Page 112 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

really exciting. And in Breathe A Sigh, we had an R&B
Two of a kind: Joe
twist to the vocals.” Vivian Campbell, for all his Elliott and Phil Collen.
misgivings, wrote in Work It Out a brilliant modern
rock song for the post-grunge era. As Rick Allen
says, “These were songs that for Def Leppard came
out of leftfield.”
Equally, there were traces of the band’s past in
Gift Of Flesh and the album’s title track. “Gift Of Flesh
is good proper rock stuff,” Joe says, “like UFO did
on Obsession. And the title track was just a regular
pop song, with a complete theft of the rundown at
the end of Fame by Bowie.”
The real depth in Slang was in the three songs that
ended the album – Blood Runs Cold, Where Does Love
Go When It Dies, and Pearl Of Euphoria. In an echo of
the song White Lightning, from Adrenalize, Joe and
Phil wrote Blood Runs Cold as another eulogy for
Steve Clark, only darker. “This was a more heartfelt
song,” Joe says. “White Lightning was a grandiose, big
movie version of Steve Clark. Blood Runs Cold was
the down-and-dirty, in-the-gutter version of Steve.
And that’s where we wanted this album to go.”
Where Does Love Go When It Dies has a melancholy
beauty and a hard-earned wisdom in the words Joe
sings. “It’s one of my favourite songs,” Rick Allen
says. “The lyrical content is pretty amazing.” And in
Pearl of Euphoria, a heavy sound was matched by the
lyrics. “It’s about abortion,” Phil says. “A really deep
song. Across the album there are religious
metaphors and social metaphors. It was all pretty
deep for a Def Leppard record.”
In the end, Slang was not, as the band had
predicted, only half-jokingly, an act of commercial
suicide. The album reached No.14 in the US, and
No.6 in the UK. It was not a multi-million seller, but
the band never really expected it to be. In rock
music, so much had changed since the heady days
of Hysteria and Adrenalize, and Slang was a reflection
of that change. What also fed into Euphoria was the sense among Hysteria. On Euphoria, as on Slang, the band
For Joe Elliott, it is an album defined by “raw the members of Def Leppard that the cyclical nature co-produced with Pete Woodroffe. But in this
emotion”. He speaks of Slang as one of the most of music had, in the end stages of the 1990s, turned album’s key track, Promises – chosen as the flagship
important albums that Def Leppard ever made. “To to their advantage. As Phil Collen says: “When we single for what Phil Collen describes as its “classic
move forward,” he says, “we had to break it all started on Euphoria, all of a sudden there was Britney Def Leppard feel” – it was Lange who turned a good
down and build again. And the satisfaction that we Spears and Ricky Martin out there. Music was song into a great one.
got from that album, I couldn’t put in into words.” happy again, it wasn’t miserable.” The riff in Promises, written by Phil, had a tone
There was, as Vivian Campbell recalls, a mood of and rhythm reminiscent of the band’s classic 1983
or all the darkness and emotional intensity in cautious optimism within the band. “With Euphoria, single Photograph. But as Vivian says, “We couldn’t
Slang, the album had a positive effect on the we were peeking our heads over the fence,” he find the chorus. And that was when that song was
band. “It really refreshed us,” Rick Savage laughs. “Is it safe to come out now? That’s how it sent off to Mutt. He was living in Switzerland and
Fsays, “and gave us an appetite to be natural felt. But we were starting to see signs that it was we were recording in Dublin. We sent him the
and enjoy it again.” And what this led to was an okay to be ourselves again. We were hearing slickly multi-track, he sliced it and diced it and sent it back
album with a title that spoke volumes: Euphoria. crafted, producer-driven pop songs on the radio. to us a week or two later – and when we heard it we
This title, already in place before the album was That was a strong indicator that we could make a went, ‘Oh fuck – there’s the chorus!’”
made, had echoes of Pyromania and Hysteria, the proper Def Leppard record. So there was a strong Lange subsequently flew in to Dublin to work
mega-hits that had transformed Def Leppard into and clear concept going into Euphoria, and it began with the band over a long weekend, in which time
the biggest British rock group since Led Zeppelin with the title of the album. It was a return to the they co-wrote two more songs: It’s Only Love and All
and Queen. And with this came a sense of a band classic Def Leppard sound.” Rick Allen puts is Night. Of the latter, Joe says: “That song is bonkers, a
re-embracing its own history and its true identity. simply. “If you leave it enough time, it will come little like Let’s Get Rocked was – a funky jam with
As Joe says: “Music moves in cycles. Slang was back into fashion and people will like it again.” mad sections that are atonal, melodically wrong,
ground zero, and with Euphoria it was a new start. Another significant development was the return but it has a unique flavour.” During that weekend,
We reinstalled the harmonies on that record. The of the band’s unofficial “sixth member” Mutt Lange, they also recorded backing vocals with Lange, and
songs were more melodic. It was about us feeling albeit in a more limited role than before. The last the combination of his voice and theirs – so integral
good about who we were.” Def Leppard album with Lange as producer was to the sound of the band’s classic hits of the ’80s –
was heard again in Promises.
There was one other song from Euphoria in which
“We had suggestions that we should Lange had an influence. The beautiful ballad
Goodbye was written by Rick Savage alone. “At that
work with outside writers on X, which I stage,” he says, “I wasn’t schooled in writing a
complete song, start to finish. But I wanted to do it
on a personal level. I had a demo of the song while
we were doing Slang, but it didn’t feel quite right. I
was not cool with.” Joe Elliott changed the verses. The chorus was always the

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