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Behind The Scenes at RockFest Finland
‘Euphoria’ How Def Leppard Ended The 90s On A High
Euphoria will be released on vinyl for the first time ever with the new Def Leppard Volume 2 Box Set coming out June 21. Pre-order now HERE
Via UDiscover: Returning to their anthemic trademark sound, Def Leppard came back in a “big, bad ‘Hysteria’-sleek way” with their seventh album, ‘Euphoria’.
Released in May 1996, Def Leppard’s sixth album, Slang, was a diverse alt.rock record which sat well with the times, but it largely eschewed the band’s anthemic trademark sound – something the Yorkshire stalwarts were keen to revisit on their next studio set, Euphoria.
Listen to Euphoria right now.
Released in May 1996, Def Leppard’s sixth album, Slang, was a diverse alt.rock record which sat well with the times, but it largely eschewed the band’s anthemic trademark sound – something the Yorkshire stalwarts were keen to revisit on their next studio set, Euphoria.
Listen to Euphoria right now.
“Slang was something we’d been craving to do… but then we were happy to go back to making classic Def Leppard again,” vocalist Joe Elliott explained to Classic Rock in 2014. “I suppose people can say we’ve gone back to what we used to do, but I think it’s more a case of: nobody makes records like us, and if anybody’s got the God-given right to do it, it’s us.”
To help realise their aim, Leppard reconnected with Robert John “Mutt” Lange, their long-time producer, whose meticulous approach to studio techniques and songwriting had played a significant part in the success of the band’s landmark 80s albums Pyromania and Hysteria.
Though it only amounted to one long and intensive weekend of collaboration, Lange’s return to the fold gave Leppard a welcome boost as they began to shape the material for Euphoria. “It was a huge, huge education,” remembered drummer Rick Allen. “It was like a refresher course to remind us how we used to do it. He’s very creative, a great musician and a great singer. He really is the perfect person to work with.”
Leppard’s brief, but fruitful, reunion with Lange resulted in three of Euphoria’s stand-out tracks: the classy, semi-acoustic ‘It’s Only Love’, the quixotic ‘All Night’ (a throwback to the Prince-esque funk of Slang’s title track) and the album’s signature song, ‘Promises’: a turbulent rocker with bags of panache which bore the hallmarks of a future classic.
For the rest of the album, Leppard reconvened with Slang producer Peter Woodroffe and decamped to Joe’s Garage studio in Dublin to lay down the bulk of their new record. A collective confidence prevailed and their ensuing performances proved that their initial session with Lange had energised the whole band.
Issued on 8 June 1999, Euphoria quickly made it plain that Def Leppard were right back in the game, something Joe Elliott himself acknowledged, singing “It’s like I’ve never been away” on the assured ‘Back In Your Face’. The troops also made some truly consummate noise on the roaring ‘Demolition Man’, the seemingly effortless ‘Promises’ and the irrepressible ‘Kings Of Oblivion’, with the latter providing lead guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell the ideal launch pad for some vintage, Thin Lizzy-esque interplay.
Photo courtesy of Def Leppard
Yet Euphoria had far more to offer than just rampaging rockers. Bassist Rick Savage’s dreamy ‘Goodbye’ and Campbell’s ‘To Be Alive’ ranked highly among the band’s best widescreen ballads, while Collen’s exhilarating instrumental, ‘Disintegrate’, and the brooding, psych-imbued ‘Paper Sun’ suggested Leppard were still keen to prowl in pastures new as they headed into their third decade together.
Joe Elliott and company knew they were onto something good all along with Euphoria, and they were proved right when the album’s lead single, ‘Promises’, thrust Leppard back to their rightful place at the top of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Chart.
Leading the way in the press, Entertainment Weekly cut to the chase when they declared, “Def Leppard are back in a big, bad Hysteria-sleek way.” When Euphoria again yielded Top 20 Billboard chart success and a further brace of gold discs, it served notice that these seemingly invincible hard rockers remained in fine shape as they strode fearlessly into the new millennium.
The Def Leppard Volume Two 7CD and 7LP box set is due for release on 21 June and can be pre-ordered here.
Behind The Scenes at Sweden Rock Festival
Def Leppard on cover of Sweden Rocks Mag
Def Leppard is on the cover of this month’s Sweden Rocks Mag! On newsstands now.
Def Leppard to Perform at 2019 iHeartRadio Festival
Via Rolling Stone: Miley Cyrus, Alicia Keys, Cage the Elephant, Chance the Rapper and Camila Cabello will headline the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Festival, set for Friday, September 20th and Saturday, the 21st at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Def Leppard, Heart, Mumford & Sons, French Montana, Halsey, H.E.R., Tim McGraw and the Zac Brown Band also lead the line-up.
The Daytime Stage, held at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds on Saturday, will feature sets from Billie Eilish, Juice WRLD, Lauv, Old Dominion, Maren Morris, Zara Larsson, CNCO, Brett Young, FLETCHER, Monsta X and Bryce Vine, with others yet to be announced.
General tickets go on sale June 14th at 1 p.m. ET via the AXS site, with tickets for the Daytime Stage available at Ticketmaster. Capitol One cardholders can access a special pre-sale that runs from Tuesday, June 11th at 1 p.m. ET through Thursday, June 13th at 1 p.m. ET.
Ryan Seacrest will continue his tenure as host for the festival, which promises “one-of-a-kind collaborations and surprise performances” during its two-day run. iHeartMedia radio stations will broadcast the event live across the country; following the fest, the CW Network will air a two-night television special on Wednesday, October 2nd and Thursday, October 3rd from 8 to 10 p.m. ET/PT, along with an hour-long best-of special airing Sunday, September 29th at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
iHeartRadio 2018 featured Justin Timberlake, Jack White, Mariah Carey, Carrie Underwood, Sam Smith, Shawn Mendes and Kelly Clarkson among its headliners.
Joe Elliott’s Planet Rock Radio Show (Saturday 1 June)
This weeks program features songs from Guns ‘n’ Roses, Styx, Van Halen, Alice Cooper and more.
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.
Follow the monthly recap playlist on Spotify HERE
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!
Cover Stars: How Def Leppard’s Dreams Came True With ‘Yeah!’
Via Udiscover: Def Leppard released Yeah! in May 2006, but vocalist Joe Elliott first conceived the idea of recording a fully-fledged Def Leppard covers album over two decades earlier – around the time that the band’s commercial breakthrough, Pyromania, caught fire around the world.
Listen to Yeah! right now.
“The Yeah! album has been in the making in my head since 1983,” Elliott informed Billboard in 2006, when the album first appeared. “It got shoved aside as we were making our own records. [These are] songs that were inspirational to us as young kids, when we were pulling our parents’ sleeves and saying, ‘I want a guitar for Christmas, please!’”
Elliott doggedly hung onto his dream of a Def Leppard covers album, and the band took a step closer to realising it during the tour behind 2002’s pop-oriented X, when their setlist regularly made space for their inimitable versions of several collective favourites, including Badfinger’s ‘No Matter What’ and Thin Lizzy’s ‘Don’t Believe A Word’.
Def Leppard released Yeah! in May 2006, but vocalist Joe Elliott first conceived the idea of recording a fully-fledged Def Leppard covers album over two decades earlier – around the time that the band’s commercial breakthrough, Pyromania, caught fire around the world.
Listen to Yeah! right now.
“The Yeah! album has been in the making in my head since 1983,” Elliott informed Billboard in 2006, when the album first appeared. “It got shoved aside as we were making our own records. [These are] songs that were inspirational to us as young kids, when we were pulling our parents’ sleeves and saying, ‘I want a guitar for Christmas, please!’”
Elliott doggedly hung onto his dream of a Def Leppard covers album, and the band took a step closer to realising it during the tour behind 2002’s pop-oriented X, when their setlist regularly made space for their inimitable versions of several collective favourites, including Badfinger’s ‘No Matter What’ and Thin Lizzy’s ‘Don’t Believe A Word’.
Interviews undertaken by Elliott and company during the X tour also repeatedly hinted that the long-mooted Def Leppard covers album was finally about to materialise in the near future. There was truth in the rumour, too, as the new record – soon to be christened Yeah! – quickly took shape throughout self-produced sessions at Dublin’s Joe’s Garage Studios during the summer of 2004.
Yeah! was originally slated for release during the autumn of that same year, but after Mercury launched the highly successful anthology collection, Best Of Def Leppard (rechristened Rock Of Ages: The Definitive Collection in the US) and extensive touring ate up much of 2005, the band’s new album eventually appeared in May 2006.
Taking its cue from David Bowie’s Pin Ups, Yeah! dug considerably deeper than the standard covers album, even if most would agree that tough, anthemic fare such as the aforementioned ‘Don’t Believe A Word’, Faces’ raunchy ‘Stay With Me’ and The Sweet’s glam rock stomper ‘Hell Raiser’ are tailor-made for these stalwart Yorkshire rockers. At the same time, however, few would have expected them to insert loops and samples into a sparse’n’neat reinvention of David Essex’s 1972 hit ‘Rock On’, or rise to the leftfield challenges presented by the acid-fried funk of John Kongos’ ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ and ELO’s swooping, Beatles-esque ‘10538 Overture’ with such enthusiasm and aplomb.
Def Leppard released Yeah! in May 2006, but vocalist Joe Elliott first conceived the idea of recording a fully-fledged Def Leppard covers album over two decades earlier – around the time that the band’s commercial breakthrough, Pyromania, caught fire around the world.
Listen to Yeah! right now.
“The Yeah! album has been in the making in my head since 1983,” Elliott informed Billboard in 2006, when the album first appeared. “It got shoved aside as we were making our own records. [These are] songs that were inspirational to us as young kids, when we were pulling our parents’ sleeves and saying, ‘I want a guitar for Christmas, please!’”
Elliott doggedly hung onto his dream of a Def Leppard covers album, and the band took a step closer to realising it during the tour behind 2002’s pop-oriented X, when their setlist regularly made space for their inimitable versions of several collective favourites, including Badfinger’s ‘No Matter What’ and Thin Lizzy’s ‘Don’t Believe A Word’.
Interviews undertaken by Elliott and company during the X tour also repeatedly hinted that the long-mooted Def Leppard covers album was finally about to materialise in the near future. There was truth in the rumour, too, as the new record – soon to be christened Yeah! – quickly took shape throughout self-produced sessions at Dublin’s Joe’s Garage Studios during the summer of 2004.
Yeah! was originally slated for release during the autumn of that same year, but after Mercury launched the highly successful anthology collection, Best Of Def Leppard (rechristened Rock Of Ages: The Definitive Collection in the US) and extensive touring ate up much of 2005, the band’s new album eventually appeared in May 2006.
Taking its cue from David Bowie’s Pin Ups, Yeah! dug considerably deeper than the standard covers album, even if most would agree that tough, anthemic fare such as the aforementioned ‘Don’t Believe A Word’, Faces’ raunchy ‘Stay With Me’ and The Sweet’s glam rock stomper ‘Hell Raiser’ are tailor-made for these stalwart Yorkshire rockers. At the same time, however, few would have expected them to insert loops and samples into a sparse’n’neat reinvention of David Essex’s 1972 hit ‘Rock On’, or rise to the leftfield challenges presented by the acid-fried funk of John Kongos’ ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ and ELO’s swooping, Beatles-esque ‘10538 Overture’ with such enthusiasm and aplomb.
Yet, as Joe Elliott accurately pointed out to Rolling Stone, Def Leppard “were always a lot more pop than heavy metal… we could work both ways, we could tour with Journey or Bryan Adams, and we could tour with Scorpions too”. Concurring with Elliott’s summation, the same prestigious publication went on to shower the record in praise, their four-star review declaring that “it’s good enough to just hear the band and see where all the Hysteria came from”.
Nostalgic it may have been, but Yeah! was powered by an enviable contemporary energy which ensured that Def Leppard’s ardent fanbase also responded in the affirmative and sent the record into the Top 20 of the Billboard 200. The album’s potent, life-affirming vibe also spilled over into the writing and recording of 2008’s Songs From The Sparkle Lounge: Def Leppard’s most confident and forward-thinking collection of original songs since 1996’s Slang.
The Def Leppard Volume Two 7CD and 7LP box set is due for release on 21 June and can be pre-ordered here.
Joe Elliott’s Songs From The Vault on Sirius XM (May Edition)
JOE ELLOTT’S SONGS FROM THE VAULT ON SIRIUS XM’S DEEP VINYL
Tune into Joe’s new monthly radio show on Sirius to hear artists like Lou Reed, Kate Bush, John Lennon, Brian Eno and more!
WHO: Def Leppard frontman, musician, and musicologist Joe Elliott
WHAT: Will debut “Joe Elliott’s Songs from the Vault”
WHEN:
Premiere – Thursday, 4/16 at 4pm
Encores 4/17 10pm, 4/18 10am, 4/19 12am, 6pm
WHERE: SiriusXM’s DeepTracks (Ch. 27)
MORE:
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.
Joe Elliott’s Planet Rock Radio Show (Saturday11 May)
This weeks program features songs from Paul McCartney, Alice Cooper, The Struts, Tesla 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.
Follow the monthly recap playlist on Spotify HERE
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!