Page 27 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019
P. 27
JOE ELLIOT
SUCCESS ISN’T LIKE
WINNING THE LOTTERY,
WHERE THE ODDS ARE
MILLIONS TO ONE. WE’D
DONE THE WORK.
‘How about that?’ Pete said, ‘Rubbish.’ But Tony Kenning didn’t last long in the In the aftermath: for being spiky about that stuff. But really,
Tony and Sav thought it was cool, so we band. In 1978 Rick Allen was recruited the short-lived I don’t care. Call us anything you want.
four-piece line-up
went with it. as the new drummer – on his fifteenth that completed I just think it’s ridiculous to compare us to
Adrenalize in the
birthday – after Steve Clark had joined certain bands from that era, just because
wake of Steve
Whose idea was it to change the as second guitarist. And within a year, Clark’s death. we happened to come up at the same
spelling to ‘Def Leppard’? Def Leppard were being proclaimed by time. You might as well compare us to
After five weeks of rehearsals, Tony stuck Sounds as one of the leading bands, Spandau Ballet, because they came up at
a line down the ‘o’ in Leopard and crossed alongside Iron Maiden, in the New the same time too. We were never a metal
out the ‘a’ in Deaf. It was only then that we Wave Of British Heavy Metal. But you, band. Hard rock, yes. Heavy metal, no.
noticed it looked like Led Zeppelin, but by especially, were never happy about
then we were stuck with the name, so being called a metal band. Def Leppard signed to major label
who cares? Listen, I know that I have this reputation Vertigo/Mercury on August 5, 1979.
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