Part One: The Making Of 'Def Leppard
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00:26The beginnings of the new record
00:28We decided to just
00:30Get together for one month
00:32And some of us have got some songs written
00:34Some of us have got just ideas
00:36And we just thought
00:38Look we're not going to finish an album in a month
00:40But let's get together in the studio
00:42See what comes out of it
00:44But don't go beyond the month
00:46Let's try and do as much as we can
00:48And it was great
00:50We all got together
00:52And listened to everybody's ideas
00:54And listened to everybody's ideas
00:58And then just picked 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 you know just laid them down as a band
01:12We just flowed and within like two days
01:14We had pretty much five or six songs
01:16And at the end of the week we had like 14 or 12 songs on the go
01:20So we thought you know what
01:22We're going to make an album
01:24For us
01:26For you know the fact that we love music
01:28And we like writing songs
01:30And making Def Leather music
01:32It was kind of done in stages
01:40Of essentially three periods of a month long
01:46Of building the album
01:48And it was kind of nice to do that
01:50There was no pressure
01:52You could learn to live with the ideas
01:54As they were progressing
01:56You weren't losing any perspective
01:58By having to day after day after day after month after month
02:02Go through the same sort of songs
02:05So it was a really nice sort of way
02:08Of letting the album grow in 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
02:29So that's been the process
02:32And we go away, listen
02:34And then the second time we got together
02:36We were able to just modify
02:39And just focus in on what was really important
02:43So that we liked the songs as much as we possibly could
02:47And actually be fans of the music that we made
02:51We're actually a really really good live band
03:02But we're not very good usually at capturing that in the studio
03:05And 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
03:13And it's very difficult to capture
03:16The subtle nuanced dynamics
03:19That a live band has when 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
03:47Well
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
03:57More diverse elements that the band's known for
04:00The production elements
04:01The
04:02Kind of
04:03Pop scene
04:04Big production thing
04:05And so that's
04:08When we started scratching our head a lot
04:10And thinking okay well what
04:11What kind of song do we need next?
04:12Now that inevitably happens with every Def Leppard record
04:15And that's when it starts getting
04:17A little bit more painstaking
04:31One thing that I think we were really conscious of
04:33Is making something that is a little more diverse
04:37Than some of the records and albums we've done in the past
04:41We 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 that
04:51The 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
05:07Indicative of Def Leppard
05:09But we also wanted to just not 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 or what it represented
05:27Was put forward and was worked on to get to a point where
05:32It was good enough to get on the album
05:36Even if it was just starting off with an acoustic guitar idea
05:41It was progressed
05:43And from that point of view it was great
05:45To not really be confined to like going
05:49Well we can't really do this because it doesn't really sound like a Def Leppard song at this point in time
05:53So 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 completely 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 and it all kind of works
06:12In the right environment
06:14And a lot of things happen like that on the new album
06:17We'd work for a month and 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'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 that that's what we'd been saying out loud
06:41Phil said why 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 really
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
07:09Viv's illness
07:10You know
07:11It played a part in
07:12Pretty much how we approach things
07:15After
07:16We've done the Viva Hysteria thing in Vegas
07:18Because we found out there
07:19It's like
07:20Oh
07:21Right
07:22Yeah I've been dealing with lymphoma
07:23For the last
07:25Almost three years
07:26I did three rounds of chemo
07:29And that didn't take care of it
07:32And 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
07:38To do a stem cell transplant
07:39Yeah
07:40Yeah
07:41Yeah
07:42Yeah
07:43Yeah
07:44Yeah
07:45Yeah
07:46Yeah
07:47Yeah
07:48Yeah
07:49Well I'd have to go with Let's Go first
07:50Because it's so classically Leppard
07:52Again it came very naturally
07:53You know
07:54A lot of people might think
07:55That we just sat down to try and rewrite Sugar
07:56But we didn't
07:57That's a song that was very close to my heart
07:59It was something that was
08:01It was
08:09You know
08:10No
08:11Tix
08:25As always
08:26One
08:27Two
08:28Two
08:29Two
08:30No
08:32Six
08:33Two