On June 16, Def Leppard found itself in one of the most unlikely settings one could have ever considered for a group that came out of England in the late 1970s with a sound influenced by early ’70s glammy rockers like T. Rex, David Essex and Thin Lizzy.
The band was at the CMT Music Awards performing alongside the likes of country stars Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts and Sugarland. The group was there because of its CMT Crossroads special with country sensation Taylor Swift, an event that earned Def Leppard and Swift nominations for two awards. Their performance of the Def Leppard song “Photograph,” was nominated for CMT Performance Of The Year and for Wide Open Country Video Of The Year, although the band didn’t win in either category.
But just to be nominated was enough of a pleasant surprise, according to guitarist Phil Collen.
“I think it’s outrageous. I actually thought they had made a mistake,” Collen said in interview about a week before the awards. “It’s a really lovely, lovely surprise, actually.”
The “Crossroads” special actually wasn’t the first time Def Leppard, which also includes guitarist Vivian Campbell, singer Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen, had dipped its collective toes into the country realm. The band’s 2008 CD, “Songs From The Sparkle Lounge,” included collaboration with country superstar Tim McGraw on the song “Nine Lives.”
Collen admitted that the group didn’t know much about Swift, the 19-year old star who was the best-selling artist of 2008 and has sold more than six million copies of her two CDs. But when the group learned more about her background, the idea of performing with Swift made sense.
“I think what was really interesting to us was the fact that she was a Def Leppard fan and she’d gotten into country via Shania Twain,” Collen said. “There was a complete connection there because obviously all the Shania songs were co-written by ‘Mutt,’ ‘Mutt’ Lange.”
Robert John “Mutt” Lange, of course, was the producer who played a huge role in helping Def Leppard become one of rock’s biggest bands of the 1980s with his meticulous and pristine production of the hooky hard rock that populated 1983 album “Pyromania” and the 1987 release, “Hysteria.”
Powered by hits such as “Foolin’” and “Photograph,” “Pyromania” initially sold some 7 million copies and has since gone on to top 10 million copies shifted. “Hysteria” was even more successful. With hits such as “Animal” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” sales of that CD eventually topped 15 million and for a time made Def Leppard the most popular hard rock band on the planet.
As Def Leppard learned several Swift songs for the “Crossroads” show, it quickly became apparent that Swift shared some common musical ground with the band.
“When we actually went to rehearse Taylor’s songs, we were going ‘Hang on a minute, this chord progression is very familiar, these chords are the same, the melodies are kind of (in that vein),’” Collen said. “So the influence was coming full circle. It was actually kind of a bit weird at one point, but you could see clearly where this stuff was coming from. She was a Def Leppard fan and she had gotten into music, country music, via Shania Twain.”
Def Leppard’s summer tour (with Poison and Cheap Trick on the undercard) won’t have much of a connection to Swift or country music at all.
If anything, it will have more to do with “Pyromania” and the 1992 CD, “Adrenalize,” which was the group’s third straight blockbuster album.
Both albums are getting the deluxe two-CD re-release treatment, with the new versions of the CDs arriving June 23. “Pyromania” features the original album plus a 15-song concert from 1983 at the Forum in Los Angeles.
“Adrenalize,” meanwhile, features the original album plus a disc of previously unreleased live, acoustic and demo versions of songs.
The 1983 concert included with “Pyromania” is notable because it’s the first time the group has officially released a live CD. Collen hinted there may be more where that came from.
Revisiting “Pyromania” and “Adrenalize,” two key albums in the Def Leppard catalog, is influencing the group’s song set for the summer tour.
“We’ll do a few more of those songs (from “Pyromania” and “Adrenalize”),” Collen said. “It’s almost like we’ve got a new album coming out, although it’s one that was out before. But it gives us liberties, really. We can take liberties and kind of take advantage of that.”
But not too many liberties. With a bill that also features Poison (an amphitheater headliner itself the past two summers) and Cheap Trick, Collen said the band members know they had better deliver lots of hits over the course of the set.
“With a lineup like that, you’ve got to bring your ‘A’ game,” Collen said. “You’ve got to have all your ducks lined up, all the hits, with no dead air and no kind of pregnant pauses. It’s all about bang, bang, bang. It’s got to be exciting and stuff that people know. So a lot of (the show) is going to be songs that people know.”
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