Page 11 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

Saxon: “If people didn’t like
our songs we’d bin them
and write some more.”
relate to the need and the want of trying to break
out of an unpleasant cycle.
Fast Eddie Clarke: I come from a working-class
background. I never thought I’d make money out
of music. My dream was to play my guitar and
earn enough to eat and live. If I could do that I’d
be happy for the rest of my life.
Biff Byford: In Barnsley, your main job
choice was going down the pit. Mining was
a good living, it wasn’t awful. But I wanted “I DON’T THINK THERE WERE THAT MANY
to see the world a bit, meet some girls.
GREAT ROCK BANDS AROUND. A LOT OF THE
Joe Elliott: The ambition was just to be in BIG GUYS HAD RUN OUT OF STEAM BY
a rock band. It’s like: “I don’t want to work in
a factory all my life.”
Rob Halford: We never really sat down
as a band and said: “What’s the battle plan?” Like
any great thing that comes out of Britain, it had
some apprenticeship, some dedication behind it.
Fast Eddie Clarke: None of the musicians back
then wanted stardom or big fucking wads of
money, they just wanted to play their music and
make a crust. When I joined Motörhead it was just
something to do. We didn’t want to become stars,
it was just a chance to play.
Brian Tatler (Diamond Head): When I started
Diamond Head in 1976, the dream was just to
make records and enjoy it. I had no idea how you
got from forming a band with your friends to
playing something huge like Wembley Stadium.
It seemed impossible.
By the mid-70s, things had started to change.
For some bands, the lure of America proved
irresistible and they spent their time touring
there, hoovering up money and whatever else
was available. For others, years of success had
bred complacency, arrogance or both.
SEVENTY-SIX OR SEVENTY-SEVEN.”
Ashley Goodall (EMI A&R man)
Fast Eddie Clarke: I went to see Led Zeppelin
at Earls Court in 1975. Fuck me, there was
a forty-five minute drum solo, and Jimmy Page
was fucking about with his guitar for an hour.
You’d sit there and think: “I didn’t fucking come
here to see this.”
Ashley Goodall (EMI A&R man):
I don’t think there were that
many great rock bands around.
A lot of the big guys had run
out of steam by ’76 or ’77:
Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin
a little bit. Queen were sort
of carrying on, being quite
pop, but they had gone out
of favour a bit.
Fast Eddie Clarke: The prog rock lot had gone
a bit over the fucking top. The Yes’s and Genesis’s
had lost sight of everything. They all had servants
and Rolls-Royces. I just thought: “Fuck off you
silly c**ts.”
Brian Tatler: I loved Pink Floyd to death, but
I couldn’t get tickets to see them, and if you
did get tickets then you’d be among ten
thousand other people in a great big hall.
At least in the pubs or clubs there was
some excitement, some sweat.
Andy Dawson (Savage): Things were
getting a bit tame, and then punk came
along and kicked everybody up the arse.
British punk was born in the underground
clubs of London but rapidly spread outwards,
lighting up the cities of Britain like a series
of detonations. Its plastered-on snarl and
nihilistic world view was the antithesis of
everything that had gone before. Love it or
hate it, punk had to happen.
Brian Tatler: I hated the Bay
City Rollers and The Osmonds
and all that stuff, so when the Sex
Pistols appeared on TV I thought
it was great. I could play like Steve
Jones, whereas I couldn’t play
like Ritchie Blackmore. I was like,
“Let’s not hang around – these
guys are doing it.”
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