Date Of Birth: August 1, 1959
Birthplace: Sheffield, England
Residence: Dublin, Ireland
Personal File: Married to Kristine
Joe Elliott Also Appears On:

Did you know?

Side Projects

Personal life

• Elliott currently lives in Dublin, Ireland, with his wife Kristine.
• Joe maintains a recording studio in his home called Joe's Garage in which he has recorded and produced many major artists. Artists have also recorded in Joe's Garage while Joe has been on the road with Def Leppard.

Trivia

• Elliott auditioned for Def Leppard (then known as Atomic Mass) singing Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." He missed the octave change in the song but the band was so impressed with his looks and enthusiasm that they took him anyway.
• During Def Leppard's early days Elliott worked in a bread factory where while sweeping up he would pretend to be AC/DC frontman Bon Scott.
• In addition to singing, Joe plays guitar, bass, piano and drums; and can be seen (with KISS style make-up) playing drums in the band's music video to the song Rocket (at about 1:48 into the video). The song was a tribute to the 1970s bands they grew up listening to. In that scene, actual drummer Rick Allen is seen along the other bandmates fronting the band, all donning makeup in a tribute to the glam bands of their youth.
• Unlike bandmate Rick Savage who supports Sheffield Wednesday, Elliott is an avid Sheffield United fan.
• Elliott has stated on many occasions that his favourite band is Mott the Hoople.
• His other big influences are David Bowie,T.Rex, and Queen.
• Has battled the mumps twice throughout his life, being stricken with them the 2nd time while recording the bands hit album, Hysteria.
• Is good friends with Ricky Warwick, having produced, and performing back up vocals on Ricky Warwick's Love Many Trust Few album. Rick has also returned the favor performing backup vocals on several of Def Leppard's albums.

See also

• Def Leppard

External links

• Joe Elliott Biography on Def Leppard Frequency
• Joe Elliott Biography

Joe sees no reason to rest after 30 rocking years Fri August 31, 2007 Co-founder says band sees no reason to rest after 30 rocking years

By Brandy McDonnell
Entertainment Writer

After three decades of rock, Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott sees no reason to stop

"Why would you? ... We're musicians, and our job is to play for people. And the more we play and the more people we play in front of, the happier we feel," he said in a phone interview from his Dublin, Ireland, home. "We always wanted to be the biggest band in the world. For a little while, we were. Who's to say that we won't get it back? But even if we're not, you know, we're one of that elite few that can still play (for) 20,000 people."


On its latest U.S. tour, the British quintet, along with Styx, will play Wednesday night at the Zoo Amphitheatre, 2101 NE 50. Def Leppard hit the road in June, though the group had just finished in November touring with its 2006 album "Yeah!," a collection of covers. In between, members gathered at Elliott's home and studio to work on a new album, which the singer said is about 80 percent finished. "It's been like nonstop work. It's wild, you know. The older we get, the busier we get, which is weird," Elliott said with a laugh.


Thirty years ago this month, Elliott and bassist Rick "Sav" Savage (along with former guitarist Pete Willis and drummer Tony Kenning) formed Def Leppard. The group became the quintessential hard rock band of the '80s, notching hits with "Photograph," "Rock of Ages," "Hysteria," "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Rocket." Def Leppard's popularity waned in the '90s, but the band played on. They now are experiencing a revival.

"There's obviously a demand for what we're doing, because the ticket sales on the last tour alone were the best we've had since the 'Hysteria' tour (in 1987, the height of the band's heyday)," Elliott said. "It makes you feel wanted, and it makes you feel valid." He compared the band's resurgence to fellow musician Paul McCartney, the former Beatle whose solo career is on an upswing, and actor William Shatner, the 76-year-old "Star Trek" star winning awards for his role on "Boston Legal."


"I don't necessarily think we've even written our best song yet. ... If you think that you can never better 'Pour Some Sugar on Me,' we might as well just pack in right now. But the fact (is) that we believe that we can add to our legacy and put something out there that shocks people not necessarily in its content but in the fact that they go 'My God, they can still do it.' That's the kind of thing that you drive yourself on to do," he said.

The members still have their passion for music; otherwise, he said, they would stay home with their wives, children and possessions "and just live the life, 'cause they've got enough money to feed themselves if they live to be 300."


"It's all well and good to be able to pay your bills, but if you haven't got a drive in life or a passion, I don't see the point in getting out of bed in the morning," Elliott said.


"I believe we're a better band now than we've ever been. We seem to just get better every tour we do. We're more consistent; we play better. We last longer. We're like the Energizer Bunny. We just seem to have this boundless enthusiasm that gets bigger the older we get. Maybe because we feel that there is an end of the road at some stage, so you have to suck all the energy you can and put it back to your crowd. Because you just never know when it's going to end."


But Elliott, who turned 48 last month, sees no reason for the band to coast on previous successes. As they tour this summer, he and his mates are listening to the 12 songs they've recorded for the new album. They plan to return to the studio after the tour. "It's typical Def Leppard in the sense that, like, it's very melodic. It's obviously hard-hitting. But it's not bog-standard in the sense of it's not exactly what everybody's going to expect," he said.


"There's a lot of elements that people will embrace and be familiar with, but it's also got some stuff in it that's ... more adventurous than maybe what people think that we're capable of." Band members won't be playing the new songs Wednesday night, but they have changed up the show for the tour.


"We've come up with a whole new visual aspect to it, and we've totally revamped the set. We've dug real deep in the catalog, and we've pulled some nuggets that we've not played either ever or for a very, very long time," he said. "Obviously, there's certain songs that we have to play. Let's be honest, we actually want to play them. We like the reaction that we get when we play 'Sugar,' 'Photograph,' etc." Although they have discussed a 30th anniversary box set or live album, Elliott said the rockers prefer to look forward rather than back. Their goal has always been to entertain; the difference is, now they sometimes have two or even three generations of fans in the stands.



"We were very fortunate that we somehow gravitated toward each other, which you know, we had no control over that happening," he said. "It was fate. And God willing, it keeps going. ... We all realize how blessed we are to get the opportunity to do what we do."

XM Radio Interview discussed 2008 Tour Plans Speaking in a recent XM Radio interview Joe shared this when asked about 2008 tour plans. "We wanna do what we're doing now, next summer. The plan would be to try and do some of the European festivals in late spring - May or whatever and then go back and do some in September and in between do America.

Cos we've not really had the opportunity to do that before, because our albums have always come out at the wrong time, we've had to wait for winter to clear and then by the time it's cleared the album is already finished.

So if we can get the album out for spring we can do it but it's just a rough plan, we haven't really nailed anything down cos until we've finished the record we won't really know what to do but at least we've got it in the back of our minds that - don't book any holidays for next year cos you're gonna be busy."
Thanks to Darren, deflepparduk.com

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JOE ELLIOTT from the official Def Leppard Fan Club

JOE ELLIOTT - EXHAUSTIVE AND EXTENSIVE, PART 1
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What's your general feeling when you look back at the 2007 tour?

It was spectacular! Styx and Foreigner were great, there is the same kind of vibe that we had with Journey last year. They're all easy to work with - no egos! Or at least, I haven't come across any at all. This whole tour seemed to do all three bands a world of good, and since we got great crowds without even promoting a record, I find that very encouraging - considering next year, when we WILL be touring on the back of a record. A tour like this gets us on various TV shows, which is a lot better than having a video on MTV nowadays.
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Any high- or low points that come to mind?

One of the low points was the Raleigh gig, that had to be cancelled about 7 minutes before Foreigner were scheduled to take the stage. What happened was, this microburst came through and went literally underneath the stage....but over it at the same time! It kinda grabbed it all like a hand and tore the plastic off the top. Of course, it was raining, so in some areas behind the drums there were 3-4 inches deep puddles. With all the electronics and equipment, it was just too dangerous for the band, crew and audience - water and electricity just don't mix. Twelve people were injured by flying debris, so we couldn't risk any more and so there was absolutely no choice other than to cancel.
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Not very common for Def Leppard!

We rarely had to cancel any gigs...in fact, in 2005 we cancelled the show in Camden due to bad weather and that was the first time we had to cancel a show in the first place. For this one, we were determined to reschedule. This was possible, but only if we would do four nights in a row, which we generally don't do. I don't see any benefit in that, except from a financial point of view maybe....but after all these years I don't do it for the money! I'd like to be at the best I can. Expecting us to play four nights in a row is like expecting a professional sportsman to play four games in a row - you need the recovery time. But in the end we did it -- doing that plus all the travelling, it was pretty hard.
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How did your voice hold out during that very active period?

I was doing really well until the fourth one, but.... You have to compare it to any kind of muscle or something. It takes half a second to break a leg, and then 3-4 months to recover. You can pull a muscle and it will take 2 weeks to mend. Voice is no different! But my voice doesn't break after just one night, but when it does it's the result of three or four shows in a row. And then the interviews, the chit-chat, airconditioning.... It's not always good for the voice.
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How did you pick the set list for this tour?

We tried to fit in some songs that we don't normally play, to give the audience something different. So, since we didn't want to play new songs on this tour, we brought out songs like "MIRROR MIRROR" and "EXCITABLE". Now, they might be a little obscure, but from my experience, there's still a good 25% of the audience singing along. And "EXCITABLE"....It comes off a 17 million-selling record, but there's still a lot of people who won't know the song.....because it wasn't a single!
We don't have 25 top 10 hits. We're lucky that we have about 10 of them that we can throw into a set. And I've said it often enough, we HAVE to. We're not like Elvis Costello or whoever, whose fans expect him to play obscure stuff almost exclusively. We've never been that kind of band, never wanted to be. We do a big bunch of hits because we're proud of 'em.
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Doesn't the BAND get bored of playing all those same songs year after year?

Well we DO have a boredom threshold, so to play the same set tour after tour after tour, is hard. But there's a core collection of songs that we HAVE to play or else we'd be skinned alive! So we can make things more exciting by changing things around a bit. Two songs that we used to do in the last half hour of the set, we were now opening with ("ROCKET" and "ANIMAL"), that's one way of keeping things fresh. Another is "BRINGIN' ON THE HEARTBREAK", which we did in the same way as we did years ago, starting off acoustically. So that's how we can keep things from becoming boring.
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To not play any new material, did that make things very different?

Well the big thing missing is indeed me saying "Here's a song off our new album," right. "ROCK ON" is the closest thing to being a new song, because it was a big hit last summer - same thing happened last year when we played "NO MATTER WHAT" , which was a hit the year before. But we've got our bases covered, all in all it sets things up nicely for the next album and tour.
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Between shows, the set list did not change at all and you pretty much played the exact same set every night. Why was that?

We tried it once, by replacing "ANOTHER HIT AND RUN" with "LET IT GO", but in the end we went back to our original choice. It just didn't feel as good, really. See, I've seen situations where a band like U2 played nine songs off their new album at the start of the tour, and by the time the tour ended, only three new songs were left and all the hits were back in. Sometimes things just work, sometimes they don't. During our 2006 tour, we stopped switching songs around by the end of the run, because we found a perfectly balanced set that didn't need any more work. Most bands have a set list that's 85% determined, and 15% that's room switching things around. Apart from that, the main reason why it's so difficult to spontaneously throw in a song, is because of the digital sound desks and lighting systems. They're programmed in such a way, that if you want to change the order, the sound- and lighting guys have to know that hours beforehand. It's impossible to do that on the spot! A Def Leppard concert is like a Broadway play - it has to have a certain amount of lighting choreography and pre-determined organization. We simply can not throw in a new, unrehearsed song just like that, cause (our lighting engineer) Kenji wouldn't know what to do then! It's not just the band that rehearses a song, it's also the crew. They are so important, because they really help deliver what the five us do. The band is on stage, but there are another dozen or so people pushing buttons and move sliders up and down that will make us look and sound great. And that's not even that big, I mean, the Rolling Stones must have some 300 people on their crew...!
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Have you ever considered putting a full album in your set, like Iron Maiden? They played their latest album ("A Matter Of Life And Death") in its entirety, in sequence, on tour last year.

Well it's a very brave move! David Bowie's done it too in 1974, and it's because they get real itchy about their new stuff. We do too, really, but the difference with us is that we realize fairly quickly, or maybe admit it, that it generally doesn't work. You might get a kick out of it for the first month or so, but normally the crowd won't do anything for the first hour, because they don't know it. Then, "NUMBER OF THE BEAST" comes in, or "REBEL REBEL" in Bowie's case, and the crowd goes nuts! The audience has had twenty years to get used to the old stuff, and new material just doesn't sink in that quick. Take "PROMISES".... Relatively new, and sometimes it's in our set. But it will never go down as well as "ROCK OF AGES". New songs catching up with the old is almost impossible. The only way we could play a full album live, would be to do it in a club, in front of a couple of hundred die-hard fans. If we were to advertise that we were going to play a whole new album on tour, I believe it would actually stop people from buying a ticket! Roger Waters can get away with playing "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON" in full, because it's from 1973, AND 37 million people own that album. For us to do it, it would take out the balance of a show. And personally, I believe that the majority of the audience will induldge an artist a new song about every 20-25 minutes.
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Does that mean that you don't have the urge to actually play your new material then?

Not at all! See, the reason I am in a band, is because I want to play my own "WHOLE LOTTA LOVE", my own "MY GENERATION", my own "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS", all in front of 12,000 people. Not the B-sides! I really want to play the greatest hits, because if you've GOT greatest hits, it means you're a success and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. There's only a problem with that if it's the ONLY thing you ever do and you don't put out any new records. Some nostalgia bands do that of course, but for us, this tour is the closest we got to that - and even then it doesn't feel like that because we have that knowledge in the back of our heads that we have a new album coming out next year.

JOE ELLIOTT - EXHAUSTIVE AND EXTENSIVE, PART 2

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How is the new album coming along?

Well, we're missing a few vocals, a number of overdubs and unless we're going to decide to do another new song, pretty much everything is done. We're still working on the artwork, which is in its very early stages. The artist who's working on it did the initial setup and concept for the "YEAH!"-album as well, but it end up being done by someone else, and this time we're giving him the opportunity to actually create the design as well.
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How is it to work on new material when the general consensus is that "HYSTERIA" is still your masterpiece?

Well, there's plenty of things on "HYSTERIA" that I would totally redo. "DON'T SHOOT SHOTGUN" and "RUN RIOT" spring to mind. Those were supposed to be the two big rockers on that album, but in hindsight didn't really work. And I wouldn't have put "LOVE AND AFFECTION" on the album, I would have saved it for what became "ADRENALIZE". All in all, I think there's a couple of songs too many. Sure, in 1987 it was cute 'n cuddly and groundbreakingly new to do a 63-minute record and in fairness, it did give it a certain amount of publicity, but I think 45-50 minutes is long enough for anybody's attention span now. I don't think you have to do an hour just because a CD can take some 80 minutes. It might just be too much.
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So why release more material than what you want to give?

The pressure that is being put on bands by the record companies is immense. It's the same when different territories around the world ask for bonus tracks, or even full bonus discs. So after spending a year of creating (what you think is) ten pieces of art, they want another eight pieces of fodder, just so they can say "not available anywhere else in the world" or "exclusive track for such-and-such a shop", whatever. It's like what we did with "YEAH!".... Fourteen songs on the regular album, and how many bonus tracks did we do to use as leverage for the various shops? Eight? It's a bit of a compromise, totally!
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Hence the bonus tracks for "YEAH!" being solo efforts?

Yeah, those bonus tracks were literally solo efforts, and anybody that came up with something, just came up with it, and nobody really commented on the others' songs. For example, if someone didn't like my version of Jobriath's "HEARTBEAT" (included on the Wal-Mart release of "YEAH!"), they weren't gonna throw a wobbler - but if it was about a song on the regular album, someone might say that it wasn't right and we had to keep working on it. For those solo bonus tracks, it was just a bit of fun. But, as bonus tracks, they are worth having. For cover songs, that's fun to do, cause you just pick a song and you record it.
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Does that mean you believe all bonus tracks or B-sides are secondary to tracks that appear on an album?

Not necessarily! The days of a great B-side.....(thinking)..... We used to go out and buy singles for the B-side, because it wasn't on the album. Sometimes, if an artist recorded 12 tracks and 11 ended up on the album, the 12th would end up as the B-side of the first single. Somebody designated that song off the record, but it didn't necessarily mean it was the right decision. I've heard some Bowie stuff where they absolutely put the wrong songs on the album and the right songs ended up as B-sides. "IT AIN'T EASY" off "ZIGGY STARDUST" was a leftover from his previous album "HUNKY DORY", but it would have fit so much better on that one. Or, he didn't put "VELVET GOLDMINE" on the Ziggy album, but releases it a few years later. Now Bowie might argue about the point naturally, but I think it's one of the best things he's ever done and it would have been unbelievably brilliant on "ZIGGY STARDUST". But it didn't happen, so I got a brilliant B-side instead!
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But if the label demands a few bonus tracks, can't you just throw in some live tracks for example?

Well yeah, but be honest - whenever you buy an album and the bonus track is a live song, you don't feel slighly disappointed that it's not a brand new recording? I do! A live song as bonus track is even more filler than a new recording that's not as good as the regular tracks on the album. Though, when we released the live version of Queen's "NOW I'M HERE", that wasn't filler because it wasn't an old Leppard song, unavailable in any other format by this band. But even then, a demo or acoustic version of a known Leppard song is more interesting cause it sheds a new light on an old song more than a live version does. However, a new studio track seems to be the most interesting for the listener. And sometimes you can rush a new song and write it with the idea that it's going to be a bonus track, and it turns out to be brilliant. Just sometimes. But then you think it's so good that it should be on the album, so you're stuck! On the other hand, when you think it's not good enough for the album and you put it out as a B-side, you're putting out something that's not very good.... And you have to put your name on it! So the record labels' demands for bonus tracks are just not helping things, and it's a true artistic headache.
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The B-sides released on the "HYSTERIA" singles seemed to work though. They were great songs, but the sound and production just didn't make them fit between the other songs on the album.

We were very lucky with those. We recorded them in one week, while Mutt was mixing the record. "RING OF FIRE" was actually written to be included on the album, "I WANNA BE YOUR HERO" was orignally called "LOVE BITES"..... In fact, that was the first line of the song. Once we'd taken that out and used it for the title of another song, I had to change that line to something that had the same phonetic sound and it became "hold tight". "RIDE INTO THE SUN" was recorded for a laugh because Phil and Rick never played on the original version (released on the band's first EP), and "TEAR IT DOWN" was also written during the time we were mixing the album already. I really tried to give it some Rolling Stones-kind lyrics, and we just went off on a tangent and banged it out. Very easy. And then, two years after it was released as the actual B-side to the "ANIMAL" single (UK/Europe) and "WOMEN" (US), rock radio DJs actually started playing it and it became so popular that we ended up having to play it at the 1989 MTV Awards. Go figure, it was most played Leppard song on American radio in that year! The album had gone away by then, but they wanted something to fill the void. That's why we recorded it again for "ADRENALIZE", hoping it would be out in 1990, it would have had the momentum to become maybe a bigger song than it has become. Obviously, circumstances led to a delay of the album and by the time 1992 came along, that momentum had gone. Whereas our career snowballed on, "TEAR IT DOWN" came to a halt.... But right, it could've been something really special. Then again, Vivian hates the song with a passion, haha! But that's probably because for a guitarist, it's just very boring to play, there's not much going on.
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Perhaps the simplicity of "TEAR IT DOWN" was part of its success?

Some of the best songs are three chords. In fact, ALL the best songs are three chords. A fourth chord is a waste. We all know that.
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So, back to "SPARKLE LOUNGE". Is it still scheduled for early 2008?

Well.... Again.... We all have plans, don't we? People plan to go on a holiday until Katrina comes through and blows their house away, so to speak. Unless something big unexpectedly happens, it should be out springtime next year. But really, with our history of planned album releases that didn't make the deadlines, I'm not even gonna remotely say anything definite! Still, the album is pretty much done, minus a few bits and bobs. So, it's not really a case of getting it finished, but more something of when we -being the band, management and record label- decide it's the best time to put it out. I can't think of an opportunity why they wouldn't want it out in the spring, because it gives us an opportunity to tour again in the summer.

JOE ELLIOTT - EXHAUSTIVE AND EXTENSIVE, PART 3

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Are touring plans being laid out yet?

Just some ideas, no concrete plans apart from a few shows that have been announced. We wanted to do some European festivals for sure. The whole idea was to do an American tour in between two European tours - the May circuit and August/September circuit is what we would like to do. This may or may not happen. We may end up doing only one of them, who knows. Though now it does look like we're starting in America first! For Europe, I'm not saying we'll do Glastonbury or anything, but there are some festivals we fit in. We did the Euro festivals in 2006, and there's no reason why we can't do it in 2008. Then we can start looking at other markets such as Japan or Australia, visiting territories that we haven't done in many years like South America, or that we've never done at all. But as always, we need to go where we know the business is.
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England....? Your home country, after all.

Yes, there are definitely plans for that. There might be a number of arena shows, with another as yet unnamed rather large act in tow, plus a third act. And now that our useless national football team aren't gonna be in the European Champions, there won't be any conflicting dates - so there's another clue. For 2008, we really want to do the same as we did in 2006 but expand it a little bit. We know there's a bunch of people in England that still want to see us, so if we can do six or seven dates in the UK, we can put on a big show. THAT'S what we want to do. Hey, Pink Floyd didn't play at the Marquee - they want to use the inflatable pig during a show!
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But at festivals, you can't put up your own stage show.

Clearly it's somewhat different with festivals in Europe.... See, we could play the Melkweg in Holland, and 400 people show up. Or, we could play at a festival in front of 20,000 people. That way, we have a chance to convert people, or perhaps re-establish. That's much better for us now in Europe. We've never really been the biggest thing there. We had a very short period where we were kinda big, but America has always been the bigger market for us. Europe is just a harder nut to crack. We did it once, maybe twice, but after that.... We still put the records out, but radio just didn't play them. In America, they did. So consequently, we're still pretty big in America. It really is that simple: if European radio would still be playing Leppard records, we'd still be big there. Don't blame us! If radio doesn't play us, or we don't get the covers of the magazines, don't blame the band. We're still doing everything we can, but we can only do so much.
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But if you can tour America with bands like Journey or Styx, shouldn't you be able to find a band to team up with for an interesting European double-bill tour? Aerosmith, Whitesnake, AC/DC, KISS, to name a few?

Could be, but availability is an issue. What if Coverdale is in the middle of making an album and doesn't want to tour? Also, keep in mind that most American bands can't afford to come over (and even though David Coverdale is British, all band members live in the States). You simply don't make much money touring Europe. Most American bands will go "So you want me to go to Europe for five weeks, travel through borders, deal with customs all the time, then come home having lost money.... Or tour America for 5 weeks, not deal with all that border problems and actually make a living?" That's really why the majority of most American artists don't bother coming over! And then I haven't even mentioned the problems with the equipment - shipping it from the States costs a lot of money, then because the voltage is different it changes the sound, all those other excuses like visas for everybody, hotels that are twice as expensive and half as good..... Like it or hate it, but the fact of the matter is that America is very easy to tour, and Europe is rather more difficult!
When you're touring England, either in the clubs or the theaters, you literally get a toilet as a dressing room and you have to deal with a club owner who wears you down. In America, they welcome you with open arms, give you dressing rooms that are decorated nicely and clean, and so on. They don't make the effort in Europe or England to welcome the artist in, unfortunately. And the better places, like Royal Albert Hall, they don't want riff-raff in anyway, they prefer Shirley Bassey and Cream over Slipknot or whoever! Really, we love England, we're from there, but I understand why American artists are sometimes disillllusioned when they visit Europe and I can see why they don't visit the UK as often as they should.
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You mentioned how important it is to be played on the radio and what a difference it makes when you're not. What's the underlying reason for that?

Go to any place in America, and go through all the stations between 88 and 108. You will find at least two stations that play rock music, and ONLY rock music, all day long. You can't say that about any town in Europe - except maybe Paris. What we had as kids in England, was Alan Freeman two hours a week. And now? Radio 6 that has a limited listenership! Well, we have satellite radio, which is great and brilliant, but it's not widely available for free. In America, you don't have to actually search for it; you can listen to stations that play Lynyrd Skynyrd to Foo Fighters, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hard to miss! So consequently, we were played more on the radio in the States than we were in Europe. And it's only become harder to get played in Europe. But that doesn't mean that we're not gonna try.
TV is not much different. There's no British show that will say "Def Leppard is back, here is their new single" - we don't even have Top Of The Pops anymore. So what can you do? Make a video that won't be shown on a programme that won't be around in six months time?
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You sound very negative, talking about the state of these things. Has the media as a promotional tool changed that much from 20 years ago?

Hmmm..... It's the cynical me, telling things the way I see it. I would love to say all kinds of different things and sound very positive, but it's simply not like that. Regardless, Def Leppard ploughs on, obviously. We're gonna deliver a great record, it will have some interesting liner notes no doubt, it's gonna have some 10-12 songs that we feel comfortable enough with to put our name on.... But how we're actually gonna get that information to our audience, other than a page advert in Classic Rock Magazine - I have no idea! What works today, might not necessarily be as effective next year. Things go THAT fast. In the old days, you could go with things for at least 10 years before someone revamped something. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing, is arguable. But now, formats come and go. Again, look at satellite radio, XM and Sirius. They both launched some 2-3 years ago in America, and there's already a rumor of a merger, because they can't do it alone. The one thing that's extremely successful, is the iPod of course! The result is that people listen to the music they're familiar with and can't really be bothered to check out much new stuff. I'd say that about 90% of all music on iPods is "old" music, from people's collections. Back in the day when we only had radio pretty much, this was when we had no choice but to listen to music that was chosen by other people - and this is how we discovered music. Times have changed so much.... Downloads, Napster, iTunes, and so on.
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Being able to purchase only a few songs digitally, as opposed to being forced to buy a full-length CD. Good or bad?

I have no problems with that! Being able to buy a single song goes back to the days of the 7 inch single, in a way. Some of my favorite bands, I've never even heard a full album. I don't think I've ever heard a Slade album in my life, or a Sweet album, I just bought their singles. When we put a new album out, and whatever our first single is, and someone just wants to spend 99 cents or 79 pence buying that song on iTunes without buying the rest of the record - GREAT! Naturally, I have a problem with people getting music without paying for it. I don't want to sound like Lars Ulrich, but what is 99 cents nowadays? If anything, it should give the buyer peace of mind that they didn't nick it. And I think it's really cheap to pay that price for someone's art, that you then own for the rest of your life. Lifelong value, 99 cents!
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Honestly - have you ever downloaded any music for free?

Never, ever. I've been given CDs for free though, it's part of being in the music business of course! When you're in the business, you get the odd freebie. I've had my fair share of those. But generally speaking, I buy my music. When I was on tour, I bought three songs by Roy Wood, because I wanted to listen to them but I left them at home. I couldn't wait until October to listen to "FLOWERS IN THE RAIN" so I bought it again, even though I already bought the CD years ago. Paid for it twice, then!
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The Eagles' new album "LONG ROAD OUT OF EDEN", was released independently, without the aid of a major record label. Is that the future too?

We'd like to do that too when we can. In fact, I think everybody will go in that direction. The fact that the Eagles are such a big band and doing it like this, may give the public the idea that the big labels don't want them anymore, however it needs to be turned around: the artists don't need the big labels anymore, cause they're not very good anyway. I bet you that within 10 years time, bands like U2, Bon Jovi and REM, they'll all be putting records out on U2 Records, Bon Jovi Records, REM Records, whatever. My ambition is that the Def Leppard album that comes after "SPARKLE LOUNGE", comes out on Bludgeon Riffola. Released on our label, and distributed by whoever we see fit at the time - Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Woolworths, whoever, we'll see. Maybe even Universal, who knows. See, it only takes one guy at the top to like us and it's taken care of. Look at Santana, Rod Stewart. Their flagging careers were turned into million seller records - that's what a guy like Clive Davis can do if he likes you. Unfortunately, he doesn't work at our label! My point is, if someone like him believes in you, he can get the machine working again.
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Business has changed for the artist, but how much for the customer?

Everybody needs to realize that the business has changed forever. People might find it a little weird having to buy their records at Wal-Mart, and not at Tower Records, because they are gone, and you also can't go down to Joe's Local Record Corner Shop anymore. Change is not easy to accept all the time, and Def Leppard records might not be available where you used to buy them, more likely nowadays, you'd go online to Amazon.com or something. It'll be out there, and it'll be a great record, I'm just not entirely sure how you're gonna buy it, cause the way you buy music in December 2007, might not necessarily be the same thing as they way you buy music in March, April 2008. I never thought I would see the day that Tower Records would be closing shop. And not only are they selling off their records, but they're actually also selling off the record shelves, the chairs, the tills, and the floors! Come on! An earthquake in San Francisco was more likely than that happening! Who's next, Virgin Megastores? I don't even know if they're still around, because I too buy most of my music off the Internet now anyway.
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Recently, Def Leppard was prominently featured in the comedy movie "BALLS OF FURY". For a band that's almost notorious for not licensing their music for inclusion on compilations and all, it was a bit odd to see you lent your name to that.

Well let's start with the compilations thing..... You won't see Def Leppard on any compilation just like that. The reason is that back in 1980, they put us on some really bad compilations. "AXE ATTACK VOLUME 2" and such. Apart from us and Motorhead, it was all bands you'd never heard of. And we didn't want that, so when Q.Prime became our managers, we had them negotiate the contract with our label that we wouldn't do compilations. Then, as the "NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC"-series took off, we started to see the value of it..... A Def Leppard song in between Kylie Minogue and INXS wouldn't have been a bad thing, but ah, since we said we didn't want it, they never asked us. By the time that thing had kicked in, it was too late, so I admit that we missed the boat a little bit there. Over the years, we've only relented four times..... We were on the Brian May "AIR GUITAR" compilations, that was because he personally asked me, and after I saw the tracklisting and all the other bands, we happily agreed because it would have been stupid not to be on them! We also gave Q Magazine our version of "DON'T BELIEVE A WORD" for a free cover CD in 2006 and even then they took the piss out of us in the liner notes, so that won't happen again! A bunch of years ago, Lars Ulrich did a NWOBHM box set and begged us to give him permission to include us on it..... So we relented again and gave him "GETCHA ROCKS OFF". But when you listen to the CD, you can actually hear the song slowing down. How can that happen? He didn't even send us an approval copy, so that was yet another screwup! So because of those things: never again. Never. That's why I sit on all our tapes, and don't let anything go out until we've fully approved it. And so if anything's screwed up, it's our fault. Now for every time there's a screwup, there's 99 screwups that didn't happen because we didn't allow it.
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Hence your inclusion in the movie, but again not on the soundtrack album.

So, with "BALLS OF FURY" it's kinda like the same thing. We got the offer months ago, production of the movie has barely even started. But hey, Christopher Walken's in it, so it must be something, right? He's brilliant! So, we're a major part of the storyline apparently - I don't know for sure though, as I haven't seen it yet. But I guess we're mentioned often, we're on T-shirts, they do a karaoke of "SUGAR", all that. But it's fun association, and it's dumb humor, but in a good way. Pretty harmless. Movies like that do help - remember when "SUGAR" was featured in "COYOTE UGLY"? Tyra Banks dancing to our music, it doesn't get much better than that! But, our policy was still that we didn't want to be featured on the soundtrack, so when I saw it go top 10, I called our management and said that we should've relented again and that the song should've been included on the movie soundtrack. Cliff, our manager, told me to look a little further down the chart and lo and behold, "VAULT" had sold 4,000 copies more than the week before. Of course, business-wise it's much better. So it's all about choices, and making the right ones. But you never really know, do you....
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So apart from the next album and tour, what other special things can we expect from Def Leppard in the next twelve months?

Who knows what's around the corner!! See, anything special is a phone call away. If someone rings us and goes "there's an offer to do this or that" - which could be a performance as part of a Live Earth type festival, or contributing to a Beatles tribute record, anything can happen! For now, we're at home, finishing the record, then we're gonna have Christmas with our families, and then we're gonna start thinking about getting this thing ready to go out. It's a new Leppard record, that's special enough for us - they don't come out every week you know! The first new music written by Def Leppard since 2002, how's that? That's gonna be six years.... Not like there hasn't been any activity of course. Since our last proper studio album, there was a tour, then a compilation album, another tour, a covers album, yet another tour, and hey, another tour! We've concentrated on the part of the business for which we got phonecalls that said "oh please come and tour here".

Me, I'm just looking forward to see the next draft of the album cover design, and to finish my vocals for the album. And from there..... who knows!!





Joe Elliott talks about his favorite destinations

How to travel like a rock star

Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott talks about his favorite destinations

By Doug Miller

Special to msnbc.com

updated 9:40 a.m. CT, Wed., Jan. 23, 2008 Joe Elliott is the charismatic frontman of the ubiquitous British radio rock band known as Def Leppard, who scored huge hits in the 1980s with mega-albums "Pyromania" and "Hysteria." The band will be back with their latest album, "Songs From the Sparkle Lounge", on March 18. They're scheduled begin a tour with Styx and REO Speedwagon starting March 27 in Greensboro, N.C., and their first single off the new album, "Nine Lives," features country star Tim McGraw. We caught up with Elliott by phone recently and talked about his favorite places to travel.

Q: Def Leppard is constantly touring. Have you managed to spend enough time in cities to actually figure out which ones you like the best?
A: Well, I don't think we ever actually played a gig in Rome, but the Vatican takes your breath away. We were there doing TV stuff for a couple of days and got a chance to wander around Vatican City. It really blew our minds. Manhattan's always fascinating, too, just a big, stinky, smelly conglomeration of numbered avenues and streets, but it's just got a vibe that's hard to beat. I shouldn't like it, but I do. I can't put my finger on it. Especially in T-shirt weather. We wander around thinking, "It's really scrubbed up well, this place." It wasn't the nicest place in the world 10 or 15 years ago, but I love hanging out there now. With Los Angeles, it's kind of a love-hate thing. Sometimes I think it's marvelous, and sometimes I think it's a dump. It's so fake and I can't deal with how fake it is.

Q: Any other hidden gems of cities that come to mind?
A: Honestly, with most cities, we're not there long enough to judge, so you can jump to conclusions about places that are unfair. You can be overly impressed with one place if your hotel happens to be in a great neighborhood or you can think another city is a complete dump just because you happen to be in the wrong part of town. It's tough to judge sometimes when all you're doing is walking around the block for three minutes looking for a Starbucks.

Q: Those aren't too hard to find these days.
A: No. That's a good thing. But you know what I mean. We're not really going to get the time to spend in Omaha, Neb., to really get to know the place. But there are other places we really like. Canada has three great cities in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. Spain is great with Madrid and Barcelona. I've always liked traveling around Europe and seeing the architecture. The buildings in capital cities have been there for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Some look better than the new ones. And we went to Russia for the first time in 2003. We did the whole museum trek and St. Petersburg and Moscow and it was absolutely phenomenal. If you're going to go to one of these places, you might as well check out what there is instead of sitting inside checking out room service. And if your wife happens to be along on tour and drags you by the hair and says, "We're going to check something out," it's a good idea to go along with it.

Q: When the band isn't touring, do you ever get away for vacation or do you just stay home and relax?
A: The thing we tend to do is hang in one spot. We live in Ireland in the mountains outside of Dublin. When we finish touring, I generally go lovingly to my house, because I might go seven months without seeing it more than like eight or nine times. Once I get home and we settle in, we might stay weekends somewhere. We tend to go stay in a castle for a weekend. They have these resort castles in Ireland. These things have been around since the 1400s. You go there and you wonder, "How did they build these things?" You know, "How did they get the top stone on?"

Q: Do you travel so much that you forget your hotel room number or wake up not remembering which city you're in?
A: Absolutely. That's a no-brainer. You develop a brilliant short-term memory for room numbers, depending on how much alcohol you have. Toward the end of the tour, your brain starts completely shutting down. The key is to keep your room key in your back pocket, and to go out in groups, because somebody always remembers what hotel you're in.

Q: Are you active on days off or do you keep typical rock-star hours?
A: Pretty active. I'll sometimes play golf on days off. And with the band, we're a collective, but we're individuals. We'll go to movies, we occasionally go bowling with the crew. We don't go mountaineering or nothing when we go on tour. I mean, if you can't give 100 percent then you're cheating people. And peoples' jobs are on the line when there's a touring situation.

Q: Do you seek out musical attractions in cities?
A: You tend to gravitate to the history of stuff. In Memphis in 1993, for example, we were invited to some studios by the owner to record a song. If you're in Nashville long enough, you should try to find something relative to country music or whatever you think is cool. In New Orleans, you have to do the whole Bourbon Street trip. Sometimes it's real awful and not even authentic music, but sometimes it is. Generally speaking, it's really hard for English chaps running around the States. When we were in Tupelo, Miss., we visited the house Elvis was born in. It's great to say you've seen it, but essentially it's just a (freaking) wooden hut and a tourist trap. We got more satisfaction at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in Cleveland) because collectively it's more impressive. You see Jimi Hendrix's guitars, Elvis stuff, stuff from Eric Clapton, and you're like, "Wow," every three seconds, as opposed to, "Wow, he was born here. Big deal." We did do Graceland in 1983. As for the Leopard Room, well, let's just say that people make fun of 1980s hair metal bands, but that was tacky.

Q: You guys are from Sheffield, England. Do they have a Def Leppard museum there yet?
A: You know, it's funny. Those who are in the know, the complete crazy Lep fans, they all have brochures of where we were all born, the first gig we played, the regular haunts we played when we were getting established, etc. Some are still there and some are gone. The house I was born in, it's just a regular terraced house. Until you're dead 40 years, I don't think there's anything important. © 2008 MSNBC Interactive

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22762148/

Kevin Winter / Getty Images file

Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott performs during the VH1 Rock Honors at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on May 25, 2006 in Las Vegas.

Joe Elliott’s Travel Stories

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/jun/01/9

Me and my travels

• Interview by Jon Bennett
• The Observer,
• Sunday June 1 2008
• Article history

The best holiday ...
I ever had was the first one I went on without my parents, when I was 17. Me and a bunch of lads went to stay in a B&B in Skegness. There were eight of us and, oh man, we had a laugh; it was completely mad - pogoing to the Stranglers in nightclubs, locking lads out of their room so that they would have to climb over the roof naked. I'd never drunk before and it was just girls, beer and vomiting and then more of the same. It probably prepared me for life on the road.
My first holiday ...
Was in a static caravan in Wales. We used to go to caravan parks around Anglesey and all you had was Radio Luxembourg, no TV, and if it rained the caravan would rock and sink into the mud. Entertainment was playing Scrabble, but it was great.
My favourite hotel ...
To be honest, I'm a bit of a snob now; give me a Four Seasons anywhere in the world and I'm happy. Also, they've just opened a Ritz-Carlton in County Wicklow, Ireland, which is stunning and has great views.
To get around on tour ...
We used to have our own plane with the band's name on the side. It was a dream come true. You drive to a local airport. There's none of this checking in stuff; you just get on the plane. It was only a little 12-seater - it wasn't like a Led Zeppelin Boeing 757 that we'd hollowed out and put condom machines and stripper poles in. It was Elvis's old plane, a G1, the only one that he physically flew. It was still in service so we rented it. You don't buy a plane if you're going to be on the road; you rent it. It was painted black and had purple trim with Def Leppard on the side, which is a bit cheesy but you've got to do it.
We gave up on the plane ...
After we went through a bit of turbulence and the plane shot 1,500 feet into the air in a second and a half and the propellers were about to freeze, so the pilots had to nose-dive the plane. That gave us zero gravity for about a second and a half so everything in the plane started to float, including us, and when we got gravity back we shot backwards at 220mph into a toilet door. Three of the band decided after that they didn't want to fly any more. I took it as a glitch and would still like the plane, but the majority vote wins. When we went back to buses we split into three different units. You've got a veggie bus, a family bus and the attack bus, which is the one with the drinking and the music that I'm on.
It took us 10 years ...
To do well in Britain. We started in 1977 and didn't have a hit here until 1987 but at the same time we were almost outselling Michael Jackson in the States. Touring over there was great, much easier than going round Europe because of the lack of borders. Here you would get to the German border and the Gestapo would have your hubcaps off looking for dope and keep you there for three hours just because you had long hair. Six weeks of that and you never want to go back.
The best audience in the world ...
Much as I'd rather say Sheffield, it is Montreal. Why, I do not know. I mean, they're half-French, for Christ's sake, but they get it. It's weird.
I'd love to never go back ...
To Belgium but, sadly, I'm going there this summer. When we played there last time I felt like we were a cinema screen; they were just sat there watching us with their arms folded.
This summer ...
We're off touring Europe, and then we head back to the UK with Whitesnake. I'm really looking forward to it. I love the fact we're still on the road. I was born to be a factory worker really, so for me the chance to get on stage at Wembley 30 years after we started is amazing.
· Def Leppard's album, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge, is out now. The band are touring in June and July. More info is available at defleppard.com