Page 26 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

JOE ELLIOT

was ten. It was about a snake called Rock’n’roll
animals: Joe with
Kachina. That was the name of the snake Steve Clark.
that Alice Cooper had – the one on the

cover of the Killer album. I wrote reams of
lyrics. It was awful stuff, but I was so into
it. And I ended up with this rock opera
that was a combination of Alice Cooper

and Tommy by The Who.

Tommy Cooper, you mean?
Ha, brilliant! I wish I’d thought of that.

What were the first records you
ever bought?
The first albums were Every Picture Tells a
Story by Rod Stewart and Electric Warrior by

T.Rex. I was so mad into Bolan and Bowie,
I was insanely into everything they did.
I even thought The Laughing Gnome was
okay, and all the early Bolan nonsense
– Salamanda Palaganda and all that crap.

I still listen to that stuff on occasions. It
takes me back to a time of innocence
that’s long gone.

You joined your first band at fifteen, but
you also left school then to work at a
factory in Sheffield. Did you fear that
you’d get trapped in that kind of job?
I was always obsessed with music, but

yeah, after I left school those dreams kind
of got bashed out of me. I had that job
until I was eighteen. I was there for four
years, at that time a quarter of my life, and
I remember thinking: this is not for me, ROSS MARINO/PHOTOSHOT

and God, this sucks.

What got you out of that place? because we had a mutual friend. I bumped And by the end of 1977, you’d changed
When I was eighteen, it was 1977. Punk into Pete at a bus stop, we talked for a bit, the name of the band from Atomic
happened. I saw the Sex Pistols and The and then I said, ‘Hey, do you wan to put a Mass to Def Leppard – or rather, as it

Clash and The Damned and thought, band together?’ He said, ‘Well, I kind of was originally spelt, Deaf Leopard.
fucking hell, if they can do it so can I. It got one. But we’re looking for a singer.’ Pete suggested a name for the band:
wasn’t anything to do with the music. It And I was like, ‘Ooh, I’ll do it!’ I’d never Accracy. I remember going, ‘That’s
was the nerve they had. The punk bands even sung before, but Pete and Sav and fucking horrible!’ I didn’t know him well

were getting up there and doing it, and Tony Kenning, the drummer, came to my enough to warrant that kind of an
they were on the front pages – not just the parents’ house and saw that I had all these outburst, but I really thought it was an
music papers but also the tabloids. I cool records – Pat Travers and Scorpions awful name. But when I said that, we were
remember thinking, if only the and Montrose. I didn’t get the gig because all in my bedroom – me, Pete, Sav and
opportunity arose… because I could play I could sing. They just thought I was tall Tony – and there was a poster on the wall

enough chords to get me through what and had great records. And I was fun to that I’d drawn myself. I used to design
they were doing. You just needed the balls hang out with, I guess. rock posters in my art class in school,
– and I knew I had them as well. Then I when I was bored of painting bowls of
bumped into Pete Willis, and that was it… Was it clear from the start what kind of fruit and vases of flowers. And after doing

band this would be? posters of all the bands I liked – Thin
Pete Willis was then the guitarist in a The first thing we ever learnt to play Lizzy and UFO and whoever else – I
band called Atomic Mass. The bassist together was Suffragette City. And in the started making up names. One of those
was Rick Savage. early days we did used to play Pretty Vacant, names was Deaf Leopard, and that was
I didn’t know Sav then. I knew Pete but we were nothing to do with punk. the poster on my bedroom wall. I said,

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