Page 72 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

WORDS: MARTIN KIELTY

Their massive-selling fourth album turned Def Leppard into one

of the biggest bands on the planet. But recording Hysteria took
the band to Hell and back – more than once.

ef Leppard were under no illusions you managed to get an idea down, you were proud of

the achievement rather than asking yourself whether
about what they wanted to do: they
it was a good idea. Playing it back months later you’d
wanted to become the biggest band in
wonder where your head had been. Besides, we’d
the world, and were prepared to do
whatever it took to achieve their
that for nearly two years. We had nothing to go on.
ambition. Perhaps if they’d known
exactly how much ‘whatever it took’ would turn out enjoyed Pyromania so much, and we’d been living with
But we knew the knives would be out.”
to be, they’d have knocked it on the head and got a job If you’re a band like Def Leppard, you already have Smiling all the way to the bank:
at B&Q. But it’s a good thing they didn’t, because the a lot of the machinery in place. You know about Steve Clark, Rick Allen, Joe Elliott,
album that resulted from their very real battle against constructing a song, you know about presenting ROSS HALFIN Rick Savage and Phil Collen.
extinction turned out to be one of the classic British drama and contrast, you know how to pitch the lyrics
rock albums. to give your audience the entertainment they’re Fortunately, they had Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange on
By February 1984 Def Leppard were already a big looking for. But, again, the caveat this time is that it’s board, the producer who had got so much out of
deal – well, in the USA anyway. The band that started got to be double-perfect, bang on the button. them in their two previous studio epics, High’n’Dry
out in a spoon factory in Sheffield had a respectable and Pyromania. In classic ‘sixth member’ mode, Lange
count of massive US gigs and six million sales of had already become part of the organisation and was
1983’s Pyromania to their name when they settled into “MUTT SAID: happy to work on co-writing. “A lot of bands don’t let
a shared house in Dublin to start the grand cycle all the producer in,” he commented. “Def Leppard let me
over again. ‘LET’S MAKE A right in.”
To say they were worried would be an Elliott is in no doubt of Lange’s value to Leppard:
understatement. The pressures of success come from “He taught us so much. He taught us not to steal from
all directions – fans, management, your label, all need ROCK VERSION one genre, but to steal from as many genres as
whatever you do next to be better than what you did possible – that’s how you make something unique.”
last. But no one can tell you how to achieve that. “Mutt said: ‘Let’s make a rock version of Thriller – an
Waking up after another drunken night in the city, OF THRILLER…’ album you can have seven singles off,’” guitarist Phil
drummer Rick Allen observed: “This is hysteria!” Collen said in 2002. “And we did. It was amazing. It
And, boom, they were off… was his idea. He made us better than we were.”
“We were scared,” singer Joe Elliott recounts. “We And so the album that would be Hysteria began
had absolutely nothing in the way of ideas. We’d AND WE DID.” taking shape. The first song to be written to anything
learned we couldn’t write on the road; you were doing like completion was Animal. And it set out the band’s
all these shows and interviews and appearances. If PHIL COLLEN stall big-time. Guitarists Collen and Steve Clark

70 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM