Part One: The Making Of 'Def Leppard
Category
🎵
MusicTranscript
00:00Music
00:02Music
00:04Music
00:08Music
00:10Music
00:12Music
00:14Music
00:16Music
00:18Music
00:20Music
00:22Music
00:24Music
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
00:56Listen to everybody's ideas
00:58And then just pick them off
01:00One at a time
01:01The 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 14
01:20Or 12 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
01:38Essentially 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
02:10In a natural way
02:12We were able to go away
02:14And listen to the songs
02:16Really listen to them
02:18And then with that hindsight
02:20Be able to you know
02:22Come up with the best part
02:24That we could possibly come up with
02:26Whether that was drums, vocals, guitar, whatever
02:30So that's been the process
02:32And we'd go away, listen
02:34And then the second time
02:36We got together
02:37We were able to just modify
02:40And just focus in on
02:42What was really important
02:44So that we liked the songs
02:46As much as we possibly could
02:48And actually be fans of the music
02:50That we made
03:00We'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 is very
03:09Very methodical
03:11Very piecemeal
03:12One guy at a time
03:14And it's very difficult to capture
03:17The subtle nuanced dynamics
03:20That 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
03:28And we started playing some rock ideas
03:33And we managed to bang about
03:35Five 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 that
03:42That would be the easy part of the record
03:43But then after that
03:45We thought well
03:48We're not really just
03:50That kind of band anymore
03:52So we're not looking for a straight up rock record
03:54We need to kind of embrace
03:56Some of the more
03:58More diverse elements
03:59That the band's known for
04:00The production elements
04:01The kind of
04:03Pop scene
04:04Big production thing
04:06And so that's
04:08When we started scratching our head a lot
04:10And thinking okay well
04:11What kind of song do we need next?
04:13Now that inevitably happens
04:14With every Def Leppard record
04:15And that's when it starts getting
04:17A little bit more pin sticking
04:19One thing that I think we were really conscious of
04:32Is making something that is a little more diverse
04:37Than some of the records and albums we've done in the past
04:40We all knew that 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
05:06You know indicative 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 was worked on
05:30To get to a point where
05:32It 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 to 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 so it kind of gets left
05:55In fact
05:57The first track on the album
05:59On the album Let's Go
06:01Is a combination of three completely different ideas
06:04That I had from 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 to his friends in California
06:23And I'd be playing to my friends in Dublin
06:25And Sam would be playing to his friends in Sheffield
06:27And you know before you put the tape on
06:30Somebody would say
06:31So you know you've got some new songs
06:32What does it sound like?
06:34And we all ended up saying
06:35Sounds like Def Leppard
06:37And I think when we all realised
06:39That that's what we'd been saying out loud
06:41Phil said
06:42Why don't we just call the album Def Leppard
06:44Because we've never done it
06:45You know
06:46So it was pretty simple
06:47Why we did it
06:48I said let's call it Def Leppard
06:50Because we're making it for us
06:51And no one else
06:52Plus we've never had a self-titled album
06:54So that's pretty much how that came about
06:56Yeah it was an EP
06:57And it ended up an album
06:58For the right reasons
06:59You know
07:00Because we wanted to make music
07:07I think it played a part
07:08You know Viv's illness
07:10You know
07:11It played a part in
07:13That's pretty much how we approach things
07:15After we've done the Viva Hysteria thing in Vegas
07:18Because we found out there
07:20It's like oh
07:21Right
07:22Yeah I've been dealing with lymphoma
07:24For the last almost three years
07:27I did three rounds of chemo
07:30And that didn't take care of it
07:32And then
07:33Exactly a year ago
07:35I went into hospital
07:36For about three and a half weeks
07:37To do a stem cell transplant
07:43The Viva Hysteria thing
07:45The Viva Hysteria thing
07:46The Viva Hysteria thing
07:47The Viva Hysteria thing
07:48The Viva Hysteria thing
07:49The Viva Hysteria thing
07:50The Viva Hysteria thing
07:51The Viva Hysteria thing
07:52The Viva Hysteria thing
07:53Well I'd have to go with Let's Go first
07:54Because it's so classically leopard
07:56That
07:57It
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
08:07That was very close to my heart
08:08It was something that
08:09That's a song
08:10I did
08:11What's the song
08:12It's really nice
08:13That is
08:14This song
08:15Or
08:16We have to go and look at these
08:17The Viva Hysteria thing
08:18It's really beautiful
08:19I'm going to go and see more
08:20Of the
08:26The Viva Hysteria and a lot of people
08:27The Viva Hysteria thing
08:28And I was going to go and say
08:29It's really sweet
08:30Yeah
08:31It's really nice
08:31I'm going to go and say
08:32it's really nice
08:33Today
08:34And
08:35It's really nice
08:35And
08:36It's really nice