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  • 9 hours ago
Part One: The Making Of 'Def Leppard
Transcript
00:00Music
00:02Music
00:04Music
00:08Music
00:10Music
00:14Music
00:16Music
00:20Music
00:22Music
00:24Music
00:26The beginnings of the
00:28New Record
00:30We decided to just
00:32Get together for one month
00:34And some of us have got some songs written
00:36Some of us have got just ideas
00:38And we just thought
00:40We're not going to finish an album in a month
00:42But let's get together in the studio
00:44See what comes out of it
00:46But don't go beyond the month
00:48Let's try and do as much as we can
00:50And it was great
00:52We all got together
00:54And
00:56Listened to everybody's ideas
00:58And then just pick them off
01:00One at a time
01:02The ones that we wanted to go in and start working on
01:04We all got in one room together
01:06And
01:08You know just
01:10Just laid them down as a band
01:12We just flowed
01:14And within like two days we had
01:16Pretty much five or six songs
01:18And at the end of the week we had like
01:20Twelve songs on the go
01:22And we thought you know what
01:24We're going to make an album
01:25For us
01:26For you know the fact that we love music
01:28And we like writing songs
01:30And making deaf leather music
01:32I'm addicted to your poison
01:36And never about to think
01:38It was kind of done in stages
01:42Essentially 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
02:00Day after day after day after month after month
02:02Go through the same sort of songs
02:04So it was a really nice sort of
02:08Way of letting the album grow
02:10In 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
02:30So that's been the process
02:32And we go away, listen
02:34And then the second time we got together
02:37We were able to just modify
02:40And just focus in on what was really important
02:43So that we liked the songs
02:45As much as we possibly could
02:47And actually be fans of the music that we made
03:00We'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
03:17The subtle nuanced dynamics
03:19That a live band has
03:21When 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
03:29And 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, we'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 diverse elements
03:59That the band's known for
04:00The production elements
04:01The kind of
04:03Pop scene
04:04Big production thing
04:05And so that's
04:07When we started scratching our head a lot
04:09And thinking
04:10What kind of song do we need next?
04:12Now that inevitably happens
04:14With every Def Leppard record
04:15And that's when it starts getting
04:17A little bit more painstaking
04:19One thing that I think
04:31We were really conscious of
04:32Is making something that
04:35Is a little more diverse
04:37Than some of the records
04:39And albums we've done in the past
04:41We all knew that
04:43By this stage
04:45We have a certain style anyway
04:47Our sound is very much based
04:50In the fact that
04:51The way that we orchestrate
04:52Our guitar parts
04:54The way that
04:55Our backing vocals blend together
04:57There's a sound
04:58So those ingredients
05:00Are never going to go away
05:01So that we knew that
05:03Whatever we do
05:04It's essentially going to end up
05:05Sounding
05:06You know
05:07Indicative of Def Leppard
05:09But we also wanted to just
05:11Not be confined
05:13To specific songwriting
05:16Things that we've done in the past
05:19Basically anything
05:21That sounded good
05:23Regardless of how it came about
05:25Or what it represented
05:27Was put forward
05:28And was worked on
05:30To get to a point where
05:32It was good enough
05:34To get on the album
05:36Even if it was just starting off
05:38With an acoustic guitar idea
05:40It was progressed
05:42And from that point of view
05:44It was great
05:45To not really be confined
05:47To like going
05:48Well we can't really do this
05:50Because it doesn't really sound
05:51Like a Def Leppard song
05:52At this point in time
05:53You know
05:54So it kind of gets left
05:55In fact
05:56The first track on the album
05:59Let's Go
06:00Is a combination of three
06:02Completely different ideas
06:04That I had
06:05From years back
06:06That every so often
06:08It just so happens
06:10That you put them together
06:11And it all kind of works
06:12In the right environment
06:14And a lot of things
06:15Happened like that
06:16On the new album
06:17We'd work for a month
06:19And we'd take the tapes home
06:20And Phil would play them
06:21To his friends in California
06:23And I'd be playing
06:24To my friends in Dublin
06:25And Sam would be playing
06:26To his friends in Sheffield
06:27And you know
06:29Before you put the tape on
06:30Somebody would say
06:31So you know
06:32You've got some new songs
06:33What does it sound like
06:34And we all ended up saying
06:35Sounds like Def Leppard
06:37And I think
06:38When we all realised
06:39That's what we'd been
06:40Saying out loud
06:41Phil said
06:42Why don't we just call
06:43The album Def Leppard
06:44Because we've never done it
06:45You know
06:46So it was pretty simple
06:47Really why we did it
06:48I said let's call it Def Leppard
06:49Because it's
06:50We're making it for us
06:51And no one else
06:52Plus we've never had
06:53A self-titled album
06:54So that's pretty much
06:55How that came about
06:56Yeah it was an EP
06:57And it ended up
06:58For an album
06:59For the right reasons
07:00You know
07:01Because we wanted to make music
07:05I think it played a part
07:08You know
07:09Viv's illness
07:10You know
07:11It played a part
07:12In pretty much
07:14How we approach things
07:15After
07:16We've done the
07:17Viva Hysteria thing
07:18In Vegas
07:19Because we found out there
07:20It's like
07:21Right
07:22Yeah I've been dealing
07:23With lymphoma
07:24For the last
07:25Almost three years
07:27I did three rounds of chemo
07:30And 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
07:53Well I'd have to go with let's go first
07:54Because it's
07:55So classically leopard
07:57That
07:59Again
08:00It came very naturally
08:01You know
08:02I think that we just sat down
08:03To try and rewrite Sugar
08:04But we didn't
08:05That's a song
08:06That was very close to my heart
08:08It was something that
08:09Has
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