SUMMER 2002, and just for a change, Britain is caught up in a wave of nostalgia. It's been 25 years since the Sex Pistols sought to unravel the moral fibre of the nation with filthy, furious punk rock. It's also twenty five years since teenage rock fans Joe Elliott and Rick Savage first got together in a Sheffield council flat bedroom to form a rock band called Def Leppard. But a quarter of a century and some forty five million album sales later, Joe Elliott is more interested in looking to the future than reflecting on past glories.
The reason is 'X', appropriately enough Def Leppard's tenth studio album, and the fourth written by the ten year old line-up of Elliott, bassist Savage, guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell and drummer Rick Allen. A sleek, streamlined affair, 'X' draws together Leppard's trademark sonic stylings - punchy, melodic guitar work, multi-layered vocal harmonies, instant pop hooks and towering, widescreen choruses - into a tight commercial ball, re-affirming the band's standing as one of the world's premier rock bands.
"It's a record of great songs," says Elliott simply. "Second best was never good enough for this band."
Def Leppard began working on 'X' with long time cohort Pete Woodroffe on July 7, 2001 at Joe Elliott's Dublin home. Having taken six months off upon completion of the highly successful 'Euphoria' world tour, the quintet was fresh, revitalized and bursting with song-writing ideas. The band worked six days a week, noon to midnight in Elliott's home studio, and with Woodroffe and Campbell occupying Elliott's guest bedrooms and Collen staying in the singer's 'granny flat', the vibe was less that of a superstar rock band and more that of a hungry new outfit with something to prove. "You always have something to prove," Elliott admits with a smile. "We've achieved some incredible things together, but the challenge now is to try to better what we've done before. What we've got that you can't buy, plan, learn or develop is chemistry, and where before we may have been trying to push things in a number of different directions, this time we were all on the same page musically and mentally."
Initial songwriting sessions for 'X' flowed smoothly, but, never content to rest on their laurels, Leppard decided to add some different flavors and fresh perspectives to the process by collaborating with new writing partners. Decamping from Elliott's studio, the band spent two weeks in Los Angeles with Aerosmith collaborator Marti Frederiksen(sessions which yielded three tracks on 'X'). They returned to Dublin via Sweden, spending two highly productive days with Andreas Carlsson and Per Aldeheim, part of the phenomenally successful Cheiron hit factory responsible for penning tracks for Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync. Eyebrows were raised at the latter collaborations, a fact which bemuses the Leppard men no end.
"Someone asked the other day when we decided to write with outside writers and Sav's answer was 1980, when we wrote 'When The Walls Come Tumbling Down' with a friend of mine called Andy Smith," Elliott laughs. "From 'Pyromania' onwards we wrote with Mutt Lange, so it's nothing new for us to pool our ideas with other writers. Some bands get precious and macho about their own songwriting, but Mutt Lange taught us years ago that the song is king and ego should never be allowed to interfere."
"We just wanted to freshen things up a little," he explains. "We don't have to prove anything with our songwriting. David Bowie wrote 'All The Young Dudes' for Mott the Hoople and worked with Iggy Pop in the '70's and that doesn't take away from the strength of Iggy or Mott's legacies. Bottom line, we just believed in these songs, and to be honest, we'd lived with the songs for about four months before we recorded anything so they really felt like our songs."
"This album may hopefully and finally get the point across that we're not just a heavy metal band," Joe adds. "Some songs are rock, some songs are pop and some fall somewhere in between. And that's the way it's always been. You don't sell sixteen million copies of an album, as we did with 'Hysteria' by only appealing to rock fans. We're on classic rock radio, and modern rock radio and pop radio, and that's what we wanted, that cross-the-board appeal. The reality is that we're on the radio every second of every day somewhere in the world until the planet blows up, just like The Beatles."
"We always wanted to be the biggest band in the world," he points out, warming to the theme. "Our yardstick when we started was the Stones and Zeppelin and The Who and The Beatles, which may have seemed like a foolish dream at the time. But come 1988 we were the biggest band in the world, it was what we'd aimed for and we f**king achieved it. Our competition has always been whoever's in the Top 10, which was Michael Jackson in 1983. Madonna and Prince in 1987 and I guess Britney Spears and Celine Dion now. We've never sold ourselves short and we're not going to start now."
After twenty-five years in the music industry you could forgive anyone a little cynicism. But talk to Joe Elliott and you'll hear nothing but enthusiasm and passion for his chosen career. Put simply, the man is unapologetically devoted to his job. "I f**king love it," he laughs. "Since I saw Marc Bolan with T-Rex on 'Top Of The Pops' in 1971 and said 'I wanna be him', the desire and need to do this has never dropped one iota. And that goes for everyone else in this band too."
So what drives Def Leppard now?
"Clearly we don't need the money," Joe says. "We could have retired in 1988 if this was about money. What we do is make music, and we all believe that we've still got great songs inside us. No one suggests that Neil Young or Aerosmith or Lou Reed or Iggy Pop pack it in, even though all those people have had periods where they were considered less 'cool' than they are now." "F**k 'cool' anyway," he laughs. "We're the ultimate example of a band that can make a living without having journalists on your side. If there's ever been a band that's hated by the press - other than Queen - it's us. When 'Pyromania' came out it got slammed everywhere, and nine million record sales later those same reviewers might still hate it, but people who actually have to buy their records like it. I don't care if people think we're credible, we've only ever had one agenda - making great records."
So having achieved goal after goal, what dreams are left for Def Leppard?
"The album comes out and sells twenty billion copies, we all get knighthoods and have every street in Sheffield named after the band," Elliott says with a smile. "No, the dream is for us to be still making records and still writing songs that mean something in twenty years time."
Joe Elliott refuses to trot out the usual bullshit promotional lines when it comes to describing 'X', insisting "every band says their new album is their best album and it's such a bogus statement." "I'm not saying that this album is better than 'Hysteria' or 'Pyromania' or even 'On Through The Night'," he states. "But I think it's the best record that we can make now and it's very representative of what Def Leppard is doing in 2002."
"When we finished mixing the album, we all wanted a copy of the CD to bring back home to listen to. And when we put it on we can look at one another and say 'Yes, job well done'. We know we'll never eclipse 'Hysteria' sales-wise, but we've always maintained our writing standards and performance standards. And hand on heart we know that Def Leppard now is as good as it's ever been."
