A ROCKIN’ GOOD TIME AT 40
British metal band marks milestone
Phil Collen knows something about long-term relationships.
He has been playing guitar with phenomenally popular British hard-rock group Def Leppard for 34 years now, and he says that relationship is going just fine.
“We’re together more than we’re not,” Collen said in a recent phone interview from his home in Laguna Hills in Orange County, just south of Los Angeles.
“It’s really weird, because I’ve actually been with these guys longer than I have been with my blood relatives,” he said. “I’ve spent more time with (lead singer) Joe (Elliott) than I have with my mom and dad. We’ve been sitting in studios and tour buses and planes. We’re together all the time. You leave home when you’re 20 or whatever. So yeah, it’s a long time.”
Def Leppard kicks off a threemonth North American tour Saturday, with a number of dates that also include the bands Poison and Tesla. There are several Canadian dates on the tour, including at Montreal’s Bell Centre on Monday, a show that includes all three bands.
Def Leppard also plays Rogers Place in Edmonton June 2, the Saddledome in Calgary June 3 and Rogers Arena in Vancouver June 6.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of Def Leppard, which was one of the marquee bands of a movement that was at the time dubbed the new wave of British metal — a group of bands that also included Iron Maiden and Motörhead. Their career really took off in the ’80s, with the Robert John (Mutt) Langeproduced albums High ’n’ Dry (1981) and especially Pyromania, the 1983 album that sold 10 million copies in the U.S., powered in large part by the hit single Photograph, and Hysteria from 1987, which has sold 12 million copies in the U.S. and 25 million worldwide.
The band has also had its share of tough moments. Drummer Rick Allen lost his left arm in a 1984 car crash, though he managed to keep playing with the band, with a little help from a custom-designed electronic drum kit. Guitarist Steve Clark died from alcohol abuse in 1991.
So there have been highs and lows. But for Collen, it only makes sense that they’ve stuck it out this long.
“It’s really easy,” he said. “We get paid. We get people going crazy over what we do, and we get to do what we like. We get to write songs, be really creative and actually be rewarded for it. To me, it’s really easy. What was hard for me was when I left school, I went straight into a factory for a year, and that was a struggle. But this isn’t a struggle. This is a no-brainer. You dream of it as a kid, then you get to have it as a reality. It’s pretty amazing. So I don’t take it for granted. I really appreciate it.”
Def Leppard — which now includes Elliott, Collen, Allen, guitarist Vivian Campbell and bassist Rick Savage — has seldom strayed from its classic formula, which is built around big fat hard-rock riffs and highly catchy tunes. Their
most recent album, a self-titled set from 2015, mines that same musical terrain.
“It’s just the reality,” said Collen. “We did an album in ’96 called Slang, and it was a lot darker. A lot of the fans didn’t like it. I loved it. It was us experimenting with artistic expression. As cool as it was, it didn’t really go down well. So you have to be even more creative, because your parameters for writing songs are a little narrower. You have to follow those guidelines.”
The bottom line is that Collen is still excited by what he does. He’s particularly pumped coming to play Montreal, which has always been a great city for the band, and every time they step out on stage, they all still experience a major rush of adrenalin, to riff on the title of one of their best-known albums, Adrenalize.
“I think it’s more fun,” said Collen.
“I think the older you get, you appreciate that more. When you’re nearly 60 and it’s still happening at (a big) level, it’s pretty fantastic. It actually means more. When we released that last album and it went top 10 in, like, 25 different countries, I thought: ‘Wow. This is spectacular. Who would have thought?’ As long as we deliver, it gets more exciting. It actually really does.”