CT NOW — In theory, recording an album is easy: reserve studio time, jam until you’ve got 12 songs together that sound good, and pack it in.
For an iconic rock band like Def Leppard, who’ll play Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday, July 5, there are executives to please, memos to circulate, singles to perfect and expectations to exceed. “Pyromania” (1983) and “Hysteria” (1987), two of the best-selling rock albums in history (and still the sources of most of Leppard’s live set), took months and years to record respectively, along with the multi-platinum “Adrenalize” (1992).
“Slang,” however, an alt-rock-leaning fan-favorite from 1996, is the sound of Def Leppard — singer Joe Elliott, guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen — playing music together in the same room — a method they’ve stuck with through their latest sessions, which will be released in album form later this year.
Def Leppard’s Mohegan Sun appearance starts at 7 p.m., with Styx and Tesla opening; tickets are $59-$79. Collen spoke about the band’s current tour schedule, the still-unnamed new album and the changes he’s witnessed in the music business over the past three decades.
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CTNow: Def Leppard’s tour itinerary for 2015 is pretty ambitious. How do you personally prepare for a year on the road like this?
Phil Collen: I’ve been in the band for 32 years, I think. When we started off, the most successful tours happened when we really got behind something and supported it to the nth degree. That drive is actually essential for success. If you back off too much, you let it slip away. As tough as some of the tours are, that’s really essential. It’s a little bit of the last man standing. A lot of bands have folded and the industry seems to be winding down, and we know it. You have to work even more. It’s essential that you put even harder work into it.
At the end of the day, I still reflect that this is such a wonderful thing. We played Montreal about a month ago. It was packed, and it was such an amazing event. I went out the next morning to a coffee shop, just strolling around, and the amount of people in the street that came up and said, “Oh my god, that was just the most amazing show”: I’m thinking, “Wow, at 57 years old, this is pretty remarkable, the fact that these people can still make me feel like a teenage boy.” It’s really cool. People say, “Don’t you get bored of it?” And I say, “No, you can’t get bored of it.”
CTNow: I’ve noticed that much of the Def Leppard catalogue is not on Spotify or other streaming services. Can you comment on that?
PC: I love what Taylor Swift has done [i.e. keeping her music off of Spotify]. I have a friend who is a songwriter, and he had a song that got over a million plays on Spotify, and he received 12 pounds, about $18-$19. That really sums it up. It’s bad, if not worse, than the whole Napster thing and downloading when it started. Again, a CEO from [Spotify] would make an amazing profit, whereas the artist is taken advantage of. I’m not a fan of that. I don’t know where we stand in the future, but perhaps it would be good to do something else. When they show their true colors, you go, “Well, it’s the same old story again,” like some old blues guy getting $50 and actually owing his whole catalogue for life to someone who’s ripped him off. It’s a little like that. It happens all the time with artists, Michelangelo or whomever, back in the day. William Blake died penniless doing brass etchings, living on someone’s floor. A businessman will probably think an artist is just content with the art. It’s a bummer getting ripped off.
The above content is courtesy of MICHAEL HAMAD & CTNOW
DEF LEPPARD performs at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville on Sunday, July 5 at 7 p.m., with Styx and Tesla. Tickets are $59-$79. Information: mohegansun.com.
