allen. “We
“We’re going to carry on attend the funeral. “I loved had each other to lean on,” Elliott said.
working on the album, and “We wanted it to be Steve dearly,” he says, “but I “That’s the great thing about a band.” They
come February, come back knew that a lot of people also had Mutt Lange to guide them, albeit
and see how things are.” a little less polished than would show up at the in a more limited role than before.
In those last four months, funeral that weren’t around Lange had done so much to shape the
Elliott and the other Hysteria. We wanted it when he needed help. And band’s sound that they had called him their
members of the band would to he honest, I actually felt “sixth member”. As with Pyromania and
call Clark from time to time. to rock a bit more.” worse when he was alive.” Hysteria, Lange had co-written the songs for
They also had mutual Collen was never asked to Adrenalize. But as the band began recording,
friends checking on him. Joe Elliott explain his decision. Lange was still working on Bryan Adams’s
It was Cliff Burnstein, the band’s “It’s a very private matter,” Elliott says. album Waking Up The Neighbours. So they
co-manager, who broke the news to Elliott One image from the funeral has stuck in turned instead to Lange’s right-hand man,
on January 9, 1991. his mind ever since: “All I remember is Mike Shipley, who had mixed Hysteria and
“I wasn’t surprised,” he admitted to me. being at the graveside, and watching Steve’s engineered Pyromania. “We figured that us
“I was upset, the way you’re upset when mum Beryl grieving so desperately.” co-producing with Mike would be the next
your ninety-nine-year-old granny dies. Def Leppard went back to work the very best thing to Mutt,” Elliott said.
Steve’s dad said to me that he wouldn’t next day. As Elliott said in 1992: “We had to But Lange’s influence continued
make his thirtieth birthday. He made it by get on with our lives. We weren’t going to throughout the making of Adrenalize. “Mutt
six months. I cried my head off when Rick lose those songs, because they were too was on the phone every day, trying to rally
lost his arm. But when Steve died I didn’t.” good, and Steve just wouldn’t have wanted the troops,” Elliott recalls. During breaks in
The coroner’s report, dated February 27, us to quit anyway.” He adds now: “When Adams’s schedule, Lange wrote with
cited the cause of death as “respiratory Steve passed away we’d been working as Leppard and contributed backing vocals
failure” due to consumption of “an excess a four-piece for seven or eight months for Adrenalize – another feature that was
of alcohol mixed with anti-depressants and anyway, in spirit and physically.” integral to the band’s signature sound.
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