Joe Elliot: Def Leppard don’t get enough respect
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When your done reading the article, go to the bottom of the page for my answer as to why Dep Leppard don’t get any respect:)
chuck
What’s Down ’n’ Outz all about?
I opened for Mott The Hoople on their reunion show last year. The Quireboys joined me in the band as Leppard were all spread out. It was covers of all the stuff various Mott members did after they split up, songs from my childhood that I’ve adored. Now we’ve recorded the songs and are doing some shows. I’m probably the biggest Mott fan on the planet. Morrissey says he’s a bigger fan but he isn’t.
What’s happening with Def Leppard?
We’re taking a year off. I’m doing this because I have the time. After you have a hit like Hysteria and you’re signed to the corporate machine it becomes an albatross around your neck. As much as our music is anthemic rock’n’roll it’s a business at the end of the day. It’s stressful and gets harder each time you make a record. No one’s comparing this to Hysteria, it’s got nothing to do with it. It’s a refreshing change. It’s like being a teenager in a 50-year-old body.
What was it like trying to start a metal band in the punk era?
It was exciting. I was 17 when punk happened but I was still buying Queen and Thin Lizzy. We liked punk but didn’t want to be in a punk band. The first song we learned was Suffragette City. The good thing was that punk got rid of the 15minute guitar solo.
What’s been your biggest moment of rock’n’roll excess – have you ever thrown a TV out of a window?
When I was young enough to want to do something as stupid as that I couldn’t have afforded to. People who did that only did it because Keith Moon did it first. We were only getting $50 a week when we started touring so I didn’t want to get into debt paying for TVs. There are lots of great rock bands who have never thrown a TV through a window. It’s not a prerequisite. I’ve always been more into the music than the groupies, drugs or smashing up hotel rooms. I wanted to be in the biggest band in the world. And we were a couple of times. People in Britain don’t realise. We don’t get the credit we deserve in Britain
for the rest, here is the link:
guys were broke and hungry, this album rocked for real
Guys were still broke and hungry and this album rocked too!
This album rocked, was huge, made them rich and famous.Everything after this album was sugar rock and sucked...
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Q&A: Scorpions talk about farewell tour
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from azcentral.com
Question: How’s the tour going so far?
Answer: The tour started in May in Germany and Europe. We’ve been in the States for about three weeks, starting on the East Coast. And it has been amazing so far. Usually, the East Coast isn’t our strongest area. We’ve always been bigger on the West Coast and in places like Chicago and Phoenix, but the crowds have been very enthusiastic. I think part of that is due to having such strong new material.
Q: You mention Phoenix being one of your hot spots. You even wrote a song about the state (“Arizona,” from the 1982 album, “Blackout”).
A: Thank you for reminding me about “Arizona.” That’s a song we never play live, except when we are in Arizona. We don’t do soundchecks so we’ll need to find some time to rehearse it. We wrote it about our 1980 tour, with Ted Nugent and Def Leppard. We had played a show in Arizona and had a couple days off, just hanging out at the motel, drinking and partying with these girls we met. It’s just about life on the road in the early ’80s.
We’ve had some amazing shows in Phoenix as well. I remember the show at Compton Terrace in 1985. That was the only time Aerosmith opened for us. We’d opened for them in 1979 on one of our first visits to America. There were about 40,000 people there and the crowd got out of control – something happened – some people got hurt. They changed the capacity of the venue after our show. I know the next time we played at Compton Terrace, the crowd was much smaller. (New reports at the time said there were numerous fist fights and three people suffered superficial stab wounds but no arrests were made).
Q: You’ve been playing with the Scorpions since 1978. What are some career highlights for you?
A: I’ve been in this band for over half my life. Really, the Scorpions are my life. There are so many highlights, I can hardly pick one. Not just the big concerts, like the first Rock in Rio in 1985 or the US Festival in 1983. Probably the biggest honor was when we were invited to perform at the Kremlin by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, 10 days before his retirement – the first Western rock band to be honored like that.
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