Post by Wicked Angel on Dec 3, 2007 5:09:57 GMT -5
JOE ELLIOTT - EXHAUSTIVE AND EXTENSIVE, PART 1
.
What's your general feeling when you look back at the 2007 tour?
It was spectacular! Styx and Foreigner were great, there is the same kind of vibe that we had with Journey last year. They're all easy to work with - no egos! Or at least, I haven't come across any at all.
This whole tour seemed to do all three bands a world of good, and since we got great crowds without even promoting a record, I find that very encouraging - considering next year, when we WILL be touring on the back of a record. A tour like this gets us on various TV shows, which is a lot better than having a video on MTV nowadays.
.
Any high- or low points that come to mind?
One of the low points was the Raleigh gig, that had to be cancelled about 7 minutes before Foreigner were scheduled to take the stage. What happened was, this microburst came through and went literally underneath the stage....but over it at the same time! It kinda grabbed it all like a hand and tore the plastic off the top. Of course, it was raining, so in some areas behind the drums there were 3-4 inches deep puddles.
With all the electronics and equipment, it was just too dangerous for the band, crew and audience - water and electricity just don't mix. Twelve people were injured by flying debris, so we couldn't risk any more and so there was absolutely no choice other than to cancel.
.
Not very common for Def Leppard!
We rarely had to cancel any gigs...in fact, in 2005 we cancelled the show in Camden due to bad weather and that was the first time we had to cancel a show in the first place. For this one, we were determined to reschedule. This was possible, but only if we would do four nights in a row, which we generally don't do.
I don't see any benefit in that, except from a financial point of view maybe....but after all these years I don't do it for the money! I'd like to be at the best I can. Expecting us to play four nights in a row is like expecting a professional sportsman to play four games in a row - you need the recovery time. But in the end we did it -- doing that plus all the traveling, it was pretty hard.
.
How did your voice hold out during that very active period?
I was doing really well until the fourth one, but.... You have to compare it to any kind of muscle or something. It takes half a second to break a leg, and then 3-4 months to recover. You can pull a muscle and it will take 2 weeks to mend. Voice is no different! But my voice doesn't break after just one night, but when it does it's the result of three or four shows in a row. And then the interviews, the chit-chat, air-conditioning.... It's not always good for the voice.
.
How did you pick the set list for this tour?
We tried to fit in some songs that we don't normally play, to give the audience something different. So, since we didn't want to play new songs on this tour, we brought out songs like "MIRROR MIRROR" and "EXCITABLE". Now, they might be a little obscure, but from my experience, there's still a good 25% of the audience singing along. And "EXCITABLE"....It comes off a 17 million-selling record, but there's still a lot of people who won't know the song.....because it wasn't a single!
We don't have 25 top 10 hits. We're lucky that we have about 10 of them that we can throw into a set. And I've said it often enough, we HAVE to. We're not like Elvis Costello or whoever, whose fans expect him to play obscure stuff almost exclusively. We've never been that kind of band, never wanted to be. We do a big bunch of hits because we're proud of 'em.
.
Doesn't the BAND get bored of playing all those same songs year after year?
Well we DO have a boredom threshold, so to play the same set tour after tour after tour, is hard. But there's a core collection of songs that we HAVE to play or else we'd be skinned alive! So we can make things more exciting by changing things around a bit. Two songs that we used to do in the last half hour of the set, we were now opening with ("ROCKET" and "ANIMAL"), that's one way of keeping things fresh. Another is "BRINGIN' ON THE HEARTBREAK", which we did in the same way as we did years ago, starting off acoustically. So that's how we can keep things from becoming boring.
.
To not play any new material, did that make things very different?
Well the big thing missing is indeed me saying "Here's a song off our new album," right. "ROCK ON" is the closest thing to being a new song, because it was a big hit last summer - same thing happened last year when we played "NO MATTER WHAT" , which was a hit the year before. But we've got our bases covered, all in all it sets things up nicely for the next album and tour.
.
Between shows, the set list did not change at all and you pretty much played the exact same set every night. Why was that?
We tried it once, by replacing "ANOTHER HIT AND RUN" with "LET IT GO", but in the end we went back to our original choice. It just didn't feel as good, really. See, I've seen situations where a band like U2 played nine songs off their new album at the start of the tour, and by the time the tour ended, only three new songs were left and all the hits were back in. Sometimes things just work, sometimes they don't. During our 2006 tour, we stopped switching songs around by the end of the run, because we found a perfectly balanced set that didn't need any more work.
Most bands have a set list that's 85% determined, and 15% that's room switching things around. Apart from that, the main reason why it's so difficult to spontaneously throw in a song, is because of the digital sound desks and lighting systems. They're programmed in such a way, that if you want to change the order, the sound- and lighting guys have to know that hours beforehand.
It's impossible to do that on the spot! A Def Leppard concert is like a Broadway play - it has to have a certain amount of lighting choreography and pre-determined organization. We simply can not throw in a new, unrehearsed song just like that, cause (our lighting engineer) Kenji wouldn't know what to do then! It's not just the band that rehearses a song, it's also the crew.
They are so important, because they really help deliver what the five us do. The band is on stage, but there are another dozen or so people pushing buttons and move sliders up and down that will make us look and sound great. And that's not even that big, I mean, the Rolling Stones must have some 300 people on their crew...!
.
Have you ever considered putting a full album in your set, like Iron Maiden?
They played their latest album ("A Matter Of Life And Death") in its entirety, in sequence, on tour last year.
Well it's a very brave move! David Bowie's done it too in 1974, and it's because they get real itchy about their new stuff. We do too, really, but the difference with us is that we realize fairly quickly, or maybe admit it, that it generally doesn't work. You might get a kick out of it for the first month or so, but normally the crowd won't do anything for the first hour, because they don't know it.
Then, "NUMBER OF THE BEAST" comes in, or "REBEL REBEL" in Bowie's case, and the crowd goes nuts! The audience has had twenty years to get used to the old stuff, and new material just doesn't sink in that quick. Take "PROMISES".... Relatively new, and sometimes it's in our set. But it will never go down as well as "ROCK OF AGES". New songs catching up with the old is almost impossible. The only way we could play a full album live, would be to do it in a club, in front of a couple of hundred die-hard fans.
If we were to advertise that we were going to play a whole new album on tour, I believe it would actually stop people from buying a ticket! Roger Waters can get away with playing "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON" in full, because it's from 1973, AND 37 million people own that album. For us to do it, it would take out the balance of a show. And personally, I believe that the majority of the audience will induldge an artist a new song about every 20-25 minutes.
.
Does that mean that you don't have the urge to actually play your new material then?
Not at all! See, the reason I am in a band, is because I want to play my own "WHOLE LOTTA LOVE", my own "MY GENERATION", my own "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS", all in front of 12,000 people. Not the B-sides! I really want to play the greatest hits, because if you've GOT greatest hits, it means you're a success and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
There's only a problem with that if it's the ONLY thing you ever do and you don't put out any new records. Some nostalgia bands do that of course, but for us, this tour is the closest we got to that - and even then it doesn't feel like that because we have that knowledge in the back of our heads that we have a new album coming out next year.
JOE ELLIOTT - EXHAUSTIVE AND EXTENSIVE, PART 2
.
How is the new album coming along?
Well, we're missing a few vocals, a number of overdubs and unless we're going to decide to do another new song, pretty much everything is done. We're still working on the artwork, which is in its very early stages. The artist who's working on it did the initial setup and concept for the "YEAH!"-album as well, but it end up being done by someone else, and this time we're giving him the opportunity to actually create the design as well.
.
How is it to work on new material when the general consensus is that "HYSTERIA" is still your masterpiece?
Well, there's plenty of things on "HYSTERIA" that I would totally redo. "DON'T SHOOT SHOTGUN" and "RUN RIOT" spring to mind. Those were supposed to be the two big rockers on that album, but in hindsight didn't really work. And I wouldn't have put "LOVE AND AFFECTION" on the album, I would have saved it for what became "ADRENALIZE".
All in all, I think there's a couple of songs too many. Sure, in 1987 it was cute 'n cuddly and groundbreakingly new to do a 63-minute record and in fairness, it did give it a certain amount of publicity, but I think 45-50 minutes is long enough for anybody's attention span now. I don't think you have to do an hour just because a CD can take some 80 minutes. It might just be too much.
.
So why release more material than what you want to give?
The pressure that is being put on bands by the record companies is immense. It's the same when different territories around the world ask for bonus tracks, or even full bonus discs. So after spending a year of creating (what you think is) ten pieces of art, they want another eight pieces of fodder, just so they can say "not available anywhere else in the world" or "exclusive track for such-and-such a shop", whatever. It's like what we did with "YEAH!".... Fourteen songs on the regular album, and how many bonus tracks did we do to use as leverage for the various shops? Eight? It's a bit of a compromise, totally!
.
Hence the bonus tracks for "YEAH!" being solo efforts?
Yeah, those bonus tracks were literally solo efforts, and anybody that came up with something, just came up with it, and nobody really commented on the others' songs.
For example, if someone didn't like my version of Jobriath's "HEARTBEAT" (included on the Wal-Mart release of "YEAH!"), they weren't gonna throw a wobbler - but if it was about a song on the regular album, someone might say that it wasn't right and we had to keep working on it. For those solo bonus tracks, it was just a bit of fun. But, as bonus tracks, they are worth having. For cover songs, that's fun to do, cause you just pick a song and you record it.
.
Does that mean you believe all bonus tracks or B-sides are secondary to tracks that appear on an album?
Not necessarily! The days of a great B-side.....(thinking)..... We used to go out and buy singles for the B-side, because it wasn't on the album. Sometimes, if an artist recorded 12 tracks and 11 ended up on the album, the 12th would end up as the B-side of the first single. Somebody designated that song off the record, but it didn't necessarily mean it was the right decision. I've heard some Bowie stuff where they absolutely put the wrong songs on the album and the right songs ended up as B-sides.
"IT AIN'T EASY" off "ZIGGY STARDUST" was a leftover from his previous album "HUNKY DORY", but it would have fit so much better on that one. Or, he didn't put "VELVET GOLDMINE" on the Ziggy album, but releases it a few years later. Now Bowie might argue about the point naturally, but I think it's one of the best things he's ever done and it would have been unbelievably brilliant on "ZIGGY STARDUST". But it didn't happen, so I got a brilliant B-side instead!
.
But if the label demands a few bonus tracks, can't you just throw in some live tracks for example?
Well yeah, but be honest - whenever you buy an album and the bonus track is a live song, you don't feel slighly disappointed that it's not a brand new recording? I do! A live song as bonus track is even more filler than a new recording that's not as good as the regular tracks on the album. Though, when we released the live version of Queen's "NOW I'M HERE", that wasn't filler because it wasn't an old Leppard song, unavailable in any other format by this band. But even then, a demo or acoustic version of a known Leppard song is more interesting cause it sheds a new light on an old song more than a live version does.
However, a new studio track seems to be the most interesting for the listener. And sometimes you can rush a new song and write it with the idea that it's going to be a bonus track, and it turns out to be brilliant. Just sometimes. But then you think it's so good that it should be on the album, so you're stuck! On the other hand, when you think it's not good enough for the album and you put it out as a B-side, you're putting out something that's not very good.... And you have to put your name on it! So the record labels' demands for bonus tracks are just not helping things, and it's a true artistic headache.
.
The B-sides released on the "HYSTERIA" singles seemed to work though. They were great songs, but the sound and production just didn't make them fit between the other songs on the album.
We were very lucky with those. We recorded them in one week, while Mutt was mixing the record. "RING OF FIRE" was actually written to be included on the album, "I WANNA BE YOUR HERO" was orignally called "LOVE BITES"..... In fact, that was the first line of the song. Once we'd taken that out and used it for the title of another song, I had to change that line to something that had the same phonetic sound and it became "hold tight". "RIDE INTO THE SUN" was recorded for a laugh because Phil and Rick never played on the original version (released on the band's first EP), and "TEAR IT DOWN" was also written during the time we were mixing the album already. I really tried to give it some Rolling Stones-kind lyrics, and we just went off on a tangent and banged it out.
Very easy. And then, two years after it was released as the actual B-side to the "ANIMAL" single (UK/Europe) and "WOMEN" (US), rock radio DJs actually started playing it and it became so popular that we ended up having to play it at the 1989 MTV Awards. Go figure, it was most played Leppard song on American radio in that year! The album had gone away by then, but they wanted something to fill the void. That's why we recorded it again for "ADRENALIZE", hoping it would be out in 1990, it would have had the momentum to become maybe a bigger song than it has become.
Obviously, circumstances led to a delay of the album and by the time 1992 came along, that momentum had gone. Whereas our career snowballed on, "TEAR IT DOWN" came to a halt.... But right, it could've been something really special. Then again, Vivian hates the song with a passion, haha! But that's probably because for a guitarist, it's just very boring to play, there's not much going on.
.
Perhaps the simplicity of "TEAR IT DOWN" was part of its success?
Some of the best songs are three chords. In fact, ALL the best songs are three chords. A fourth chord is a waste. We all know that.
.
So, back to "SPARKLE LOUNGE". Is it still scheduled for early 2008?
Well.... Again.... We all have plans, don't we? People plan to go on a holiday until Katrina comes through and blows their house away, so to speak. Unless something big unexpectedly happens, it should be out springtime next year. But really, with our history of planned album releases that didn't make the deadlines, I'm not even gonna remotely say anything definite!
Still, the album is pretty much done, minus a few bits and bobs. So, it's not really a case of getting it finished, but more something of when we -being the band, management and record label- decide it's the best time to put it out. I can't think of an opportunity why they wouldn't want it out in the spring, because it gives us an opportunity to tour again in the summer.
What does everyone think of Joe's interview on the Fan club?
.
What's your general feeling when you look back at the 2007 tour?
It was spectacular! Styx and Foreigner were great, there is the same kind of vibe that we had with Journey last year. They're all easy to work with - no egos! Or at least, I haven't come across any at all.
This whole tour seemed to do all three bands a world of good, and since we got great crowds without even promoting a record, I find that very encouraging - considering next year, when we WILL be touring on the back of a record. A tour like this gets us on various TV shows, which is a lot better than having a video on MTV nowadays.
.
Any high- or low points that come to mind?
One of the low points was the Raleigh gig, that had to be cancelled about 7 minutes before Foreigner were scheduled to take the stage. What happened was, this microburst came through and went literally underneath the stage....but over it at the same time! It kinda grabbed it all like a hand and tore the plastic off the top. Of course, it was raining, so in some areas behind the drums there were 3-4 inches deep puddles.
With all the electronics and equipment, it was just too dangerous for the band, crew and audience - water and electricity just don't mix. Twelve people were injured by flying debris, so we couldn't risk any more and so there was absolutely no choice other than to cancel.
.
Not very common for Def Leppard!
We rarely had to cancel any gigs...in fact, in 2005 we cancelled the show in Camden due to bad weather and that was the first time we had to cancel a show in the first place. For this one, we were determined to reschedule. This was possible, but only if we would do four nights in a row, which we generally don't do.
I don't see any benefit in that, except from a financial point of view maybe....but after all these years I don't do it for the money! I'd like to be at the best I can. Expecting us to play four nights in a row is like expecting a professional sportsman to play four games in a row - you need the recovery time. But in the end we did it -- doing that plus all the traveling, it was pretty hard.
.
How did your voice hold out during that very active period?
I was doing really well until the fourth one, but.... You have to compare it to any kind of muscle or something. It takes half a second to break a leg, and then 3-4 months to recover. You can pull a muscle and it will take 2 weeks to mend. Voice is no different! But my voice doesn't break after just one night, but when it does it's the result of three or four shows in a row. And then the interviews, the chit-chat, air-conditioning.... It's not always good for the voice.
.
How did you pick the set list for this tour?
We tried to fit in some songs that we don't normally play, to give the audience something different. So, since we didn't want to play new songs on this tour, we brought out songs like "MIRROR MIRROR" and "EXCITABLE". Now, they might be a little obscure, but from my experience, there's still a good 25% of the audience singing along. And "EXCITABLE"....It comes off a 17 million-selling record, but there's still a lot of people who won't know the song.....because it wasn't a single!
We don't have 25 top 10 hits. We're lucky that we have about 10 of them that we can throw into a set. And I've said it often enough, we HAVE to. We're not like Elvis Costello or whoever, whose fans expect him to play obscure stuff almost exclusively. We've never been that kind of band, never wanted to be. We do a big bunch of hits because we're proud of 'em.
.
Doesn't the BAND get bored of playing all those same songs year after year?
Well we DO have a boredom threshold, so to play the same set tour after tour after tour, is hard. But there's a core collection of songs that we HAVE to play or else we'd be skinned alive! So we can make things more exciting by changing things around a bit. Two songs that we used to do in the last half hour of the set, we were now opening with ("ROCKET" and "ANIMAL"), that's one way of keeping things fresh. Another is "BRINGIN' ON THE HEARTBREAK", which we did in the same way as we did years ago, starting off acoustically. So that's how we can keep things from becoming boring.
.
To not play any new material, did that make things very different?
Well the big thing missing is indeed me saying "Here's a song off our new album," right. "ROCK ON" is the closest thing to being a new song, because it was a big hit last summer - same thing happened last year when we played "NO MATTER WHAT" , which was a hit the year before. But we've got our bases covered, all in all it sets things up nicely for the next album and tour.
.
Between shows, the set list did not change at all and you pretty much played the exact same set every night. Why was that?
We tried it once, by replacing "ANOTHER HIT AND RUN" with "LET IT GO", but in the end we went back to our original choice. It just didn't feel as good, really. See, I've seen situations where a band like U2 played nine songs off their new album at the start of the tour, and by the time the tour ended, only three new songs were left and all the hits were back in. Sometimes things just work, sometimes they don't. During our 2006 tour, we stopped switching songs around by the end of the run, because we found a perfectly balanced set that didn't need any more work.
Most bands have a set list that's 85% determined, and 15% that's room switching things around. Apart from that, the main reason why it's so difficult to spontaneously throw in a song, is because of the digital sound desks and lighting systems. They're programmed in such a way, that if you want to change the order, the sound- and lighting guys have to know that hours beforehand.
It's impossible to do that on the spot! A Def Leppard concert is like a Broadway play - it has to have a certain amount of lighting choreography and pre-determined organization. We simply can not throw in a new, unrehearsed song just like that, cause (our lighting engineer) Kenji wouldn't know what to do then! It's not just the band that rehearses a song, it's also the crew.
They are so important, because they really help deliver what the five us do. The band is on stage, but there are another dozen or so people pushing buttons and move sliders up and down that will make us look and sound great. And that's not even that big, I mean, the Rolling Stones must have some 300 people on their crew...!
.
Have you ever considered putting a full album in your set, like Iron Maiden?
They played their latest album ("A Matter Of Life And Death") in its entirety, in sequence, on tour last year.
Well it's a very brave move! David Bowie's done it too in 1974, and it's because they get real itchy about their new stuff. We do too, really, but the difference with us is that we realize fairly quickly, or maybe admit it, that it generally doesn't work. You might get a kick out of it for the first month or so, but normally the crowd won't do anything for the first hour, because they don't know it.
Then, "NUMBER OF THE BEAST" comes in, or "REBEL REBEL" in Bowie's case, and the crowd goes nuts! The audience has had twenty years to get used to the old stuff, and new material just doesn't sink in that quick. Take "PROMISES".... Relatively new, and sometimes it's in our set. But it will never go down as well as "ROCK OF AGES". New songs catching up with the old is almost impossible. The only way we could play a full album live, would be to do it in a club, in front of a couple of hundred die-hard fans.
If we were to advertise that we were going to play a whole new album on tour, I believe it would actually stop people from buying a ticket! Roger Waters can get away with playing "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON" in full, because it's from 1973, AND 37 million people own that album. For us to do it, it would take out the balance of a show. And personally, I believe that the majority of the audience will induldge an artist a new song about every 20-25 minutes.
.
Does that mean that you don't have the urge to actually play your new material then?
Not at all! See, the reason I am in a band, is because I want to play my own "WHOLE LOTTA LOVE", my own "MY GENERATION", my own "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS", all in front of 12,000 people. Not the B-sides! I really want to play the greatest hits, because if you've GOT greatest hits, it means you're a success and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
There's only a problem with that if it's the ONLY thing you ever do and you don't put out any new records. Some nostalgia bands do that of course, but for us, this tour is the closest we got to that - and even then it doesn't feel like that because we have that knowledge in the back of our heads that we have a new album coming out next year.
JOE ELLIOTT - EXHAUSTIVE AND EXTENSIVE, PART 2
.
How is the new album coming along?
Well, we're missing a few vocals, a number of overdubs and unless we're going to decide to do another new song, pretty much everything is done. We're still working on the artwork, which is in its very early stages. The artist who's working on it did the initial setup and concept for the "YEAH!"-album as well, but it end up being done by someone else, and this time we're giving him the opportunity to actually create the design as well.
.
How is it to work on new material when the general consensus is that "HYSTERIA" is still your masterpiece?
Well, there's plenty of things on "HYSTERIA" that I would totally redo. "DON'T SHOOT SHOTGUN" and "RUN RIOT" spring to mind. Those were supposed to be the two big rockers on that album, but in hindsight didn't really work. And I wouldn't have put "LOVE AND AFFECTION" on the album, I would have saved it for what became "ADRENALIZE".
All in all, I think there's a couple of songs too many. Sure, in 1987 it was cute 'n cuddly and groundbreakingly new to do a 63-minute record and in fairness, it did give it a certain amount of publicity, but I think 45-50 minutes is long enough for anybody's attention span now. I don't think you have to do an hour just because a CD can take some 80 minutes. It might just be too much.
.
So why release more material than what you want to give?
The pressure that is being put on bands by the record companies is immense. It's the same when different territories around the world ask for bonus tracks, or even full bonus discs. So after spending a year of creating (what you think is) ten pieces of art, they want another eight pieces of fodder, just so they can say "not available anywhere else in the world" or "exclusive track for such-and-such a shop", whatever. It's like what we did with "YEAH!".... Fourteen songs on the regular album, and how many bonus tracks did we do to use as leverage for the various shops? Eight? It's a bit of a compromise, totally!
.
Hence the bonus tracks for "YEAH!" being solo efforts?
Yeah, those bonus tracks were literally solo efforts, and anybody that came up with something, just came up with it, and nobody really commented on the others' songs.
For example, if someone didn't like my version of Jobriath's "HEARTBEAT" (included on the Wal-Mart release of "YEAH!"), they weren't gonna throw a wobbler - but if it was about a song on the regular album, someone might say that it wasn't right and we had to keep working on it. For those solo bonus tracks, it was just a bit of fun. But, as bonus tracks, they are worth having. For cover songs, that's fun to do, cause you just pick a song and you record it.
.
Does that mean you believe all bonus tracks or B-sides are secondary to tracks that appear on an album?
Not necessarily! The days of a great B-side.....(thinking)..... We used to go out and buy singles for the B-side, because it wasn't on the album. Sometimes, if an artist recorded 12 tracks and 11 ended up on the album, the 12th would end up as the B-side of the first single. Somebody designated that song off the record, but it didn't necessarily mean it was the right decision. I've heard some Bowie stuff where they absolutely put the wrong songs on the album and the right songs ended up as B-sides.
"IT AIN'T EASY" off "ZIGGY STARDUST" was a leftover from his previous album "HUNKY DORY", but it would have fit so much better on that one. Or, he didn't put "VELVET GOLDMINE" on the Ziggy album, but releases it a few years later. Now Bowie might argue about the point naturally, but I think it's one of the best things he's ever done and it would have been unbelievably brilliant on "ZIGGY STARDUST". But it didn't happen, so I got a brilliant B-side instead!
.
But if the label demands a few bonus tracks, can't you just throw in some live tracks for example?
Well yeah, but be honest - whenever you buy an album and the bonus track is a live song, you don't feel slighly disappointed that it's not a brand new recording? I do! A live song as bonus track is even more filler than a new recording that's not as good as the regular tracks on the album. Though, when we released the live version of Queen's "NOW I'M HERE", that wasn't filler because it wasn't an old Leppard song, unavailable in any other format by this band. But even then, a demo or acoustic version of a known Leppard song is more interesting cause it sheds a new light on an old song more than a live version does.
However, a new studio track seems to be the most interesting for the listener. And sometimes you can rush a new song and write it with the idea that it's going to be a bonus track, and it turns out to be brilliant. Just sometimes. But then you think it's so good that it should be on the album, so you're stuck! On the other hand, when you think it's not good enough for the album and you put it out as a B-side, you're putting out something that's not very good.... And you have to put your name on it! So the record labels' demands for bonus tracks are just not helping things, and it's a true artistic headache.
.
The B-sides released on the "HYSTERIA" singles seemed to work though. They were great songs, but the sound and production just didn't make them fit between the other songs on the album.
We were very lucky with those. We recorded them in one week, while Mutt was mixing the record. "RING OF FIRE" was actually written to be included on the album, "I WANNA BE YOUR HERO" was orignally called "LOVE BITES"..... In fact, that was the first line of the song. Once we'd taken that out and used it for the title of another song, I had to change that line to something that had the same phonetic sound and it became "hold tight". "RIDE INTO THE SUN" was recorded for a laugh because Phil and Rick never played on the original version (released on the band's first EP), and "TEAR IT DOWN" was also written during the time we were mixing the album already. I really tried to give it some Rolling Stones-kind lyrics, and we just went off on a tangent and banged it out.
Very easy. And then, two years after it was released as the actual B-side to the "ANIMAL" single (UK/Europe) and "WOMEN" (US), rock radio DJs actually started playing it and it became so popular that we ended up having to play it at the 1989 MTV Awards. Go figure, it was most played Leppard song on American radio in that year! The album had gone away by then, but they wanted something to fill the void. That's why we recorded it again for "ADRENALIZE", hoping it would be out in 1990, it would have had the momentum to become maybe a bigger song than it has become.
Obviously, circumstances led to a delay of the album and by the time 1992 came along, that momentum had gone. Whereas our career snowballed on, "TEAR IT DOWN" came to a halt.... But right, it could've been something really special. Then again, Vivian hates the song with a passion, haha! But that's probably because for a guitarist, it's just very boring to play, there's not much going on.
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Perhaps the simplicity of "TEAR IT DOWN" was part of its success?
Some of the best songs are three chords. In fact, ALL the best songs are three chords. A fourth chord is a waste. We all know that.
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So, back to "SPARKLE LOUNGE". Is it still scheduled for early 2008?
Well.... Again.... We all have plans, don't we? People plan to go on a holiday until Katrina comes through and blows their house away, so to speak. Unless something big unexpectedly happens, it should be out springtime next year. But really, with our history of planned album releases that didn't make the deadlines, I'm not even gonna remotely say anything definite!
Still, the album is pretty much done, minus a few bits and bobs. So, it's not really a case of getting it finished, but more something of when we -being the band, management and record label- decide it's the best time to put it out. I can't think of an opportunity why they wouldn't want it out in the spring, because it gives us an opportunity to tour again in the summer.
What does everyone think of Joe's interview on the Fan club?
