Month: February 2018

READ THE FULL Q&A WITH JOE ON MUSICALLY HERE

When you have sold over 100m albums and shift more tickets today than you did in your supposed peak in the 1980s – as Def Leppard are – you are “not exactly hurting” for money and can therefore afford to take your time when considering the leap into new, digital revenue streams.

This, according to lead singer Joe Elliott, was one major factor behind the band not putting their entire catalogue on streaming or download services until earlier this month. But there were other factors – notably a very public war of words with Universal Music over the handling and licensing of their catalogue, including the mega-selling Pyromania and Hysteria albums.

Elliott rarely held back in interviews over the past decade when asked why Def Leppard were digital holdouts.

What took so long to get all your music on digital services?

There are many different factors. First of all, there are the legalities – the grown-up side. When our record deal with Universal lapsed in 2009, there was no digital part of the deal. That’s because there was no digital in 1979 when we signed it. That had to be negotiated. So you just leave the grown-ups in one room to deal with all of that stuff. That didn’t work out originally because the people in Universal at the time and us just couldn’t meet in the middle.

You made some inflammatory statements about the label in the past and there seemed to be a lot of bad blood. David Rowe was very diplomatic when I spoke to him recently, but was a lot of this to do with a change of management at Universal?

READ THE FULL Q&A WITH JOE ON MUSICALLY HERE

Def Leppard is still Phil Collen’s day job and main gig. But the guitarist is taking a Delta Deep moment for the early part of the year.

The blues-oriented group has just released a new concert package, East Coast Live, whose DVD was filmed at Daryl’s House in Pawling, New York. Collen has the group on the road with him for the current G3 tour, and he’s already begun recording a follow-up to Delta Deep’s self-titled 2015 debut album.

“We’ve started work on our second album,” Collen tells Billboard. “I was working on that just before we came out and I’ve got to finish it by the end of the year. I’m actually going to plan on doing it a lot on the tour bus; I’m just gonna have some speakers set up there and record every day. It’s just a process.” Collen did much the same in producing the upcoming new album from Tesla, much of which was done on the road during last year’s Def Leppard tour.

As for what the next Delta Deep album may sound like, Collen anticipates more of the same but plans to push the diversity the group explored on its debut and on the live album.

“It’s taking the original inspiration point,” explains Collen, adding that Stone Temple Pilots‘ Robert DeLeo remains a member of Delta Deep, though Craig Martini is playing bass in his stead on the G3 tour. “Zeppelin and the Stones were both blues bands and they just took it somewhere else, and that’s the part that interests me. I think if you stay locked into a specific format you end up being a karaoke band. That’s not inspiring, and you’re just copying something. So I think the great thing is to roll the dice and see where it takes you. That’s the exciting part.”

Def Leppard, meanwhile, has rolled out some major endeavors for the year. The group recently released its catalog to digital streaming services after being a longtime holdout. “We didn’t want to get ripped off,” Collen says. “The industry expected us to just roll over and put it out basically for free, or a small amount. We weren’t going to budge, but we agreed on something and it sounded great and we shook hands and there you go.” Now Collen and company feel like they’re promoting a new release, in a way. “Yeah, we basically have 12 albums to promote — again,” Collen says. “When people say, ‘Any new Def Leppard stuff?,’ yeah, we’ve got some new stuff, but it has to be on the back burner ’cause we’re kind of promoting the whole catalog now. It’s totally exciting, the fact we can finally bring that to people in a different format.”

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This weeks program features songs from PAUL MCCARTNEY, THIN LIZZY, BLACK CROWES, KISS, amongst others, as well as some stories from Joe!

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