Page 55 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

RICHARD SAVAGE

how do we match this current stuff up
with Def Leppard’s greatest hits?

The nearest one they wanted to do was
a song called Blood Runs Cold [which
ended up on Slang]. The head of the
record company came to see us and we
played him the demo for When Love And

Hate Collide and he nearly fell of his chair.
He said: “Fuck me! That’s the song!
That’s the song we’ve been trying to get
you to write!” So we said, okay, and we
virtually had it recorded in 10 days.

It was the perfect song for the greatest
hits album, but that was almost like
closing the door on the first stage. And the
Slang record was the real important album,

from a point of view of keeping the band
together, to be blunt. It ensured
a longevity that wouldn’t have existed
had we not made a record like Slang.

You have always been tougher than you
look though, haven’t you? Seeing off
a series of crises that on their own
would have finished off most other

bands: changing managers, firing band
members, losing Steve… Also, that
legendary killer of bands: American
success. You all had different ways of
dealing with that on the Hysteria tour,

your biggest tour ever. Joe and Phil
stopped drinking. Steve and Rick Allen
pointedly didn’t. And you just kept a low
profile. Mr Cool. Was that a deliberate

move to distance yourself from the
obvious waywardness of Steve?
You’re spot-on, really. I mean, things
have changed now but back in the day
Rick [Allen] just liked to get high. That’s
what he liked to do. Steve did it to excess

because I think he thought that’s what
rock stars did. That was one of the
reasons he wanted to be a rock star in the
first place, to do this sort of behaviour

after a show. To me it wasn’t a big deal. Work it out: I wasn’t really motivated by it. I could the consequences are, or what Joe’s gonna
I didn’t get into it for those reasons. If Sav sets his walk away from it. I guess I’m pretty say to you, or someone’s going to get mad
thin fingers to
somebody’s buying you a gin and tonic, work during lucky in that sense. at you. Certainly with Steve there was a
I’ll drink it. But I wasn’t looking for it. the Euphoria era. With Steve, without sounding like a worry about that, that he’d be upsetting
It didn’t motivate me. It absolutely shrink, it was all in his head. With some the band if he did this too much or that,

motivated Steve, just because it was the people there are deeper insecurities, but then in order to get away from those
image he had of the business in general, whether stemming from childhood or feelings he’d do more. It’s like a never-
which is what got him into the position in wherever, but they become a real ending circle that just comes and encloses
the first place. It was the Keith Richards- problem. But the stuff they do to get away in on you. I’ve always been happy with

Jimmy Page sort of thing. That’s what he from this bigger thing actually creates an who I am and what I do. I’ve always said
wanted to be, simple as. The drinking and even bigger problem for them. Me, Joe, there’s thousands of bass players that are
the drugs was part of the deal. Nearly as Phil and even Rick now, we’ve got to a technically better than me but I’m the best
much as playing the guitar. It wasn’t with point where there’s an individual security bass player Def Leppard could have, just
me. I liked being part of the scene but that allows you to not worry about what because it fits.

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