Page 66 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

RICK ALLEN

Cream… just anything that was fun to
play. We had a girl singer and were a
pretty decent jamming band.

Did you play barefoot in those days?
I did, I did! It was basically just from
rolling out of bed and sitting there stark

bollock naked playing drums because
I was too lazy to put any clothes on.

That’s an image I’d like to quickly move

on from…
Yeah, of course. You can’t unsee that,
right? Ha ha!

How did your Def Leppard audition

come about?
I ended up leaving Rampant and joined
the Johnny Kalendar Band – another
covers outfit. That became a bit of a pain
in the arse because they just wanted to

take the money and run instead of putting
money back into the band an invest in our
future. Remember, they were all a lot
older than me. Finally, at the ripe old age

of 14, I got fed up and was ready to ‘end it
all’, ha-ha.
I’m unloading my stuff from the van
after a show. I was just getting it all to the
top of the steps by our house and getting

really frustrated. I started throwing bits of
it back down the steps and started
exclaiming: “I’m done, I don’t want to do
this any more!”
Right at this moment my mum said: MAIN IMAGE: GETTY

“I’ve just seen this article in the Sheffield
Star about a band looking for a drummer.
So do you want me to call?” I ended up I can’t remember his name. They asked got a job and he’s doing really well.” The
going down to town and meeting Joe and me if I wanted to go first, I said no, and school said: “Let him finish his
Sav in the toilets of the Limit club – which instead listened to the two of them play – schoolwork and then he can go back to

we all used to frequent. The only place on my drum kit, I’ll have you know – and that.” But my parents insisted: “If he does
quiet enough to talk when the bands were got to learn the songs well enough to be that this opportunity may be gone, so our
on was in the toilets. Unfortunately they able to get up and impress the guys. I was suggestion would be to take him out of
had a bit of a plumbing problem so the the last to go, there were big smiles all school and see out the end of term with a

entire floor was just covered in… I don’t over the room and that was it – I got the tutor.” I ended up with a tutor in Scotland
know what, but it didn’t smell very good. job. That was November 1978. – because the term ended earlier up there!
When me and Steve and Joe got talking, When I think back they must have
it turned out we realised that we’d all been You’d just turned 15 – what about realised: “This kid’s not going to be a brain
to the same concerts – Thin Lizzy, Sweet, leaving school? surgeon. But he can count to four…” –

Slade, Alex Harvey Band, Mott The My parents were really cool. Def Leppard which is a virtue when you’re in a band
Hoople – so we had something in took off really quickly. But there were and they come in… sometimes, ha ha!
common right from the word go and they legal stipulations around someone of my That happened all across the board in
invited me down to their rehearsal rooms age doing this sort of work and being at Leppard. Joe’s parents were the same.

a couple of days later… school at the same time. I was only They mortgaged their house. My parents
When I got there, there were two other allowed to do a certain amount of this put a bunch of money on. Everybody
drummers, one of them being Tony before the authorities got involved. stepped up. They just wanted to see us
Kenning, the original drummer, and So my parents went to my school and succeed. Without our parents, none of
another chap who played left-handed but sat with the headmaster and said: “He’s this would have happened.

64 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM