Page 123 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

VIVIAN CAMPBELL

I HOPE WE DON’T HAVE

ANY MORE LINE-UP

CHANGES, BECAUSE WHAT

WE HAVE WORKS.

sleeve. Remember, he came up with the
band name when he was still at school,
and has lived and breathed the band all

these years. But Joe is very different to
Ronnie Dio or David Coverdale. Both of
them told you how things were gonna
be. There was no room for discussion.

They dictated everything to you. To be
fair, the system worked for Dio and
Whitesnake. But things are a little
different with Leppard. It’s more of a
democracy. Decisions are talked about

before they’re made. However, that only
works up to a point. We all know that,
when it comes to the crunch, Joe runs
the band. He is the main man. But he’ll

never ignore strongly held views from
anyone else in Leppard. So, we all feel a
lot more part of how things go, although
we give Joe the respect he’s due as the
guy who ultimately decides what

happens.

You’ve done six studio albums with
Leppard now. But do you feel these

have been undervalued when
compared to what the band released
in the 80s?
They are certainly underrated. But that’s
really inevitable. The band’s big period
was in the 80s, with Pyromania and

Hysteria. And how can you compete with
what they achieved back then? But I do
look back at an album like Slang, which
was my first one with Leppard, and feel it

deserves more respect. When it came out
in 1996, it was right for the time. I listen
to it now and think that maybe we went a
little too left-field with what we did. We
went too far from what the band were

known for, by stripping away all the
vocal harmonies and polish that was
usually associated with the Leppard
sound. I still believe it was the correct

approach, and showed how we could
adapt to changing times. But we learnt a
lesson from that, namely not to lose sight
of those attributes which made the
band’s reputation in the first place.

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