Prepare For The Return of...

DEF LEPPARD

1. Let's start with the producers. This time, you're using more than one  producer for one album. Which ones, and how did they get involved?

JOE: Well, first of all, we have Pete Woodroffe again. We have been working with Pete since 1988. During the middle of the HYSTERIA tour, we went to the Wisseloord studios in Hilversum, Holland, with the idea of auditioning Mike Shipley as a producer, rather than an engineer. Come the end of 1988, when the tour would have been finished, we were gonna be starting what turned out to be ADRENALIZE. Mutt wasn't gonna be available, and we kinda knew that. He just committed to writing some songs with us, and executive producing the album. So, Mike Shipley had been Mutt's engineer, and so we'd been working with him since HIGH 'N' DRY. Mike engineered that one, and Nigel Green mixed it with Mutt. PYROMANIA: Nigel engineered, Mike mixed. And then, HYSTERIA. Mutt did a lot of the engineering himself, working in different studios, and Shipley was involved in it, specifically the mixing of it as well. So Mike knew the history of the band, knew how we worked, knew the kind of sound we wanted, from a producer's point of view. Now, an engineer is normally just told which knobs to twiddle and how far to twiddle them. So, you need to find out with an engineer who's actually capable of taking that next step up to become a real producer.
So, we chose Mike to be the producer for ADRENALIZE, and then of course, he needed an assistant engineer -- and at that time, that was Pete Woodroffe. Basically, we worked three years on and off, with the Mike/Pete team. We've also recorded a bunch of B-sides with Pete, which turned out to be RETRO ACTIVE. We've recorded WHEN LOVE AND HATE COLLIDE with Pete, in the middle of recording the SLANG album, which we did with him. He also worked with us on the last album, EUPHORIA. So we've worked with him for more than a decade now, and that's why we also use him for this album.

The reason we're not using him as the only producer, is that we want to do a kind of "mix 'n' match" this time, rather than having it all come from the same production line, as it were.

So we decided, that when the opportunity arose, and Marti Fredericksen made it obvious that he wanted to work with us, we'd go for it. For everybody who doesn't know who he is; he was the second lead singer in Bonham, and he's done a lot of TV-stuff and soundtracks that I'm not overly familiar with. But he was the man behind the music of the ALMOST FAMOUS movie, like the voice of that band Stillwater. And, of course, he was the man behind the new Aerosmith album, JUST PUSH PLAY, and he's just wrapping up his contribution to the new Mick Jagger solo album.

And then we have Andreas Carlsson and Per Aldeheim from Sweden, who also wanted to work with us. They've worked with the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync, and although that may sound strange to a lot of you out there; Mutt has worked with Britney Spears, and people still ask us why we don't work with him. Mutt works with The Corrs, has worked with Billy Ocean, so he doesn't just do rock -- in fact, he doesn't even do rock anymore, he's moved on. Now as for Andreas and Per; these guys worked with Celine Dion, Britney Spears, N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, but..... They are the biggest DIO fans on the planet! Big rockheads! And so, we got this message that they wanted to do a song with us, so we accepted that. And you know, it was comical; we were at [Abba's] Polar Studios in Stockholm, early August, doing this song with them, and they kept asking Vivian to play [Dio's] THE LAST IN LINE! I got a bit of that on video, actually! I have been filming in the studio on and off, and I see no reason why, when all this footage is compliled, we can't put it on the web site in the future. But anyways, as much as Andreas and Per work in the pop field, they're huge rock fans, which is only a good thing.

Now, if a lot of people are wondering why we don't work with Mutt anymore; it's not that simple! It's not a case of a guy who will drop everything he's doing, just to work with Def Leppard. See, when we were in our early/mid 20s, it wasn't a problem for us to wait for Mutt to be available again. But, at this stage in our career, we haven't got the time, or the patience, or the opportunities, to sit around for three years, waiting for Mutt to be available, who then wouldn't necessarily be interested in doing it anyway! And, he's working on Shania's new album, and he worked on her album last time. So Mutt really doesn't just sit around and wait to produce Def Leppard - he has loads of different things on his mind. He also moved into songwriting territory, so it would be a case of him writing with us, rather than him producing us. On EUPHORIA, although Pete produced them, we co-wrote three songs with him. So, all in all, it's not a case of not wanting to work with Mutt again. The opportunities don't just always arise.

So that's about the producers' story! We are currently recording in two studios at once: I'm working with Pete here, in Dublin, and Vivian and Phil are back in LA, working with Marti.

2. So what about the songs..... What can you tell about those?

JOE: To go through them song-by-song, there isn't much point to it, cause nothing is that carved in stone at the moment! Also..... I'll be this honest. I'm not being funny by not giving away details, but if there's one thing that I think the Internet does, is that it can spoil the surprise of an album. It's not really fun for me, or anybody who buys the CD, to know what is actually on the album before it comes out. It's kinda like seeing a film that you know the ending of, or you know that the hero dies, but you don't necessarily know how.

I could tell you the song titles, I could tell you the tempos, I could even tell you the lyrics, but it would spoil the surprise! And that's the reason why we're not too keen on doing it..... I've also done this before, when I did an interview with Billboard magazine, which was read by somebody else, and one of the song titles got stolen and used before we actually got our record out! The title was way too original to be a coincidence..... It wasn't something like I LOVE YOU or LET'S ROCK TONIGHT!

Another thing is, that halfway through an album, one of the band members gets up one day, walks into the control room, and goes "This chorus is wrong, it needs rewriting". And usually, the title is in the chorus, so then the title changes. The result is that for the rest of your life, answering people outside hotels, "What happened to that song called.....?" and so we want to avoid that now.

About the sound of the album..... That's a difficult question to answer, cause I don't know how technical each individual is gonna read this. If I was to say, to use a very simple example, "This and that song has this very distorted guitar sound"..... There's a big difference between a distorted guitar sound by Keith Richards, and say, Tony Iommi! And ours falls somewhere like in between. We're always gonna have simplistic chords for simplistic melodies to go on, because we are, in essence, a rock band who play in the pop field. Always have been, and always will be, probably. Harmonies, cause we're still big fans of melody, and melody screams out for harmonies. Which was probably the reason why SLANG was, in some people's eyes, a bit radical or drastic a change, cause we almost left off all the harmonies. BLOOD RUNS COLD and BREATHE A SIGH were about the only two that had the obvious Leppard-like harmonies on them. The rest, we did it more like New York Dolls, or Sex Pistols, having only two harmonies, moronically monotone! But at the time, it was just our reaction to doing three albums of the same type, by moving away from that. Which was, in essence, what people were screaming for us to do, but as soon as we did, they wish we hadn't.

But in regards to the new album, it's certainly gonna be an energetic record -- it's gonna have ballads, it's gonna have mid-tempo songs, it's gonna have fast rockers. On EUPHORIA, we tried to cover every base. As fans ourselves, and for our fans..... You know, we had like KINGS OF OBLIVION, which kinda, if anything, leans towards HIGH 'N' DRY. I don't see there's gonna be a song like that on the new album. I think it's gonna be more simplistic, more like..... I hate to do this, cause I don't think there's gonna be a song that sounds like any previous Def Leppard song, but we'd rather lean towards another POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME, than lean towards another LET IT GO. But that's just where we are right now - we're not "riffing", we're "songing". What we've got right now, is much more into the songwriter aspect of it, great melodies, rather than "Wow, listen to this great riff!" So it's not necessarily gonna be a metal record, but neither is a Rolling Stones album! If you listen to BROWN SUGAR, you can hear that it's not heavy metal, but it rocks! So does JUMPING JACK FLASH. And START ME UP: they rock. If you listen to Train's DROPS OF JUPITER, it's not a metal record -- it's a rock record! And right now, we're into just making a good rock record that appeals to more than just someone with a Metallica T-shirt on.

3. Who wrote the majority of the songs this time? Are you responsible  for the lyrics?

JOE: It's an age old myth that the singer writes all the words. With us, it's whoever comes in with a great idea, and that works for the music as well. There are songs on every record we've made, where someone else has written bits of the lyrics. Mind you, I've written bits of the music! I mean, you only have to look at the songwriting credits of the recent years; Phil wrote certain songs on his own, like BREATHE A SIGH, and then there's things like WORK IT OUT, which was all Vivian. And on the last record, although it was credited to Phil and me, the title and the chorus of BACK IN YOUR FACE came from Phil and the rest from me. And then other stuff, Sav wrote everything, so he also did the lyrics as well.

Look at Queen..... Freddie Mercury wrote BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, Roger Taylor wrote RADIO GAGA, John Deacon wrote ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST, Brian May wrote NOW I'M HERE. You get more different variety with more different people writing.

You know, obviously, someone will get a credit for an entire song, even though I might suggest a three line change - I'm not gonna ask for a credit for that. If it improves the song, then that's what it does: it improves the song.

On this new album, there's hardly any individual writing. It's like everything is a group effort on this one, meaning the four actual songwriters (Viv, Sav, Phil and me). Plus, on occasions, the producers as well. We're not one of those bands that's precious on "Oh we can't have any outside writers in!" We've had outside writers since 1982, with Mutt helping out on PYROMANIA. And it's no big deal..... There's a very small amount of people out there who go "Wuuuuuh they can't write their own songs anymore" when they look at Aerosmith, or Bon Jovi. But HELLO...!!, who's in the charts right now? If that's what it takes to get a hit, then so be it. Look at everybody else in the charts, you'll find that the majority co-write with people. It's a team effort -- you can't do everything on your own. And if you do, it's usually very one-dimensional most of the time, or you're an absolute genius!! And then even with geniuses, like Prince, for example..... What happened to him over the last 10 years? Bowie's had his ups and downs commercially for being a songwriter on his own. Lou Reed never really had any success on a big scale, though we all know TRANSFORMER, but what has he really done since WALK ON THE WILDSIDE? And then you have your P.J. Harveys, and your Bjorks -- but even Bjork works in conjunction with other people. So we've never had a problem with that and we never will. Song Is King, and that's the be all and end all. Taking it to its full extreme, and this has been very well documented, my favorite song of all time is Mott The Hoople's ALL THE YOUNG DUDES. Written by David Bowie. Mott being around for a long time, never had a hit, Bowie writes a song for them, and they become huge! That never bothered any of their fans, it certainly never bothered ME. So that would be a yardstick for me, to like, not give a shit; MY favorite song was written FOR somebody BY somebody else.

It will be recognizable as Def Leppard, the same way that Limp Bizkit is recognizable to Limp Bizkit fans. Or Linkin Park are to Linkin Park fans, or Marilyn Manson to his fans. It changes a bit..... It moves on..... But it still has a recognizable sound. No artist should be embarrassed to be recognizable as himself, cause that's the reason to do it in the first place! I get annoyed when I hear artist act like "Ok, I've made this thing now, and now I have to make something that sounds nothing like what made me popular". The Waterboys did THE WHOLE OF THE MOON, which is one of the classic songs of all time. And Mike Scott shot himself in the foot, by making music that sounded so much NOT like it, it didn't even sound like The Waterboys anymore. Consequently, nobody bought it.

Working on the Cybernauts project recently did not directly leave an influence on us when we were writing for this album, but of course it had its bits. I mean, everything you do influences you - the way you step out of bed does, what you have for breakfast does..... I spent four and half months in the studio, doing the Cybernauts thing, so of course it did do something. I might pick up a guitar and play a chord sequence that's familiar, in a Bowie way. I've had Pete Woodroffe say to me, "say, that song that you've got, sounds a bit like Mott and Bowie", and I'm looking at him, going "I don't HEAR that!". But he does, so if it does influence me, I don't even notice that.

I'm sure some of my songs have some of it in them, but if you ask me if I wrote something that sounds like LIFE ON MARS..... Maybe I did. But will it make the record..... Maybe! We're not gonna be putting an album out that sounds like the Cybernauts, nor are we gonna be putting an album out that sounds like Bowie. There may be 30 or 40 seconds of a song, or a slight melody influence, or a lyrical reference, but generally, the whole thing will lean towards all different kinds of music.

 

4. Do you actually enjoy the process of working on the album, or is  it something you want to get it over with as soon as possible?

JOE: Without trying to sound miserable, I never enjoy making records! I never have and I never will, but that's part of it, and you get used to it, and you deal with it. I hate using analogies, but take the example of an undertaker. Somehow he has to justify to himself that he likes his job, but he's burying dead people, and dealing with their relatives that are extremely upset. Now of course, that's an extreme example of a job that I can't get my head 'round why anybody wants to do that kind of thing, other than the fact that there's guaranteed work.....

With music, the thing that I really get a massive hard-on for, is the actual CREATING. I love sitting down and starting a song, and going to bed with a half-finished song, thinking "Damn, this is gonna be great!", and then not being able to fall asleep, thinking about the bit that needs finishing -- whether it's one of my songs, or it's someone else's that I'm working on.

While working on it, after a while, you really get something going, and you get chills up your spine. And then you have to go in the studio, and record it. And that's the hard work, the bit that I don't like! Cause it has to be PERFECT. Perfect for our own standards, and for the fact that there are millions of people out there that will judge everything we do against HYSTERIA. It's so difficult to keep that energy level up all the time. Cause a lot of work went into that album back then, and we're not into doing songs like LOVE BITES or POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME again. Those took six months, and we don't want to do that anymore. Though, recording is getting easier all the time, with new studio equipment (like Pro Tools), experience, age, and you get better at it. Occasionally, you get tired of it, doing it that way.

You read many a times, the reason why people leave bands is because they get fed up with the album-tour-album-tour wheel. Luckily, so far, we didn't have to deal with that, because we always try to plan things, and after a tour, we take enough time off so that when it's time to get back into the studio, or writing, we are excited about it. We don't have to put up with a schedule from a record company who says "You have to make a new record now" -- they just take it when we deliver it. We are very lucky in that respect that we don't have to live by the pop band way of thinking. A Def Leppard record is finished when it's good enough, not necessarily for a specific time slot.

I can't really say I enjoy the whole recording process too much, because let's be honest: you're learning the song as you go along. And you don't always get it right the first time. So I can sometimes spend days singing a song, and I'll do it, and come 11 o'clock at night, me and Pete will have finished a vocal and think it's OK..... Then we get up in the morning and we listen to it, and I'll say "Ahhhhh, I don't know Pete, I think I can sing it better than that". And so we'll have to do it again, and the whole day before working on it, appears to be a wasted day. But, it's not REALLY wasted, cause you have to convince yourself that what you did yesterday, was a learning process, to do it again today, only twice as well. And that's how it works most of the time. There's very few songs that you go in and get it done first time. We go back and redo all kinds of shit, from the drum sound, the bass sound, the guitar parts, the guitar sound, the vocal performance, the sound of it, the attitude, etcetera. It happens that on this and that song, the vocals sound tired because I've been doing it for six days in a row, then I take a weekend off, start recording it and I breeze through it on just a couple of hours, banging stuff down.

It's a very frustrating method of work. The fun part is the writing of it, and going out playing it live. WHEN people recognize it, cause maybe it's been a hit, you then see some fruition in your art. Then it's come to it's logical conclusion. We go on stage and play the opening of POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME, and thousands of people go ballistic. Between the day that song was born, to the day we play it live, there can be maybe 15 years in it, but it justifies that what you did. And then you can go on stage, like we did on the last tour, play the opening riff of PROMISES, and the place goes nuts cause the song's been on the radio for six weeks solid. And that is only a couple of months between creation and playing, but with the same effect. Now, that is all justified and makes us believe that it was worth all the effort.

But when we record, we have to pretend we know it's all gonna be worth the effort in nine months time. However, of course we all know that sometimes a great record falls through the cracks because there's no record company staff, or that the radio doesn't play it. It has happened to thousands of bands out there. Someone out there reading this, has got a record in their collection and they are about the only ones who bought it, and they're loving it to death, but they're not able to figure out why it hasn't sold 10 million! There are loads of people going through that. We have to justify (in the present tense!) when we make a record, that in a year's time, all the effort's gonna be worthwhile. That is not a pleasant experience, cause it's like waiting for your exam results. Taking the exam ain't that bad, it's the weeks of waiting for the results to come in. That's what it's like making a record, it's tough. Writing is the equivalent of taking the exam, recording is the equivalent of the waiting, and the shows are like getting the results.

I don't want people to get the impression that we're all sitting around being miserable, and not enjoying it. It's enjoyable, but like having a workout; you want your pecs to pop out, you want a six-pack, but you have to be in the gym for four hours a day to get that. Hard work, but you know you're gonna get something back for it, and then the hard work is not such a big deal. With us, that's luckily the way it is.

Every guy who's in this band, was BORN to be in a band, that's the magic ingredient, a chemistry. You can't buy that, you can't advertise that in a magazine: "Bass player wanted, must have the right chemistry". It doesn't happen like that -- you either got it or you don't. And we're fortunate - even if it all fell apart tomorrow, at least we've had it for 22 years. With and without Pete, Steve and Vivian. The majority has always worked, in different ways. It's a good feeling.....

Writing it is fun. Playing it live is fun. Recording it is..... a necessary evil.

5. Now that you actually have an interactive web site, where the contact with the fans is much closer than ever before, will you  take the opportunity to ask the fans for their opinions on what  you're working on?

JOE: No, because if we would have polls, it's too inaccurate. For example..... You very often see opinion polls for political reasons, when they go to a certain town, and ask a thousand people which candidate they're gonna vote for. Who's to say that they didn't walk into an area that was completely biased towards one person? Then that whole opinion goes nationwide, and says 97% are gonna vote for Bush, and 3% are gonna vote for Gore. But, since they've gone into a Bush area, the poll is all wrong when it claims that it's representing the entire nation.

A band has to have the ultimate right to get it wrong, though we hope we don't. It's our decision alone what makes the record and what doesn't. I'm sorry if that sounds cruel or rude, but that's how it's always been. There are examples though where we have listened to management or record company people, as they are close enough to the band to know what we're doing, at that moment in time.

Great example: WHEN LOVE & HATE COLLIDE was a huge hit in Europe, Britain, Far East. You may not know this, but it was rejected for the ADRENALIZE album. It was only on someone else's advice that we did that record. Now me and Sav loved it, cause we wrote it, and everybody loves their own baby! It got rejected NOT because it wasn't a good enough song, it got rejected cause we already had two ballads. And you know what? I'm glad it WAS rejected because it gave VAULT a breath of fresh air. But, at the time, in 1991/1992, there were people within the band that thought the song wasn't justified for the record. And the same thing went with TWO STEPS BEHIND -- it was there during the making of ADRENALIZE, but nobody stood up and said it should be on the album. It was a hit a year later, by accident. Same thing with MISS YOU IN A HEARTBEAT. Phil came with that song, nobody really stood up for it, so he gave it to Paul Rodgers. We did it later, and it went to number 2 in Canada.

So, from that point of view, the whole "get the fans in" thing won't work for us, cause opinions differ and might even be wrong. We have a big enough problem getting A&R people involved. An A&R man doesn't necessarily know the history of the group, doesn't always understand where we're coming from. We've tried to embrace certain people in the past, but sometimes they've been so off the mark, so wrong about what we believe in, and where we see ourselves going, that it wasn't even funny. In those situations, we just had to say "look, we're sorry, but you have to leave, cause you're wrong and you don't know what you're talking about!!"

However, I'll say this right now..... It is an idea to give the fans the opportunity to give suggestions for the album title. We do have an idea for the title, one that we are actually using as a working title. We may even go with it. BUT, if somebody comes up with a better one, we would use it -- and give him or her a namecheck on the album sleeve. The title we have in mind will stay under wraps for now, but we're willing to take suggestions. I'm sure some will come up with "WE ROCK" or "METAL FOREVER"..... If you're thinking about sending in that kind of thing, don't bother! (note from webmaster: fans were able to send in their suggestions until November 30)

Now if we would have several designs of artwork, we COULD ask the people who visit the site for their opinions on which one to use, but we have to be a bit more diplomatic about that, in regards to the management and record company. To take the decision away from people who do it for a living and give it to people who do it because they think it's a fun competition, is a little bit arrogant, I think. If a band and record company think it's a good idea, all well and good, but I don't know if it would work for us though.

At the same time, we've never HAD six different pieces of artwork to choose from, so I wouldn't know what it's like to do that. We did have several similar designs for the EUPHORIA sleeve (as you can see in the GALLERY section on this site), but they were not a million miles apart from each other, they were more like a working theme. I wouldn't rule out doing it..... But I can't tell right now, that when the time comes to choose artwork, there'll actually be six pieces to choose from. The only time we've ever had that two or three to choose from, was RETRO ACTIVE. And that was because we were in such a rush to get that thing done, that we used artwork that was knocking around. In other words, we used existing stuff that was put together by different companies, rejected by other artists. It also happened the other way around -- we rejected something, and I saw it six months later when it was used by another band. It was offered to us for RETRO ACTIVE and we thought "Jeez, some people got no taste"..... And as soon as we saw the old Victorian woman/skull/bottles/mirror thing, we thought that it was great.

For EUPHORIA, the idea was that we wanted something "simple". We were desperate for something over a black background. What gave us the idea for that, was a double page advertisement for a record shop, around Christmas, all these records were on sale for like 9.99, and all the sleeves shown were about as big as a postage stamp. The one cover that stood out amongst 20 or 30 that were on the two pages, was ABBA. It was just a black background, with gold lettering in the middle, and it just went whoomp! -- in your face! "Buy me!", that's what it did. So we sat down and thought, that's what we should have. We made a record that was us, we used the old logo again, and said "Let's just use that one across the middle against a dark blue background". And then, obviously, it evolved, like if we would do that, why not put three lights behind it. So it did get "bastardized" as time went along, but that was about the way it worked for us. We really wanted something basic, not something like a Pink Floyd sleeve, where you'd have a guy in a pram floating through space or something. All EUPHORIA sleeve suggestions we got were all based around a similar thing.

6. Do you see yourself making many more albums after this one, or will it depend on how album #10 will be received?

JOE: It doesn't depend on how well the album's gonna do, it depends on if we feel like doing it. I don't want to people to get the impression that we are coming to the end of our run here. I would've said that, if this question would've been asked after PYROMANIA. You know, most bands have about five years in 'em. We've already had 22 or something! As long as we feel comfortable doing it, and as long as there's a point to doing it, we'll do it. With all due respect to the following bands, I don't want to end up like Poison, Cinderella or Dokken. I don't want to go out and play the Coconut Teaser, and hold my stomach in, because that seems to be the only way to go out there. It's not my thing, and of course, it shouldn't be anybody's thing! So if we can keep the vitality going that, say, U2 has, and Aerosmith, or Bon Jovi..... They're good yardsticks for us. Three working bands that make records, sell records, and sell tours. They still look good, they still write good songs. If we're still deemed by our public to do the same thing, then we can carry on doing it. If the excitement is still there for us as well.

A lot of that rubs off with the response you get from a record. If an album comes out, and it just dies, it's getting really shit reviews, and the audience don't buy it, it's gonna depress you to the point where you wonder what the point is of making another one. And I've seen that happen to people, but luckily, it's never happened to us. So.....

We're still contracted to the record company for way more than just this album. As long as they feel comfortable with it, and we feel comfortable with it, and the audience keeps buying our records, and we keep making good enough records for them to wanna buy them, we'll keep going. It's all a ircle, and depending on us making a good record, and the people out there getting the chance to hear it, and then deciding to go out and buy it. A pretty simple transaction, if you ask me! They have to know it's there. And once they know it, they have to be in a position to be able to hear it, on the radio or on MTV or VH-1, and then go "Yeah, that sounds like the kinda thing I wanna buy!" and they go out and buy it.

We just want to deliver a kickass album with kickass songs. We make music and records, first and foremost because we like to make music. And that's what we do for a living. We don't do it to make money, we don't need to anymore. We didn't do it for the money in the first place, but we were very fortunate to sell loads of records and tickets.

But of course, we still have our everyday things that everybody else has to deal with. That sometimes gets reflected in songs, but most of the time, we write songs not based on any specific incident, or feeling that the band are going through, and without any specific message. We write it like a fictional novel, or a film script, BASED on reality. For example, with WHEN LOVE & HATE COLLIDE, I've had people come up to me, saying "I could feel your pain, man". And I'm like "Um, it wasn't MY pain". I just know that people can relate to a song about a couple that's going through a bad time. Because everybody on the planet has been there and done that.

So consequently, we've rarely written songs that are so personal to a situation that it became a Bob Dylan song, or like THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE by Neil Young or something. GODS OF WAR was an observation of the futility of East vs. West back in the 80s. You know, "you've got 300 bombs pointing at me so I'll have 300 bombs pointing at you". Our song was about, why not get rid of them all? DIE HARD THE HUNTER was kind of an Englishman's perspective on what the Vietnam war did to people, and the veterans coming back to the States, while the war was still going on in their heads. By coincidence, it also fit in perfectly with the Falklands crisis. It doesn't make us a political band and it also doesn't make us bandwagon-jumpers either. Of course, here and there are some songs about some real situations. BLOOD RUNS COLD was pretty much about Steve, as was WHITE LIGHTNING. And FROM THE INSIDE was about young kids in Dublin, hooked on drugs (obviously, the song was from the drugs' point of view). Other than that, most of the time, we just make it up. Just like all the classic songs you've ever heard. LOVE ME DO by The Beatles was very unlikely written about one specific person. I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND, same thing. When Mick Jagger wrote ANGIE, he may have used the name based on a person (rumor goes that it was Angie Bowie), but generally, it was just a love song and "Angie" just happened to be a great word to stick in there, I would imagine that's more likely the truth. Obviously, everything that's fictional is based on fact. Unless it's like "outta space" type of stuff. You watch an episode of Law And Order or something like that, all the actual law that gets acted out in that show, is based on real fact. If somebody does a certain crime on the show, and they go to jail, the number of years they'll get sentenced to, would be an accurate amount if it would have been a REAL case. It's the same thing when we write a song -- when I write "I really love you, you're fantastic, and I wanna spend the rest of my life with you", it doesn't necessarily mean I'm talking about one specific person. I'm singing it, so that other people can sing or say it to their partners. You read very often that EVERYTHING I DO (I DO IT FOR YOU) by Bryan Adams is THE wedding song of all time. Just because it was very cleverly written by Mutt and Bryan, to touch people's emotions, and that's what music and lyrics are supposed to do.

Songs don't have to be documentaries, they can be fictional. Look at The Green Mile, the movie. It's obviously not real. But that big guy -- you feel so bad for him, cause he's so cuddly!! Tom Hanks is even touched, thinking "how can this be happening, this mouse lives for a hundred years", and the "bad guy" takes people's pain away and he turns out not the be the bad guy after all cause he didn't do anything wrong. I saw people crying in the cinema. They KNOW when they walk into that room that it's a movie. But what you do, is suspend reality for a couple of hours. And what we do with a song, is suspend reality for three or four minutes. And we create a scenario, or situation, that hopefully people can relate to. Whether it'd be saying "we're gonna rock this town tonight", which is, of course, a song written to perform on a stage, or whether it'd be LOVE BITES, where someone can listen to the lyrics, and relate to a guy or a girl the person is thinking about. With WHEN LOVE & HATE COLLIDE..... When someone is in an apologetic mood cause he or she stormed out on their partner, and they wants to make up, but don't know how..... "Instead of slamming down the phone for the 100th time"..... Some people might think "Hey, that's ME, it happened to me last week!" -- all of a sudden, they relate to the song, whether it's real or make believe is irrelevant.

7. How much of the album is actually finished now? Are you halfway?

JOE: That's a loaded question, cause you can be finished with all the recording, and it'll still take six weeks to mix. Or, you could have 9 songs written, recorded and mixed, but you're still three songs short. It depends on what kind of album you're making. For us, we're nowhere near finished, but we're not at the front of it either. We are, genuinely, trying to get the record finished, for the end of the year. Now, that might also mean that we're recording the last bits in January, and that we start mixing February or March.

One thing's certain: we want to be out on tour next Summer. That's a fact. Now, that's what we WANT. Whether we achieve it, is another matter. We may have to readdress that in a couple months' time. But as we speak right now, that's what we're trying to do.

Now, even if we DO manage to have it finished around December, January, February, then it's still gonna take another three or four months before it will be released, cause you have to set up the press, to set up the tour, everything else. So many things have to be taken care of, regarding promotion mostly, BEFORE the release. If we could be omnipresent, and go to 20 different countries in one day, we would do it. But, 20 countries takes at least 30 days. And you have to arrange all of that, and make sure it's arranged before the record comes out.

We're working in two or three different studios at once, getting stuff done, or at least trying to. But it can get frustrating, cause you're working on a song, and you think you've got it written, and then it gets changed..... One step forward, three steps backwards. Sometimes it's three steps forward and one step back. You're bothered by that one step back, but you've still gone two steps forward in the end.

Now, when the record's finally done, obviously we have to start thinking about videos and touring, and we'll be playing as many places as possible.

There's another reason for the album to come out in April or May, because when the first single comes out before the album, we want to do Top Of The Pops in England, and all the equivalents of it, in Belgium, Holland, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland..... You name it! So we're gonna do the TV stuff. Now to do that, takes a long time. It creates a goodwill, which means we could go back and do an possible European tour in the autumn of 2002 or something like that. Basically, we will tour everywhere people want us.

8. Which band is best carrying the spirit of Def Leppard's music today?

JOE: I don't think any band is. There's not really any other band out there that I hear us in. If anything, I hear us being avoided in other band's music, even. As in "we don't wanna sound like Def Leppard so this is the way we're gonna do it". The nearest band that I've heard, that could actually slightly be representative of us, or that would slightly remind me of us, is Creed. About the only ones, to be honest.

Having said that, I saw a video the other night of The Offspring, a song called MILLION MILES AWAY, and it's completely like WASTED, unbelievable! Give or take a note or two, it's the same riff! I was kinda flattered, really.

Of course, a recent example of another artist doing something BY us, would be Emm Gryner's version of POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME. She does backing vocals for David Bowie, when she's not doing her own thing. She's a big Leppard fan, and Bowie's producer/bass player, Mark Plati, said that I should meet her, so I did, after a gig, and she told me she was a big fan and that we were the reason she got into music and all. A really nice girl. And then she mentioned that she did a cover of POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME on piano, and I was like "no way!", so she sent me a copy, and it absolutely got our thumbs up.

Now, famous last words..... Thanks to everybody getting VAULT to number one in the Billboard Catalogue charts -- where have you been for the last six years, hahaha! It just goes to show, it reawakens people. The movie comes out, and then somebody comes out and says "You know what, I really LIKE that band", whereas it used to be "I LIKED that band" - they just take the D off, and then all of a sudden, it's in the present tense again. The fact that it's never really been out of the Top 20 in six years, is a testament on how popular this band actually is.

So, thanks everybody, and I hope we don't disappoint anybody when this new album comes out and that people stick with us!