Six Hundred Four, a luxury sneaker brand that creates limited edition shoes based off art pieces, announces a limited-edition collaboration with iconic rock band Def Leppard launching for pre-order today. Only 604 individually numbered pairs will be produced and exclusively available to purchase at sixhundredfour.com.
Consisting of 4 styles, the premium collection draws inspiration from the album art of Def Leppard’s three most iconic albums, On Through the Night, Pyromania, and Hysteria, along with a style dedicated to their highly recognizable Def Leppard logo. Retailing for $265 USD, each style will be on display during the band’s current world tour at their meet and greets, starting July 1 and are expected to ship to customers in October, Size Ranges from EU 36-47.
James Lepp, the founder of Six Hundred Four, explains “It all started last summer when Phil Collen, the lead guitarist, entered our store. That resulted in a 30-pair exclusive collaboration with him, and now has led to a full collaboration with Def Leppard. Like the Phil Collen series, the Def Leppard collection will be unlike anything that’s hit the market before.”
Def Leppard lead guitarist Phil Collen goes on “Last year I collaborated with Six Hundred Four, so I know first-hand how thoughtfully they treat collaborations. From seeing this new Def Leppard collection, it’s no surprise that the shoes look flawless.”
Lead singer Joe Elliott says “I always knew the fans we’re going to love the shoes, but when I finally saw the shoes in person, I fell in love with them. I’m looking forward to wearing them on stage.”
Featuring the greatest rock from across the decades to 2018’s new releases, Johnnie will curate an hour of the best rock ever heard on Radio 2.
The Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne kicks off the ‘Rock God’ feature. Each week on the show we’ll be asking some of the biggest and most influential rock names to pick their own ‘Rock God’. This week – Ozzy reveals who he looks up to in the rock world and tells us why.
As the lead singer of Black Sabbath, Ozzy’s legend in music is virtually unrivalled. Black Sabbath formed in Birmingham in 1968 and were originally called The Polka Tulk Blues Band before becoming Black Sabbath in 1969. They are often referred to as the pioneers of heavy metal. In 1979, Ozzy was fired from Sabbath and went solo, releasing the incredible ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ the following year. Ozzy continued his often controversial and tumultuous solo career, producing influential rock albums such as 1983’s ‘Bark at the Moon’ and ‘No More Tears’ in 1991. In November 2011, it was announced Ozzy would rejoin Sabbath for an album and final world tour titled, ‘The End’. The band played their last show together in Birmingham in 2017.
As well as rock legends, Johnnie will also bring you his ultimate A-Z of Rock; an indispensable, bitesize guide to the genre in a handy alphabetical order and we’ll delve into the archives to bring you a flavor of them too. Where else would we start but ‘A’? So many incredible artists and bands begin with ‘A’ but there’s only really one we could play on the first Radio 2 Rock Show. Make sure you’re listening to find out which explosive ‘A’ Johnnie will pick…
In his youth, Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott was creatively influenced by the music of the late 60’s and early 70’s. From legendary acts like T. Rex, Mott The Hoople, David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and so many others. Each month, listen to Elliott play “Deep Tracks” from his personal music collection. Expect to hear songs from Joe’s vault and some of the stories behind them. You can also see Def Leppard on tour this summer. Promising to be the Tour of the Year, two of the world’s greatest rock bands – Def Leppard and Journey- are teaming up for a massive co-headlining North American tour composed of both stadium and arena concerts, and will feature complete sets and all-new production from both bands, and an arsenal of their greatest hits. A full list of tour dates can be found HERE.
Via Daily Express: Hot on the heels of their career-defining 1980s Volume 1 box set, Def Leppard created a whole new lyric video for their breakout single Animal, originally released on their Diamond selling Hysteria album.
The finely packaged Volume 1 box set collects together six CDs including the band’s first four studio albums, a live album recorded at the LA Forum and a rarities collection.
This is the first of four planned volumes of the band’s complete recorded output. They all come in both limited edition 180 gram heavyweight vinyl and limited edition box sets, featuring six albums each across six CDs released by Bludgeon Riffola/Mercury/UMe.
Def Leppard released Hysteria in 1987, it’s the band’s best-selling record to date selling over 25 million copies worldwide. It went to No.1 in the UK, US and Australia. It’s also the band’s second album to achieve Diamond status in the US.
Singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson may be known for the sensitive and soulful songs in his repertoire, but the man also loves his heavy rock. Having recently finished his new album, which is due out later this year, he found himself itching to get back into the studio and to geek out with his guitarist/bandmate Aaron Tap “on the greatness of other people’s songs.” Looking to one of their favorite bands, they conjured up the six-song Def Leppard covers EP Pyromattia, which drops Friday and also includes their bandmates Shiben Bhattacharya (bass and keyboards) and Chris Lovejoy (percussion).
Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott says: “Check out this new EP by Matt Nathanson … re works of a bunch of DL songs… mostly all acoustic! Some of these songs when I read the titles, I thought no way ! But boy they really work ! Check out Matt’s version of Stage Fright.. it’s an amazing re-interpretation…I heard through our mutual friend Emm Gryner he thinks we never got acknowledged for our songwriting as much as we should have …well Matt, thanks for noticing !! Congratulations on what is a risky project to try & pull off, you’ve done it & you’ve done it with heart & soul & we love you for that !!!”
For Nathanson, Def Leppard’s evolution throughout their first four albums (On Through The Night, High ‘N’ Dry, Pyromania, and Hysteria) is unparalleled in rock. “I don’t know of a band that has an arc that good, where they go from kind of just being a band of kids playing riff metal to getting a handle on songwriting and getting a handle on emotion, and then delivering a fucking masterpiece of pop-rock metal,” he gushes enthusiastically. “I think that’s why they’ve always kept my interest.”
While he is a big fan of Van Halen and Prince, Nathanson feels that those groundbreaking artists (along with David Bowie and Queen) were like aliens from other planets, very talented but not mere mortals. He connected more with Def Leppard because he felt that they were just five young kids who progressed and pushed themselves at an incredible rate to make better and better music, and he also notes that many of their lyrics were darker than most of their peers.
“Nobody’s a nerd for Def Leppard,” asserts Nathanson. “That’s the other part that’s so annoying. Everybody says, ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ or whatever. But nobody’s like, ‘I fucking love Def Leppard, man.’ I have every book that you could possibly have on the band. I’ve read every interview, and they’re badass. So there was just no question that we would do a tribute to them.”
One of the six Def Lep covers on Pyromattia comes from 1981’s High ‘N’ Dry(“Bringin’ On The Heartbreak”), two from Pyromania (“Stagefright” and “Comin’ Under Fire”), two from Hysteria (the title track and the inevitable “Pour Some Sugar On Me”), and “Promises” from 1999’s Euphoria. The inspired acoustic reinterpretations offer Nathanson’s personal take on the tunes featuring acoustic guitar, piano, and strings, with whistling emerging in “…Heartbreak” and melodica on “Promises”.
Given his strong fandom for the band, one wonders how Nathanson and his band made their selections and what other choices they might have considered. “That was what was so fascinating about it,” he says. “When we broke them down, we tried really hard to include stuff from On Through The Night and High ‘N’ Dry as much as we could. We tried a bunch of songs from the band’s catalog and settled on the ones that felt the most natural for me. A song like “Photograph”, one of my favorite songs ever, didn’t really work for me when we played it broken down.”
As much as Nathanson loves the early, riff-oriented Def Leppard era with guitarist Pete Willis (who was replaced by former Girl axeman Phil Collen on their third album Pyromania), he explains that when they broke down those songs “into the acoustic guy format, they just felt disingenuous, like we were doing a schtick. I really didn’t want this to feel, in any way, like we were taking the piss, even with ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’. That one was really hard to find my way into. It almost didn’t make the cut because it’s so iconic and stylized, as well as having kinda nonsensical lyrics.” He adds that they worked hard to find a way to reinterpret the song that worked and felt honest. He is pleased with the results.
“For nerds like me and Aaron, music is everything,” proclaims Nathanson. “I got to make a fucking Def Leppard EP with my buddy in his house, and we got to listen to all the Def Leppard songs over and over and crack them open. Hopefully people dig them. And if they don’t, I dig them.”
It turns out that Nathanson had a friend with a direct line to Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott and forwarded him the song six-pack. The famed singer “sent a response back and said he loved it,” reports Nathanson. “He said that our version of ‘Stage Fright’ was great, and that, ‘I’m lucky I didn’t have to sing that part an octave up for my entire career.’ It’s fun when he gives feedback and says that our version of ‘Stage Fright’ is something that he digs. Game over. I’m good.”
Nathanson says that he and Tap, like the members of Def Leppard, have sought to take their musical influences to make records they like. “I do it because music is the only thing that matters to me,” he declares. “I like music more than I like people, and all I want to do is dip my toe in the lake of greatness from the records that changed my life and keep changing my life. I related so severely to Def Leppard and still do. They’re just these super fans of music. Joe Elliott has an encyclopedic knowledge of the music that he loves, and so do I, and the records reflected that sort of love. Def Leppard always led with their heart.”
It turns out that Nathanson is considering other covers EPs. “There are so many bands that I’d love to cover,” he says. “I think maybe the next one might be about a place or celebrating certain things. That’s what’s fun about it because there are so many great songs. Maybe the next one will be a tribute to being from Boston. There’s so much great music out of Boston.”
This weeks program features songs from UFO, Matt Nathanson, Trent Severn, Jethro Tull amongst others, as well as some stories from Joe!
Radio show time is Saturdays at 6pm (GMT) / 1pm (EST) and repeated on Tuesday nights @ 9pm (GMT) / 4pm (EST).
For those in the U.K. tune into Joe’s weekly radio show on PlanetRock.com.
For those listening outside the U.K. listen live from this site HERE. Please not this Surf.com internet site may not work in some countries. As a quick fix, please download a VPN application and set it to the UK territory. Then download the Planet Rock app and boom, it works!
Stories on the road, from Joe!
“On May 31st for our day off in Toronto, my friend Emm Gryner’s trio Trent Severn played a gig 500 yds from our hotel so me, Sav, Viv & a few crew guys (along with one time Lennon/Bowie/Hunter/ NYD guitarist Earl Slick) went to see their show & what a wonderful show it was… the next night as they had another gig & we had one too we decided that at 9pm on the dot we’d do the pre gig “cheers” together, us backstage at the Roger Centre, Trent Severn at their gig… “Bonus points for video” says Emm, so at 8:56pm we cheated so we could get ours in first! Their video came in at 9:07.. which by my reckoning put them on stage late… but at least they are ladies of their word… check ‘em out !!!” – Joe Elliott
“It is 25 years today since we played Don Valley Stadium in our home town Of Sheffield… a beautiful summer’s day in front of over 40,000 people… one of the major highlights of our crazy Journey so far… & more to come!” – Joe
Watch Def Leppard perform “Another Hit and Run” from the 1993 show below.
