Def Leppard

[RichardNixon]

Willis did play on "Pyromania." Look inside the booklet. He's listed as playing on "backing tracks on all songs". He also co-wrote four of the albums ten songs. Come to think of it, if Willis played on the album, I'm not sure what Collen was left to do, though he's credited as playing guiar too.

Liked VC's work with Dio.

[Izzy]

Apparently the reason he was fired was because his solo in Photograph was so bad.....

[RichardNixon]

Apparently the reason he was fired was because his solo in Photograph was so bad.....

His solo in "Photograph" is better than all the cheese DL has released since.

"Slang" is really the only post-Clake CD that I like.

[Izzy]

Apparently the reason he was fired was because his solo in Photograph was so bad.....

His solo in "Photograph" is better than all the cheese DL has released since.

No, the solo on Photgraph isn't his - after all it rocks!

Apparently his version was awful and they fired him and got Phil or Steve to do a new solo....

[Izzy]

I bought Dio's HolY Diver album to get an idea on what Vivian Cambell can actually do (hell, he hasn't shown anything good for Leppard...)

[Neemo]

I just picked up Def Leppards "Rock of Ages" and it's awesome!!! I haven't heard most of these songs in years (I actually didn't own anything by them at all) I stopped listening to them after Adrenalize was released, but before that they kicked ass. They've had a few decent tunes since but nothing to match early stuff. High and Dry used to be my FAVORITE album. (before GnR existed )

Phil Collen turned out to be a really good song writer for them too, and Joe Elliott has always been in there too. But no doubt that Steve was an awesome musician and his death really hurt the band. I think he brought the most 'hard rock' to the band.

[Izzy]

I just picked up Def Leppards "Rock of Ages" and it's awesome!!!

Indeed - as 'best of's' go its got a damn good track list (i imported it, i got all three 'best of's'....)

[Malcolm]

DEF LEPPARD's official web site has been updated with a brand new interview with the group's frontman Joe Elliott. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Q: What was your general impression of the "Rock of Ages" tour?

Joe: "From our point of view, it was definitely an extremely big success! I was a little sceptical at first about co-headlining with anybody. As much as we did have a lot of fun playing with BRYAN ADAMS, to me it was kind of like, 'OK, does this mean we've lost our standing to a point where we're not capable of headlining?' But once I sucked it up, I got it. I thought it worked fine for COUNTING CROWS and LIVE ? didn't seem to do them any harm to go out together, and it certainly didn't do BOB DYLAN and WILLIE NELSON any harm either. No one ever thought any of them weren't able of going out on their own. So once I got my head around it, it all worked out fine and from all points of view it was a roaring success!"

Q: Were you OK with the fact that you were touring on the back of a "best of" album?

Joe: "Yeah, a bit. We didn't have no new material to promote (save one new track on the 'Rock of Ages' album), so for me, it was a bit like treading nostalgia ? which is the one thing that I've always promised myself we'd never do! I don't really want to do that, ever. So we all insisted that we'd do at least a couple of things we'd never do before. In the 85 minutes that we'd get to play our set, we chose to do the two song from our upcoming covers album. 'No Matter What' was also on the 'Rock Of Ages' album, of course, and then there was 'Rock On'. So besides all the hits, we did manage to present some new material as well, which was OK."

Q: After co-headlining with BRYAN ADAMS for a bunch of shows, you turned headliner around September? How come?

Joe: "In all fairness, and with absolutely no disrespect to Bryan, it was pretty obvious we had to be the headline act. At the beginning, nobody knew how it was gonna go but judging by all kinds of things, such as T-shirt sales or the reaction on ticket sales, most of the people were coming to see us. Because of that, the band's confidence went up a lot of course! The promoter's confidence in the band goes up, people wanna book you back, put you in bigger venues.....and all of a sudden we're playing the New Jersey Continental Airlines Arena again!"

Q: Could this tour with BRYAN ADAMS have worked in Europe?

Joe: "It's very different... He suffers in America the way we suffer in Europe. If this tour would've taken place in Europe, we'd definitely be opening for him, no doubt. He still plays stadiums in Europe, but can't really do that in America."

Q: You changed management in the middle of the tour. Was that good timing?

Joe: "It was very stressful! It turned out to be really hard, since there's a lot of history with (previous management) QPrime. As much as there's been a lot of frustration with the way they wanted to promote the band, I think that their version of us had grown apart from our version of us. Doing the whole switchover thing to HK Management was really difficult. One or two of us are not necessarily as brave to make a massive decision like this in the middle of the tour ? you don't need the hassle. It wasn't overly pleasant to do it, but we dealt with it."

Q: On to this year, then. What are your plans, expectations and hopes?

Joe: "The only thing that's really set in stone is that we're having a photo shoot for the new album next week and after that, we're taking some time to get away from all this. Even though it's been quiet since the tour ended, we have been working so we need a little time off, write some songs and then collectively get together after that. The idea is, we got this covers album pretty much in the can already. We can start working on the next one so we can leapfrog ourselves. And instead of having lots of downtime, by the time we go out on the road on the next tour, we might have got half of the next album written ? some of it even recorded, who knows! With that, when we go start working on the next record, we're a step ahead of ourselves. Put it like this..... with the BRYAN ADAMS tour, we had two identical stages. When we were playing a show, the stage for the next show was already being set up because if we would have only one stage, there wouldn't be time to disassemble the stage, ship it to the next town and build it up there within one day. So when we were playing one show, the other stage was traveling or being set up in the next town already. Basically, the Friday stage would be used on the Sunday gig. The Saturday stage would be used on the Monday show, and so forth. We're trying to do that with the albums as well now. Does that make sense?"

Q: What's the current status on "Yeah!" the long-awaited covers album and the subsequent tour?

Joe: "I think it's still scheduled for release in May, so organizing promo might be starting around March already. It's not gonna be full-on right away, but more like a day here, a day there, a weekend here, a week there..... We're supposed to be going out on the road in the summer, but keep in mind that there are places where we can get too soon. For a band to play a town where they just played some 4-6 months ago, you have got to be U2 or GREEN DAY, for people to want to see you again so soon. For us to go out this summer, it's gotta be something really special, so we have to make a big deal prepping this properly."

[Thorned Rose]

Pete Willis "left" the band because he was a drunk... and that's what happened.

He was a decent guitarist and they could probably use him now.

On Campbell... I think he's alright, but not a Steve Clark.

Did anyone else here like Slang? Or am I the only one? Most people hate that album. I really like it.

[Rob]

Yeah, I hated Slang.  It sounded like boy band shit to me.

[Malcolm]

DEF LEPPARD and JOURNEY will be teaming up for a U.S. tour this summer. No dates have been confirmed at this time.

[Mr. Dick Purple]

I bought Dio's HolY Diver album to get an idea on what Vivian Cambell can actually do (hell, he hasn't shown anything good for Leppard...)

I thought the same thing, he was supposed to bring a more heavy vibe to Leppard but it was too high hopes 

[Malcolm]

DEF LEPPARD will kick off their 2006 summer North American tour on June 23 at the Tweeter Center in Camden, New Jersey.

After last year's success of co-headlining with BRYAN ADAMS, the 2006 trek will see DEF LEPPARD co-headline with JOURNEY (plus other guests will appear at selected shows). Tickets for some shows will go on sale through Ticketmaster on April 1.

Upcoming DEF LEPPARD tour dates:

Jun. 03 - Milan, ITA - Gods Of Metal
Jun. 07 - Oberhausen, GER - Rock The Nation
Jun. 09 - S?lvesborg, SWE - Sweden Rock
Jun. 12 - Z?rich, SWI - Hallenstadion
Jun. 17 - Sheffield, UK - Hallam FM Arena
Jun. 18 - London, UK - Hammersmith Apollo
Jun. 23 - Camden, NJ - Tweeter Center
Jun. 24 - Wantagh, NY - Jones Beach
Jun. 27 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center
Jun. 28 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun
Jun. 30 - Scranton, PA - Toyota Pavilion
Jul. 01 - Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata
Jul. 03 - Hershey, PA - Hershey Pavilion
Jul. 04 - Raleigh, NC - Alltel Pavilion
Jul. 07 - Bristow, VA - Nissan Pavilion
Jul. 08 - Virginia Beach, VA - Verizon Amphitheatre
Jul. 10 - West Palm Beach, FL - Sound Advice Amphitheatre
Jul. 11 - Tampa, FL - Ford Amphitheatre
Jul. 13 - Atlanta, GA - Chastain PArk
Jul. 15 - Charlotte, NC - Verizon Amphitheatre
Jul. 16 - Nashville, TN - Starwood Amphitheatre
Jul. 18 - Minneapolis, MN - Target Center w/Journey
Jul. 19 - Chicago, IL - First Midwest Bank Amp
Jul. 21 - St. Louis, MO - UMB Bank Pavilion
Jul. 22 - Indianapolis, IN - Verizon Music Theatre
Jul. 24 - Detroit, MI - DTE Music Theater
Jul. 25 - Cincinnati, OH - Riverbend Music Center
Jul. 28 - San Antonio, TX - Verizon Amphitheatre
Jul. 29 - Dallas, TX - Smirnoff Music Centre
Jul. 30 - Houston, TX - C.W. Mitchell Pavilion
Aug. 15 - Denver, CO - Red Rocks
Aug. 18 - Las Vegas, NV - Mandalay Bay
Aug. 19 - Irvine, CA - Verizon Amphitheatre
Aug. 22 - Phoenix, AZ - Cricket Pavilion
Aug. 23 - San Diego, CA - Coors Amphitheatre
Aug. 25 - Concord, CA - Chronicle Pavilion
Aug. 26 - Mountainview, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre
Aug. 27 - Sacramento, CA - Sleep Train Amphitheatre
Aug. 30 - Portland, OR - Clark County Amphitheatre
Aug. 31 - Seatlle, WA - White River Amphitheatre

[Thorned Rose]

My only chance is to see them in NASHVILLE on the 16th. I can't afford tickets on the 1st of April though.

[Izzy]

I'm seeing them in London, yey

[SLCPUNK]

DEF LEPPARD and JOURNEY will be teaming up for a U.S. tour this summer. No dates have been confirmed at this time.

Tickets go on sale this Saturday for the Tampa show.

I'll be up nice and early to snatch them up.

[Graciela]

I'm seeing them in London too. Def Leppard and Tool, same week, same place. Busy week

[Origen]

Jun. 17 - Sheffield, UK - Hallam FM Arena
Jun. 18 - London, UK - Hammersmith Apollo

Great to see them back home in the UK. I wish they would come across more often.

[Malcolm]

DEF LEPPARD have confirmed another batch of North American tour dates with JOURNEY. The newsly added shows are as follows:

Sep. 02 - Boise, ID @ Idaho Center
Sep. 03 - Reno, NV @ Events Center
Sep. 06 - Kansas City, KS @ Verizon Wireless Amp
Sep. 07 - Ames, IA @ Hilton Coliseum
Sep. 09 - Milwaukee, WI @ Marcus Amphitheatre
Sep. 10 - Columbus, OH @ Germain Amphitheatre
Sep. 12 - Cleveland, OH @ Blossom
Sep. 13 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Post Gazette Pavilion
Sep. 16 - Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga PAG
Sep. 19 - Uncasville, CT @ Mohegan Sun
Sep. 20 - Buffalo, NY @ Darien Center PAC
Sep. 22 - Atlantic City, NJ @ Borgata Hotel
Sep. 23 - Boston, MA @ Tweeter Center

[oldgunsfan]

They were great till the drummer lost his arm....loved On thru the Night, high n Dry and pyromania