The Making Of 'Def Leppard' Part One | Classic Rock | Louder - video Dailymotion

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Part One: The Making Of 'Def Leppard

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00:26The beginnings of the new record

00:28We decided to just

00:32Get together for one month

00:34And some of us have got some songs written

00:36Some of us have got just ideas

00:38And we just thought

00:40We're not going to finish an album in a month

00:42But let's get together in the studio

00:44See what comes out of it

00:46But don't go beyond the month

00:48Let's try and do as much as we can

00:50And it was great

00:52We all got together

00:54And

00:56Listened to everybody's ideas

00:58And then just pick them off

01:00One at a time

01:02The ones that we wanted to go in and start working on

01:04We all got in one room together

01:06And

01:08You know just

01:10Just laid them down as a band

01:12We just flowed

01:14And within like two days we had

01:16Pretty much five or six songs

01:18And at the end of the week we had like

01:20Twelve songs on the go

01:22So we thought you know what

01:24It was a big problem

01:26For us

01:28For you know the fact that we love music

01:30And we like writing songs

01:32And making Def Leather music

01:34It was kind of done in stages

01:40Essentially three periods of a month long

01:44Of building the album

01:46And it was kind of nice to do that

01:48There was no pressure

01:50You could learn to live with the ideas

01:52As they were progressing

01:54You weren't losing any perspective

01:56By having to

01:58Day after day after day

02:00After month after month

02:02Go through the same sort of songs

02:04So it was a really nice sort of

02:06Way of letting the album grow

02:08In a natural way

02:10We were able to go away

02:12And listen to the songs

02:14Really listen to them

02:16And then with that hindsight

02:18Be able to

02:20You know come up with

02:22The best part

02:24That we could possibly come up with

02:26Whether that was drums, vocals, guitar, whatever

02:28So that's been the process

02:30And we go away, listen

02:32And then the second time

02:34We got together

02:36We were able to just modify

02:38And just focus in

02:40On what was really important

02:42So that we liked the songs

02:44As much as we possibly could

02:46And actually be fans of the music

02:48That we made

02:50We're actually a really really good live band

03:02But we're not very good usually

03:04At capturing that in the studio

03:06And the reason for that is that

03:07Normally the way the band works

03:09Is very methodical

03:11Very piecemeal

03:12One guy at a time

03:14And it's very difficult to capture

03:17The subtle nuanced dynamics

03:19That a live band has

03:21When you're doing it one guy at a time

03:23So we set up in the studio

03:25The five of us in one room

03:27So we could all make eye contact

03:29And we started playing some

03:31Some rock ideas

03:33And we managed to bang

03:35About five or six rock song ideas

03:38In the first couple of weeks

03:39Which was great

03:40And that was really easy

03:41And we kind of knew

03:42That that would be the easy part

03:43Of the record

03:44And then after that

03:47We thought

03:48Well

03:49We're not really just

03:51That kind of band anymore

03:53So we're not looking for

03:54A straight up rock record

03:55We need to kind of embrace

03:56Some of the more

03:58More diverse elements

04:00That the band is known for

04:01The production elements

04:02The

04:03Kind of

04:04Pop scene

04:05Big production thing

04:06And so that's

04:08When we started scratching our head a lot

04:10And thinking

04:11What kind of song do we need next

04:13But that inevitably happens

04:14With every Def Leppard record

04:15And that's when it starts getting

04:17A little bit more painstaking

04:30One thing that I think

04:31We were really conscious of

04:32Is making something that

04:35Is a little more diverse

04:37Than some of the records

04:39And albums we've done in the past

04:41Are

04:42We all knew

04:43That once

04:44By this stage

04:45We have a certain style anyway

04:47Our sound is very much based in the fact

04:51That the way that we orchestrate our guitar parts

04:54The way that our backing vocals blend together

04:58There's a sound

04:59So those ingredients are never going to go away

05:02So that we knew that whatever we do

05:04It's essentially going to end up sounding

05:07You know

05:08Indicative of Def Leppard

05:10But we also wanted to just

05:12Not be confined to specific songwriting

05:16Things that we've done in the past

05:19Basically anything that sounded good

05:23Regardless of how it came about

05:25Or what it represented

05:27Was put forward and

05:29And was worked on

05:31To get to a point where

05:33It was good enough to get on the album

05:36Even if it was just starting off

05:39With an acoustic guitar idea

05:41It was progressed

05:43And from that point of view

05:44It was great

05:45To not really be confined

05:48To like going

05:49Well we can't really do this

05:50Because it doesn't really sound like a Def Leppard song

05:52At this point in time

05:53You know

05:54So it kind of gets left

05:55In fact

05:57The first track on the album

05:59Let's Go

06:00Is a combination of three

06:03Completely different ideas that I had

06:05From years back

06:06That every so often

06:08It just so happens that

06:10You put them together

06:11And it all kind of works

06:12In the right environment

06:14And a lot of things happen like that

06:16On the new album

06:17We'd work for a month

06:19And we'd take the tapes home

06:20And Phil would play them

06:21To his friends in

06:22In California

06:23And I'd be playing

06:24To my friends in Dublin

06:25And Sam would be playing

06:26To his friends in Sheffield

06:27And you know

06:29Before you put the tape on

06:30Somebody would say

06:31So you know

06:32You've got some new songs

06:33What does it sound like

06:34And we all ended up

06:35Saying

06:36Sounds like Def Leppard

06:37And I think

06:38When we all realised

06:39That that's what we'd been

06:40Saying out loud

06:41Phil said

06:42Why don't we just call

06:43The album Def Leppard

06:44Because we've never done it

06:45You know

06:46So it was pretty simple

06:47Really

06:48I said

06:49Let's call it Def Leppard

06:50Because we're making it for us

06:51And no one else

06:52Plus we've never had

06:53A self-titled album

06:54So that's pretty much

06:55How that came about

06:56Yeah it was an EP

06:57And it ended up

06:58An album

06:59For the right reasons

07:00You know

07:01Because we wanted to make music

07:02I think it played a part

07:08You know

07:09Viv's illness

07:10You know

07:11It played a part

07:12In pretty much

07:13How we approach things

07:15After we've done the

07:16Vive Hysteria thing

07:17In Vegas

07:18Because we found out there

07:19It's like

07:20Oh crap

07:21Yeah I've been dealing with

07:22Lymphoma

07:23For the last

07:25Almost three years

07:26I did three rounds of chemo

07:29And that didn't take care of it

07:31And then

07:32Exactly a year ago

07:34I went into hospital

07:35For about three and a half weeks

07:36To do a stem cell transplant

07:38Well I'd have to go with

07:53Let's go first

07:54Because it's

07:55So classically leopard

07:57That

07:58It

07:59Again

08:00It came very naturally

08:01You know

08:02A lot of people might think

08:03That we just sat down

08:04To try and rewrite Sugar

08:05But we didn't

08:06That's a song

08:07Close to my heart

08:08It was something that

08:09Has

08:10It

08:11It

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08:13It

08:14It

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08:16It

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08:18It

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The Making Of 'Def Leppard' Part One | Classic Rock | Louder

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