Page 92 - Classic Rock - The Complete Story of Def Leppard 2019

PHIL COLLEN

finally, on my 16th birthday, I got this
Gibson SG, which was a big deal because
they didn’t have a lot of money and went

into debt to get it for me.

You didn’t have any lessons, correct?
No, I didn’t have any lessons. My buddy at

school showed me a barre chord and the
rest I got out of a book. Everything else I
got playing along to the records. So I had
the best teachers in the world – Jimi
Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page

and Mick Ronson. But I could just sit in a
room and pick it up pretty quick, not
because I was such a great student but
because the stuff I really liked seemed easy

to pick up. I didn’t learn whole songs, but
how to play a riff, a bit of a solo… I never
ever said, “Right! I’m going to learn the
chord book and all these covers.”

How long was it from doing that to
being in your first band?
I was in a band before I could play. I had
three chords and I could almost do this

barre chord and we set up in the front
room. My birthday is December 8 and by
Christmas I had a band going. It was really
horrible, but it was great!

Did the band have a name?
Yeah, we did the old atlas thing where you
open it at any page at random and point
to a place with your eyes closed.
Whoever’s finger it was landed up in

Canada on a place called Moosejaw. We Flame on: Collen
onstage at Ulster GEORGE BODNAR ARCHVE/ICONICPIX
thought, “Oh shit!” but we had to call Hall, Belfast,
ourselves whatever the finger landed on. during 1983’s
Pyromania tour.
So Moosejaw it was…

Both Girl albums are currently out of royalties. So… no clue!
You found slightly more success as a print on CD, with old copies being sold
member of Dumb Blondes wearing lots with hefty pricetags by internet It must have been odd when the
of makeup. How long did that last? retailers. How come? And who owns singer in the band, Phil Lewis, rocked
That lasted a few years, actually. We were the rights? up with Rod Stewart’s ex, Britt Ekland,

a kind of post-glam punk hard rock I have no idea. When Jet Records got on his arm?
group. We wrote really stupid songs with gobbled up by CBS I kind of lost track, That band was interesting, we had so many
dumb lyrics but it as great fun... not that we ever got paid anything in girls around us. We were from London
and London had a different scene. We
THERE WAS A TIME IN BIARRITZ didn’t do the rock thing like other bands.

We were hanging out with models and
IN FRANCE WHERE I BOUGHT actresses and directors. Some of these
directors would go to these gay bars
THE WHOLE BAR A ROUND OF and there would be all these amazing

women there. When the success started
DRINKS THEN PULLED MY to happen with Def Leppard I expected
things to go crazy in that department, but

TROUSERS DOWN. the calibre of women we saw in Girl was
way higher – even when Leppard were

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