Def Leppard were one of the bands I grew up listening to like I’m sure many of you did too. Over the last decade they’ve made Australia a regular stop on their world tours and they’re back to see us again in November. We caught up with Phil Collen to talk all about the tour and what got him started on this life in Rock and Roll in the first place…
Mark: Hi, Phil, how are you?
Phil: Very good thank you, we’re doing Portland, Oregon tonight, and into the last couple of weeks of our US tour.
Mark: Yes, I see you’re there tonight and then hopping over the border quickly to Canada, and then finishing off back in the US with a few more dates. The great news for us down here is that you’re on your way back! It’s something you’ve done more regularly over the past few years; I think every 3 to 4 years you come back to Australia.
Phil: It is, I like that, I like the fact we’re constant, and I love coming to Australia.
Mark: This time you’ve got something pretty special for us, you’ve got the Hysteria and more, where you’re going to be playing the album in full and it’s also the 35th anniversary of Pyromania, which I guess is the album where you were dropped in to those recording sessions?
Phil: Absolutely. It’s all going off!! We’re actually busier now than we’ve ever been; we’re getting busier and busier, which is great. At this age, I’m 60, and it’s crazy to think that we’d be doing this at this level, we keep getting better as musicians, the singing keeps getting better, so there is something to it, being consistent, I’ve got to say!
Mark: Yeah, it’s wonderful to see, and always great when there’s a new album out as well, but I think we all have our own memories of Def Leppard, and for me it was those days of Pyromania, and Hysteria after that, it must have been a good situation to have been dropped in to, but also scary to try and beat Pyromania, it was a popular album.
Phil: We never thought about it, I think if you think about stuff like that, we felt really good because Mutt Lange was with us and I think he’s just the best, he’s amazing, he’s a genius, and we trust everything he does, so he’s just totally inspiring, so we never even worried about it! What we did worry about was when it started costing so much money!! And taking so much time, and before you know it, you’re millions of dollars in debt! So, yeah, that was scary, and the other part of it was it was actually more like a jigsaw puzzle; artistically we wanted to do something different, we didn’t want to do the same old thing, because everyone else was making Pyromania Part 2, so we figured we’d just do something different, and bring in different influences. Mutt Lange was like “look, guys, we have to raise the bar here a little bit, we can’t just do what everyone else is doing, we can’t just copy Pyromania”, so we had different influences, for example, Prince, Frankie goes to Hollywood, INXS, along with all the other suspects that were out at the time, and, plus all the stuff we’d done before, Queen, AC/DC, Zeppelin. So, that’s what we did, we raised the bar and brought in more influences, and then the album just took on a life of its own, with a brand new kind of sound really.
Mark: Yeah, I always saw Def Leppard as a band that really did open up that whole late 80’s resurgence of rock, especially on MTV and stuff like that.
Phil: Yeah, I think what really happened, a lot of these other bands, there’s a very narrow minded approach to it, they just listen to other rock bands and they stay in that specific demographic with the stuff they listen to and it doesn’t promote growth, and then I think there’s “super artists”, someone like Prince, who would listen to everyone like Joni Mitchell, Zeppelin, as well as Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix, he’d be right across the board, and I think that when you get a really successful artist, you know that that’s what they do, they’re fans of music, and when it gets a little narrow minded and small, it’s when people just fit in, well at least in my frame of reference.
Mark: Yeah, they start chasing past glories! You actually played in the first ever show that I ever saw, which was at Stafford Bingley Hall, in the UK, supporting Kiss, in 1984!!
Phil: Oh, wow!! Yeah, everyone was spitting at us!!
Mark: That’s funny, I spoke to Phil (Lewis, then vocalist with Phil in Girl, now of L.A. Guns) a few weeks ago, and he said exactly the same as you!! He remembered that show!! It’s interesting you mention Prince and all those other artists, I always imagined you were one of those people who had pretty eclectic taste, so what music are you listening to at the moment? And do you think it’s changed over the years or have you always had a wide range of musical tastes?
Phil: No, truth is, I let anything in that’s good! I listen to a lot of 70’s Soul and Funk, R&B, and stuff like that, and then I listen to Marilyn Manson, its right across the board and always has been. I think what’s happening in music now, is actually it’s got quite tribal, there’s a lot of people who don’t want to have Taylor Swift, Drake and Beyoncé rammed down their throats, and the vinyl revolution is anyone from Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Zeppelin, The Stones, Nirvana, you name it, we fall in that bracket somewhere, so people have got very tribal about what they like. They don’t like the way the industry’s gone, they don’t like the newer stuff, so the new vinyl revolution, if you like, is something that’s got a bit more substance to it, than the commerciality of it, I know that everyone says that with every new generation, but I think it’s more specific now because you have more different ways of getting music, you can stream it, so someone almost closed the book, so you know anything before this date was either on vinyl, on CD, on cassette, and everything after that is digital, it almost “cheapens it” to a lot of music connoisseurs, it’s all pretty interesting!
Mark: Yeah, I think a lot of younger peoples whole view of music has changed, from something that you would share with your friends, going out to concerts, that whole social aspect of it, has now become something where you can stream a million different songs, and everything just gets seems to get lost! One of the albums I did love from a couple of years ago was “Delta Deep”, I thought that was a wonderful album!
Phil: Oh, right, thank you. We just released a live album this year; I went out on tour with the G3 tour, with Joe Satriani and John Petrucci, so we took Delta deep out on that, that was great! And we recorded new stuff!
Mark: That was the next question I was going to ask you actually! About the G3 tour, what does it feel like as a guitarist to be asked on stage to play with guys like that?
Phil: It’s amazing! I was totally honoured, I love Joe Satriani, I love John Petrucci, but I love them as people as well, there is no ego whatsoever. Every night we’d do a set each, and then the three of us would get up and jam, and we really would create, there’s a great phrase that Keith Richards said when Ronnie Wood joined the band, it’s like “weaving sonic tapestries”, Keith Richards cracks me up, but I totally get what he means!! And that’s what we were doing up on stage we were actually trying to create music on the fly! John would go first, and he’s an incredible player, and so he’d do some shredding, it was scary, but instead of being scared by it, you would be influenced by it, and inspired by it! There’s a huge difference from being freaked out and scared, and being inspired, he would play something so inspirational, and I would try and add to it, and then Joe would come and play something that’s like out of this atmosphere, crazy stuff, but we did have such a great time doing that together, and as I said, there wasn’t any ego and we really liked each other it was just so much fun! It really pushed my playing so much being next to them every single night, I learnt so much, and then when we got off stage we’d talk about the performance every single night and we were just like little kids, it was great!!
Mark: That sounds fantastic! It’s a wonderful show.
Phil: It really was.
Mark: Taking it all the way back for us, I know I read somewhere that you got two, new, first guitars, but what was the thing that inspired you to play guitar in the first place? Was there a defining moment?
Phil: Yeah, I saw Ritchie Blackmore with Deep Purple on the Machine Head tour, I was about 14, and my cousin took me, we were front row. He was playing, and I’d never heard anyone play like that for a start off before, and his technique was incredible, and I thought that’s what I want to do!! And so for the next two years I pestered my mum and dad until they got me a guitar, and that was pretty much it really, that particular moment. Then there was everything else. Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Mick Ronson, I heard these glorious guitar players who I could be inspired by, it was wonderful!
Mark: Definitely a fantastic bunch of musicians! What is the process of making music like for you? What makes you want to keep creating?
Phil: Well, I think, and this word keeps popping up, it’s about being inspired, if your just like music by numbers or you just copy something, there’s a big difference between copying something and being so inspired, inspiration makes you do something else, and maybe brings you to tears. I remember listening to Aretha Franklin years ago when I was a kid, and something about her voice made me feel really emotional, and that’s what I’m talking about, even writing a song, I’ve done it myself, I’ve teared up or got choked up because of what the essence of the song is about, from an experience or something. Then it’s like that jigsaw puzzle, if you’ve got other inspired people around you, which in our case we’ve always had, and especially when Mutt Lange was involved, he’s the most incredible, talented musician I’ve ever met in my life, and the hardest working person I’ve ever seen, ever! Just being around people like that makes things better, and being around Joe and John for 40 nights or whatever it is, you start picking up on it and I think, don’t be intimidated by it, because you can learn so much from it. All these people were so gracious, Mutt Lange is like that, he’s so gracious with his energy and his talent, and so you end up doing stuff so that you make him happy, almost, it’s a weird thing, you’re so inspired by it, that you want to prove yourself. This happens to us a lot, people say to me Phil, you’re a different person on stage, are you showing off, giving it the “big ‘un” especially when someone’s standing at the side of the stage like Brian May, or Jimmy Paige or someone! And then I tend to do it more, but I say, No I’m honouring those people, they mean so much to me. About four weeks ago we played Vegas, and Brian was there, and I totally raised the bar, I was playing better, and it looked like I was showing off, but I wasn’t, I was honouring one of my heroes, and the same thing with Jimmy Paige, so I do play different but people tend to misconstrue it as showing off!! It was the same with Mutt, he’d work so hard and come up with such great ideas, that we were so inspired that we’d want to honour that process, if you know what I mean.
Mark: I do, I’d never thought of it like that, but it makes perfect sense. It’s time for one quick final question, which we ask everyone, what is the meaning of life?
Phil: its work in progress, did I say this last time?? It’s work in progress, I think you can’t put your finger on it, the trick is to know more today than you did yesterday, and there’s so many different things, its whether it’s enlightenment and a spiritual outlet, that’s one thing, or perhaps nothing happens at all, so you have to figure that out and I think the more experience you get the closer you get to that answer.
Mark: That’s a fantastic answer! Thank you so much for your time today, Phil, we really appreciate it, and see you in November!
Phil: Thank you, Cheers, and see you there.
Def Leppard Tour Australia kicking off in Perth on November 2nd
Get your tickets here: https://www.livenation.com.au/artist/def-leppard-tickets
