So when we were recording the album, it was the one that got the most attention. But Mutt being more of a passive observer, if you like, he was the one who realized if we had a shot at radio it was with this song. We treat every song the same - we couldn't distinguish the ugly from the beautiful. You see all these palm trees and you go, 'Wow, this is a lot sexier than Sheffield!' That's where that lyric came from - 'Well I'm takin' me a trip/I'm going down to Californ-i-a.' It was, 'Get me out of here!' With this one, I had seen a TV show the night before - Kojak or Starsky & Hutch, something where they show the tree-lined boulevards of L.A. But there was a lot of downtime, and I would sit around writing stuff. I was working in a factory with lots of nuts and bolts and no natural light. We had never even been to America at that point. And we just tried to rip off as many of 'em as we could!

We were students of Townshend and Davies and Plant and Page and Lennon and McCartney. And we weren't stupid - we learned our craft from listening to other people. We had the whole thing done in about an hour.

It was the first song that Sav and I ever wrote together. The other song off Side One, if you like. I think there was a good reason we got the deal that hundreds of other bands couldn't seem to get at the time. But it did have a vibe about it that was above and beyond what everyone else seemed to be doing. And because it was our first, we were loath to change anything - no matter who might suggest we should stick a middle eight in or whatever! We were just a bunch of teenagers messing around, doing what we felt was right. It just developed into a kind of embryonic idea. He changed it around a bit, came in and played it, and I started singing words over the top. It was a Pete Willis riff, borrowed from a friend of his who'd half written it. The first song we ever wrote, if my memory serves me right. Says Elliott, 'I don't care if you're McCartney or Dylan or Springsteen - whenever you go into the studio, from Day One until the day you come out, you don't try any less on any one song or record. And while every tune may not have come off an album as big as, say, the more than 20-million-selling Hysteria, each has something unique to offer.

The always affable - and very chatty - Elliott took time out of not one but two of his vacation days to walk Rolling Stone through 15 songs from that catalog. At least we have that luxury of having a catalog.' Your Elton Johns, your Paul McCartneys, they know why everyone's coming to the gigs, you know what I mean? The Rolling Stones know everyone's there to hear 'Jumpin' Jack Flash.' So it's a very fine line. This time, we'll do more new material, but we're also aware that you can overdo it with that if you're a classic band. 'So the people in maybe the first 20 rows knew of it and everyone else was just there to hear, I imagine, what they've already heard for the last 10, 20, 30 years. Now I can walk and run and sing and … do interviews! And I'm working with a vocal coach and getting mentally prepared for the upcoming blitz on the U.S.'Īs for what people can expect to hear on this next round of dates, Elliott reports that the band will be adding in more music from Def Leppard alongside mega-hits like 'Photograph' and 'Pour Some Sugar on Me.' 'When we were out last summer, the new album was just a rumor,' he says. 'You just take four, five, six weeks off to let it heal, then you get into some training and you're back again. 'You've gotta think about what happened to me this past January as what would happen to Peyton Manning if he pulled a muscle in his arm,' Elliott explains. Earlier this year, Def Leppard had to cancel some dates after Elliott had a bit of a vocal scare, but he says he's currently on the mend. tour, during which the band will spend six months on the road, from May through October, hitting arenas across the country. Last year, Def Leppard released their 11th studio album, simply titled Def Leppard, and they're currently gearing up for another massive U.S. 'It's just good to be in a nice, warm place instead of wet, overcast Dublin where I live.'Ĭareer-wise, things aren't too bad, either. We're having a barbecue in about an hour,' he says. The singer is speaking with Rolling Stone from an undisclosed, but quite tropical-sounding, vacation spot, where he's 'chilling with friends and family. Now 56, Elliott is having a very good time indeed. But when you enjoy something, it goes too quick. 'Because when you don't like what you're doing, time drags. 'I feel like it's been half that amount of time,' he says. But for singer Joe Elliott, it seems like not quite so long ago. It was close to 40 years ago that the five lads in Def Leppard, then just teenagers, came roaring out of the gloomy industrial environs of Sheffield, England.

Def leppard joe elliott