Transition

Provogue, 1992

It was a transition alright, but definitely not the one that Trout had hoped for. The problem wasn’t the songs themselves – moments like Running In Place and Face The Night were worthy of the Trout brand – but the bone-headed production, which buried the emotional honesty at work beneath a sickly sheen. “If you listen to that album, the way the guitars are done makes Def Leppard sound like Muddy Waters,” says the bandleader. “These guys tried to turn me into some insipid pop act. It was like they’d taken away the essence of who I am. That album hurt my career. It was a setback.”