Page 134 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019
P. 134
BUYER’S GUIDE GETTY
Def Leppard Essential Classics
A band forged in Sheffield steel who went on to conquer America,
this is your guide to the best – and worst – Leps albums.
f there’s one rock band that can about. “We wanted to be a pop-rock
truly be described as heroes, it’s Def band,” Elliott says. “We wanted to do
ILeppard. AC/DC overcame the death what Bowie and Bolan did. We had more
of singer Bon Scott to make the biggest- in common with Duran Duran than with
selling rock album of all time: Back In Iron Maiden!”
Black. Metallica recovered from the death Leppard knew instinctively where their
of bassist Cliff Burton to become the biggest audience was; they even wrote
most successful and influential metal a song called Hello America. And when Pyromania Hysteria
band of the modern era. But Def Leppard they teamed up with AC/DC producer VERTIGO, 1983 BLUDGEON RIFFOLA, 1987
have suffered two tragedies: the car Mutt Lange in the early 80s they hit the When Def Leppard recorded this, It was conceived as hard rock’s
crash in 1984 in which drummer Rick jackpot. With Lange’s creative input the album that made them multi- answer to Michael Jackson’s
Allen lost his left arm, and the alcohol- earning him unofficial status as the platinum-selling superstars in the Thriller, an album on which every
related death of guitarist Steve Clark in band’s sixth member, Leppard conquered United States, they were still each track is a potential hit single.
1991. The fact that Def Leppard are still America with 1983’s Pyromania and 1987’s on wages of £40 a week. The And so it proved. Six of
together in 2008, still making great music Hysteria, the first back-to-back albums serious money went into Hysteria’s 12 tracks were Top 20
and playing to audiences of 20,000 on ever to each sell seven million copies. Pyromania’s production. US hits, with power ballad Love
their latest US tour, is testimony to the Hysteria even made Def Leppard The result was state-of-the-art Bites reaching No.1 and rap-rock
extraordinary courage and resolve of this a household name back in Britain – a arena rock with the riff-power of hybrid Pour Some Sugar On Me
great British rock band. proud achievement for a band that AC/DC and the melodic hitting No.2.
Having formed in Sheffield in 1977, famously sported Union Jack T-shirts sophistication of 80s pop. With 18 million copies sold
Def Leppard were thinking big from during their US tours. Photograph was the key hit worldwide, Hysteria remains the
the very start. Their name was inspired Undoubtedly it’s the phenomenal single, Die Hard The Hunter the biggest album of Def Leppard’s
by Led Zeppelin, and the blueprint for success of Pyromania and Hysteria that epic set-piece (its riff nicked from career, and also their most
their music was, as singer Joe Elliott has has extended Def Leppard’s career over Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman!), experimental. “We wanted to
stated: “AC/DC meets Queen”. In 1979 20 years, through some lean times when Rock Of Ages the stomping, We push the envelope of what rock
Leppard rose to prominence alongside their feel-good rock has fallen out of Will Rock You-style anthem, music was,” Elliott says.
Iron Maiden in the New Wave Of British fashion. But this is one band that never complete with joke faux-German Rocket, with its extended,
Heavy Metal, although Leppard’s glam- thought about quitting, not even in the intro from Mutt Lange. Burundi-inspired drum
inspired hard rock was radically different darkest times. For Def Leppard a rock is “With Pyromania everything breakdown, typified their
from what most NWOBHM bands were never out of the question. Paul Elliott changed for us,” Elliott says. anything-goes approach.
132 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
