Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious podcast,
discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten of eighties
and nineties pop culture with.
Speaker 2: Your co hosts James D. Graves and Jason Colvin. All right,
welcome back everybody.
Speaker 3: We are Jason and d from the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious Podcasts coming to you live from Sheffield, England.
I am in my Union Jack sleeveless shirt and Jason
is in his Union Jack shorts with no shirt at all.
We are here to go toe to toe and rock
and roll with def Leppard and the comparison of the
Pyromania album and Hysteria.
Speaker 4: I'm so excited to do this. This is I've had
a love affair with these two albums for almost forty
years now and frankly, there's only one way we can
start this podcast. Yeah, even out and gool. We're going
to talk about the history a little bit of def Leppard,
the tragedy and the blessings that they had, and then
we're going to go through these two hugely impactful albums
of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: I'm super excited.
Speaker 4: That would mean maybe the most defining sound of the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: Absolutely like there are a handful of bands that defined
what rock and roll sounded like in the nineteen eighties,
and this is one of those, one of those.
Speaker 4: Bands, without a doubt, without a doubt. So step inside,
walk this.
Speaker 3: Way, you and me, babe.
Speaker 4: Let's start with just kind of a pre story, how
DEFL was formed and how it kind of came about
and win and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Sure, there's a whole big I mean, there's a big
story that leads up to Pyromania. And it starts with
Joe Elliott as a young teenage boy with dreams of
becoming a rock star, and he decides he wants to
have a band. He wants the band to be called
Deaf Leopard spelled properly, and he makes posters and learns
how to play the guitar and has these dreams. And
then one day he misses his bus and he happens
to meet this guy named Pete Willis, and Pete Willis
starts talking to him and they realize, hey, we both
like music. Pete Willis had a band.
Speaker 4: Called Atomic Mass, right, he had been in that band
with Rick Savage and Tony Kinning.
Speaker 3: And so they invite Joe Elliott to come and try
out for the band. Joe wants to play guitar with him.
When they first put Atomic Mass together, Rick Savage played
the guitar, Pete Willis played the guitar, and Tony Kinning
played the drums. Rick Savage said, well, I don't play
guitar as good as you, so I guess I'll play
the bass because we have to have a bass. We
can't have two guitar bass. And so he started playing
the bass and brought Joe Elliott in. They said, well,
why don't you sing and let's see what you got.
His audition was Stairway to Heaven. Okay, So as he
sang Stairway to Heaven when it goes up at the end,
Joe stayed low and they were all like, well that
was great, except he didn't go up.
Speaker 4: What's the deal? And so he didn't really fancy himself
a singer initially, but he would soon learn right.
Speaker 3: So they weren't in love with his voice, but they
thought he had a good voice. They were in love
with his dream and his passion for becoming a huge success,
and that's really what got him the job as the
lead singer in the.
Speaker 4: Band, and really what drives Steph Leppert today. I mean,
he's the engine that makes it go. And he doesn't
have a terrific voice. I mean, he's got a good
rock voice, and I think Mutt Lane kind of got
the most out of it.
Speaker 3: So, Jason, tell me, do you remember the first time
you heard these guys.
Speaker 4: Yes, I have a very clear memory of when I
heard these guys for the first time. It was after
High and Dry, So in nineteen eighty three, I'm bebopping
in my fifth grade class, mister Hoover's class. If you've
listened to our episodes before, I was mister Thriller.
Speaker 3: Mister Thriller.
Speaker 4: I loved Michael Jackson. I love Thriller. And I had
this guy that came to my school and he's like,
Thriller's great, But have you heard these guys? And I
saw the album cover, I'm like, I mean, it's a
cool album cover, but I think I'm gonna stick with
Michael Jackson. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, you got to
listen to this song.
Speaker 3: At least.
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, I'll listen. I mean, I'm seriously
Michael Jackson and he's like, no, Well, you got to
listen to this song. So he plays Photograph and I'm like,
that sounds amazing. That song's amazing. And that's how I
got hooked in was Photograph.
Speaker 3: So your introduction to the band was Pyromania back in
the early eighties. Yes, my introduction to the band. And
I say introduction, I'd heard them, you know, I had MTV,
so I had heard bits and songs, but it was
never an investment for me. I never bought an album.
But in eighth grade, I went to my first high
school dance. And if you guys went to high school
dances when you were a kid, you can imagine the
fear and the nervousness and whether you should dance and
whether you should not dance, and slowly you get your
courage up. And that was what was happening that night.
And I had these girls coming up and talking to me,
and I was like, this is awesome. And then you know,
they convinced me to come out and dance, and we're
dancing in a big circle and that's getting to the
end of the night. And then the DJ says, and
now the song that you've all been waiting for, and
they crank up pour some sugar on me and the
entire gymnasium rough.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't be babe.
Speaker 3: And people are going crazy. So my my first wow,
hey this is a band I need to be listening
to was Hysteria. Was pour some Sugar on.
Speaker 4: I think that that was probably a lot of people's
introduction because I mean, the summer of nineteen eighty eight,
poor some sugarman own the airwaves, yeah, and dominated that.
I remember dial MTV. You could call and request your
favorite video. It was like number one for like three months.
Speaker 3: So when we started to do this, what I said
to myself is, I've never never had the album Pyromania.
I know some of the song cluff of it, but
I'm going to treat it like I'm that kid from
long ago. I imagined myself, my young self, if I
had been a teenager listened to this type of music
in the early eighties, get the album bring it Home.
I'm going to put my headphones on, I'm going to
crank it up. And I gotta say I was blown away.
I was like, holy crap, this is really really good.
Even now, what is it nearly forty years later? Yeah, yeah,
it's still amazing. I was floored.
Speaker 4: It's a pop metal masterpiece.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So in January nineteen seventy eight, Steve Clark he joined
the band. Yeah, he played Freebird for him and they
were like, well, this guy's really good.
Speaker 3: Right, played it from beginning to end. And if you
don't know Freebird, Freebird is Lynyrd Skynyrd's signature song. That is,
depending on which version, nine to ten minutes long. And
so you can imagine a you know, young, long haired,
skinny kid rocking out on one of the most well
known guitar solos for a solid ten minutes and they
were hooked.
Speaker 4: I don't play guitar, but in guitar hero. Yeah, that
was the hardest.
Speaker 3: Song on that Well, yes, that's I think I'd say
that's an accurate reflection of how how difficult it is.
But they not only were amazed by his guitar playing,
but he had the right look. He came in with
no shirt, just a jeans jacket on, had long blonde
hair slung his guitar hung it way too low so
that he had to pick it up and move it,
and there was just a motion in a dance to
his playing. And then of course he had that amazing
ability So there you go. They've got their second guitarist,
they've got their bass player, they've got their singer, and
they've got their drummer for a while.
Speaker 4: Except the drummer decides that hanging out with his girlfriend
is more important than being in the defining metal band
of the eighties.
Speaker 3: He and Rick Stone, I'm sure, commencer, Yeah, Rick Stone,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: If you don't know who Rick Stone is, go back
and listen to Van Halen episode one. Right, But here's
a funny story. So there's a young kid in the
area named Rick Allen, Richard Allen.
Speaker 3: He's fifteen years old, fifteen. He'd started playing drums when
he was nine or ten years old, so he was
a decent drummer, and even at fifteen, had said the
drummers around here suck and the bands suck. And then
after Tony left the band, def Leppard put out a
one ad and it said Leopard loses skins.
Speaker 4: And Rick Allen said, hey, look at this, Mom, will
you call the band for me?
Speaker 3: And hey, mom, hey mom, will you will you call
these guys?
Speaker 4: I'd like to play drums.
Speaker 3: But he's good, he's fantastic.
Speaker 4: And he's right place, right time. Jumps on the opportunity
and he becomes their jar.
Speaker 3: Right, and then just what a few short years later
they're opening for Ozzy Osbourne and Billy Squire. I mean,
can you imagine a young kid being involved with that
kind of star power.
Speaker 4: At his age? Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, I have a
fifteen year old home. I barely let him feed the dog.
So they rehearse and they rehearse, and they rehearse and
they rehearse.
Speaker 3: Sheffield, England, where they all come from, is an old
steel town. It's steel factories everywhere. If you live in
the town, you're pretty well going to be working in
a factory somewhere, that's right. And they ended up rehearsing
in an old spoon factory and we're there for nine
months or something like that, And finally.
Speaker 4: Steve Clark went to Joe Elliott and said, Joe, listen,
if we don't play a gig, I'm quitting, right, I'll
go find somebody else.
Speaker 3: Right. He's like, we're polishing and polishing and polishing, and
I can be in here ten years and we're still
polishing the same songs. So it's interesting because you get
the impression from the band that they want to be
perfect before they go out into the world. They've obviously
got this drive that they don't want to put out
a bad product. But it's interesting that he's the one
that says this to them, because he's ultimately the one
that ends up dealing with the biggest stage fright once
they get really big.
Speaker 4: It is interesting. Yeah, So Joe Elliott borrows two hundred
and fifty bucks from his dad and they create an EP.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's They ended up selling twenty four thousand records,
which I mean, if you just think about a group
of teenage kids spent a two hundred and fifty bucks
to press out an album and they sell twenty four
thousand of them. I mean, if I could sell twenty
four thousand songs, I'd be like in Evan. And they
get an album that's a pretty significant hit.
Speaker 4: And that leads to their next album, which their debut
album technically is called On Through the Night.
Speaker 3: Right. This is the first professionally produced album. Yes, this
is the one where they've signed with the record label
and the record label is producing their album.
Speaker 4: This is released in March of nineteen eighty has a
song Hello America, which is kind of famous gave kind
of a bad taste for the locals in England.
Speaker 3: They didn't like it. It's yeah, it's kind of sad.
You know, Sheffield didn't really own this band until they
were a really big success. They had a lot of
bad press that they received, which is unfortunate, but they
had aspirations to get out of the town anyway, so
it worked out right well.
Speaker 4: This album On Through the Night caught the attention of
this guy.
Speaker 3: Named Robert John mutt Lang Mutt Lang or if you
are from Sheffield, Langa.
Speaker 4: And this guy is when he calls them. Yeah, he's
a celebrity. I mean he had produce is Highwaight to
Hell Yeah and Back in Black.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which I mean, holy smokes, right, I mean, come on,
but if you look at his library of work, you've
got ACDC and def Leppard, but you've also got Shanaia
Twain who ended up marrying Taylor Swift, Brian Adams. I mean,
there's a whole slew of genres that he deals with
and he is, without question, one of the biggest keys
to their success.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, if I took you and I said, all right,
grab acdc's entire catalog, pick their best album, it's going
to be produced by mut Lane. Yes, if I say,
take the entire cars catalog, Yeah, pick their best album,
Heartbeat City, yes, Mutlane.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So when they get in the studio with Mutt Lane,
they produce an album called High and Dry. So it's
their first commercial effort. I mean it does pretty well,
sells two or fifty thousand copies.
Speaker 3: Again, I mean it got into the top twenty albums
in the UK and Top fifty in the US I believe.
But the way of music back then, even after all
that success, the band wasn't making enough money to have
being a band as their only job.
Speaker 4: I mean, Joe Elliott talks very publicly about having a
top fifty album in the United States and having to
work at a construction site.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we don't have any money left. You're going
to have to go do some real work.
Speaker 4: So that's crazy. So High and Dry is released July eleventh,
nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 3: Just before the inception of MTV and then another key,
another key.
Speaker 4: It's huge in their in their career. Yeah, they're spot
on ready when MTV hits.
Speaker 3: Right, So Joe Elliott is working construction jobs after having
this big album. But as it turns out they recorded
a video for one of the songs off of High
and Dry called bringing On the Heartbreak. I cannot imagine
a guy who's singing like that, band playing like that,
who's now working construction because they don't have enough money.
It's crazy. But the video that they had fell right
in where it needed to because MTV had.
Speaker 4: They needed videos.
Speaker 3: They said it over and over. They had about two
hundred and fifty videos when they're on their first year,
and so that Bringing On the Heartbreak made it into
the rotation and they played it and played it, and
everybody at that time had started to watch MTV and
people started to go, who is this def Leopard band?
Speaker 4: That's right? Timing is everything?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now they're going back in the studio to record their
third album, Pyromedia.
Speaker 3: Right, and they kind of entered a really specialized deal here.
Mutt Lang had produced that first album and it was
all a regular style of production. He was meticulous about things.
But you can still on high end I hear the
edginess that they had at that time, and they had
been placed in this category called the new wave of
British heavy metal. But listening to even their early stuff,
I wouldn't describe it as heavy metal. I don't think
they ever saw themselves as a heavy metal band.
Speaker 4: And I've heard Joe Eliot say that we have a
lot more in common with Duran Durant right than we
do Quiet Riot or ACDC or whatever.
Speaker 3: He really admired the band Queen, and he really admired
David Bowie and the Hoople Mota Hoopl, thank you, Mata
Hoopl and Queen. He loved Queen and that was kind
of the sound that they were going for, kind of
an ACDC meets Queen kind of sound. Never really again
what I would describe.
Speaker 4: As metal, all right. So as the recording Pyromania, they
start to have these personal problems within the band, right
that ultimately they've got to deal with.
Speaker 3: So they entered this deal with Mutt Lang where he
basically had complete control over the sound. The first album
that they recorded they had done in thirty days. The
second album that they had recorded, they had done in
twelve weeks. They had been recording on Pyromania. At the
five month mark, five months of recording, they had not
committed one single song to tape. It's incredible, right, Mutt
Lang had a definite vision about what he wanted to happen,
and the mixing board became an instrument for the band.
This is what Mutt Lang did for def Leppard, and
he was the ultimate perfectionist, which for the band meant
agonizing hell. And at some point they said to Steve Clark, hey,
you need to go dry out, buddy. So Steve went away,
which left only Pete Willis to do the guitar parts
for a time. Well, Pete also was a drinker and
didn't handle his liquor as well as Steve Clark did,
and one day came into the studio after a night
of heavy drinking and was still under the influence and
could not could play, couldn't play with a flip.
Speaker 4: I've heard Joylia talk about how in the early days,
Pete Willis, after a little bit too much of the drink,
would readily go into the ring with Mike Tyson. He
was that type of sort of angry drunk Steve Clark
drink twice as much. What was half the a hole
that Pete Willis was, apparently, And so when he couldn't
play and they're trying to impress this guy.
Speaker 3: They had said they had told him over and over
and over, Hey, you can't do this. You know, we'll
let you drink during our stage shows, but you cannot
come into the recording studio drunk. When he does this,
and they you got to think about how long they've
been working their tailoff, long days, killing it. Frustration tears.
And then Mutt Lang comes to Joe Elliott with this
sad attempt at a guitar solo by Pete Willis, and
he says, listen to this, and then he just starts laughing,
laughing to tears. Mutt Lang is laughing to tears at this,
and Joe Elliott isn't laughing at all. He just has
to say, we can't do this. We can't take the
chance that Mutt Lang is going to walk out on
us after all of this work. We can't take the
chance that Pete Willis is going to destroy this album
because of his alcoholism. We have to let him go.
Speaker 4: Said he didn't want Mutlange to think they were a
bunch of losers. They only had one loser, right, so
they gave him the old get out. Yeah, but phil
Colin they hire the same day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Joe Elliott made a call. Phil Colin had been
playing he'd played for several bands, but at the time
that this occurred, he was playing for a glam rock
band called Girl and they called Phil and he came
over and they said, hey, you know, we've already got
the bulk of these songs done. We just need some
guitar solos. Why don't you go listen to this one
for an hour or two and you know, make up
a guitar solo and let's see how it goes. And
he came back in thirty minutes and executed a perfect
guitar solo. And those are the words of Mutt Lang.
And if Mutt Lang says it's a perfect guitar solo,
you can rest assured it is a perfect guitar solo.
By the time we get to the point that Pete
Willis gets fired, Rick Allen hadn't been playing the drum
for months because m Lang said, I don't want to
use a drummer, I want to use a drum machine.
That's insane. I mean, in nineteen eighties two to say
I want to use a drum machine for a rock
album was crazy. So they would take samples of particular
drum sounds to find the perfect pitch, and then of
course the timing was mechanical, it was precise, it was
uninfluenced by human error. So Rick Allen hasn't played in
several months. They get rid of Pete Willis, they bring
in Phil Colin. They finally say, okay, Rick, come back in.
We're going to record some of your drums.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: He's like okay, and so he plays for a few minutes.
They're like, okay, hold on, okay, yeah, just hold on, man, Okay,
just listening, still listening, Yeah, just a minute more, Rick,
hold on, And finally he just says, hey, guys, you know,
why don't you have me listen to it and maybe
I can give you my opinion on it. And Mutt
Lang says Rick, when I want your opinion, I'll ask
for it, at which point Rick lost his mind and
took an entire set of drumsticks and chunked it at
the recording studio window. Yes, yeah, he was not happy.
Rick Allen got a little bit of a temper. I
think he does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I won't say any
more about that, but I could. I mean, I could
see myself losing it in that scenario as well. Yes,
I haven't played for months, you bring me back in
then I'm sitting here waiting on you to do something
that I'm the expert at, and when I offer my help,
you say, essentially, why don't you go outside and play
hide and go screw yourselfing.
Speaker 4: Go screeze?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 4: So Pyramania is released January twentieth, nineteen eighty three. So
the opening track of Pyramania is a song called Rock
Rock Till You Drop.
Speaker 3: To Me.
Speaker 4: This is a great entry song, kickoff song, kind of
like lay your Hands on.
Speaker 3: Me for a bunch of his new jersey.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's the song they played the beginning of
the concert that's like, all right, everybody, let's go high energy,
get fire, army.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when I first started looking at these guys,
I had heard some people say that back then, when
they're first becoming famous, that they were just an ac
DC knockoff fan, to which I thought, these guys don't
sound anything like ACDC to me. Yeah, but that first
song is definitely very ac DC esque in my opinion.
Speaker 4: So it is a little screechy like ACDC. Right, he's
really leaning on his voice right there. So it's a
great kickoff song to the album one all right, After
Rock rocks. Here you drop, you get the first single,
Photograph down Photograph Picture right.
Speaker 3: So that song that before listening to this album, like
really for the first time, that I was definitely familiar with.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this is a song kind of about Marilyn
Monroe if you ever watched the video.
Speaker 3: Well, let's just say that all of the songs on
both of these albums are about sex, guns, and rock
and roll, and the band's life is about sex, drugs,
and rock and roll. So it's it's more sex, more drugs,
more guns.
Speaker 4: Honestly, I think that's being generous because there's a lot
of songs that are about nothing. They're literally about nothing.
Speaker 3: They were not looking to write deep and meaningful songs.
What they wanted. Their goal was to write songs that
were accessible to the general public. So they're not going
to be quoting some j R. Or Tolkien novel in
one of their songs like led Zeppelin. They're not going
to be telling a story about the Bronx like Billy Joel.
This is just what words fit with the melody that
we have and will people be able to sing along
with the song?
Speaker 4: So Photograph is very radio friendly. This is a song
that I could listen to with my parents that first
little I don't know, I don't know what you would call.
What do you think about this? D you need to
come in on this. This is their first little chirp
at the beginning of this.
Speaker 3: Song, So I can't say for sure what that is.
It almost sounds like the guitar being plugged into the amp.
It has that kind of click on where the electricity
hits and it's ging. But no, what I know about
this album, it probably was something that was specifically designed
by Mutt Lag. Yeah, I think you're right about it.
And it sounded like it may even have been a
backwards recording. I'm not entirely sure. I'm speculating completely on that.
Speaker 4: So this is the video. A lot of this is
We're going to talk about the song, but the video
is kind of wrapped up with it. This is the
video Joe Elliott. They were still a little bit poor.
This album hadn't broken yet. He was walking by a
store window and he saw the Union Jack T shirt
say it was six ninety nine, so he bod it
was sleeveless Ward in this video. Yeah, and that has
become like the Frankenstrat for Eddie van Halen.
Speaker 3: In America, everybody started buying the Union Jack's sleeveless T
shirts in homage to def Leppard. So in eighty three
and eighty four, this was number one on the US
album Rock Tracks by Billboard. It was number twelve on
the US Billboard Hot one hundred. It was number sixty
eight on the UK Singles Chart and number thirty two
on Canada fifty Singles.
Speaker 4: Photograph was a huge song and still a staple when
they play it live. Pete Willis's guitars are still on Photograph,
although Phil Collin actually plays the guitar Solough. It's kind
of interesting this guy who is fired and the guy
who replaced him both play on the same song.
Speaker 3: Right, and just as a credit to the band. Even
though Pete Willis was, you know, fired midway through the
production of this album, they still listed him on the album.
He still got still gets royalties from the album. So
I think that's the stand up thing to do, the
right thing to do for him.
Speaker 4: Yeah for sure. Okay, before we move on from Photograph,
I just want to say, as much as I love
both of these albums, Photograph might be the best song
on either album.
Speaker 3: Okay, I wouldn't agree with that statement. I mean, that's
an obviously perspective statement. I like Photograph, all right, but
there are even songs on this album just from listening
to it for this podcast that I'm going to say
I like better than Photograph.
Speaker 4: Wow. Okay, cool, let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
Speaker 4: Next track, it's called Stage Cracks.
Speaker 3: Bill Prede is good. I really enjoyed listening to it.
It wasn't one I think I had ever heard before,
but it's got that kind of pumping guitar and then
it when you go into the chorus of the song,
get that the pop feeling. You know that it's not
certainly it's still rock and roll, but it is more
melodic and less hard hitting than your typical rock and
roll song is going to be. At the time.
Speaker 4: You get a little bit of this age live feel.
At the beginning of the show, even though it was
recording studio.
Speaker 3: You get Joe Elliott hitting those high pitches that he
was afraid to hit during his audition. He's letting them down.
He really is still a good song.
Speaker 4: Not a skipper, but not one of the stronger tracks
in the A Somewhere Distance. The track number four too
late for love.
Speaker 3: Love It, Love It. When I was listening to this
one front to back, when this song came on and
they hit that chorus just a little bit into the
song where they're all harmonizing together, answer, I was like,
holy crap, this is good and this is what kind
of defines def Leppard for me. Is this the harmonizing
chorus that they do. It's spot on a million And
obviously I've realized later on this because Lang has built
it brick by brick, and I'm sure he had each
guy singing about one hundred thousand times before he found
the perfect one and then he stacked all those perfects
together and it's it's breathtaking.
Speaker 4: This really is a great song. Yeah, it is a
great song. It's so good.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: This was their fourth release. This was their fourth single.
Yeah made it up to number nine on the mainstream
rock charts.
Speaker 3: I can say that this one and Rock of Ages
are neck and neck for me for being best song
on the album.
Speaker 4: It's hard to argue with this song. I mean, it's
it's so good. I would say that it builds in
strength all the way through the guitar solo.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that introduction with the wind creates this atmosphere,
and then you have this fantastic combination of just a
guitar and Joe Elliott singing, and it's so good and
it brings you in just before that awesome chorus. And
I can remember listening to various songs as I grew
up where they had little whispers that happened behind the scenes.
You know that when you're listening in the rate on
the radio. You don't hear it, but you get headphones
locked in and there's there's this little part. I think
it's in Babe, I'm Gonna leave you, but there's this little.
Speaker 4: Whisper of the lyric right before the lyric.
Speaker 3: And every time I heard it, it'd be like, what
the crowd was that? Yeah, oh gosh, that's on my headphones. Okay,
but you were saying that you listen to this.
Speaker 4: There's a I mean, you have to listen so carefully.
But anytime I'm listening to this, especially when I've got
turned up in my car, yeah, there's a little bitty
baby that happens right before the second chorus. And it said,
I keep there are lots of times I'll be in
the car. I'm like, did my phone just ring this video.
I read that Joe Elliott they filmed this after hanging
out with meat Loaf and Nelton John having champagne. Nice
kind of the benefits of being a rockstar.
Speaker 3: I think I recorded a video after having pain with
meet Loaf and Elton John wants.
Speaker 4: Oh, so the nice Well we both love two Leyfelow. Yeah,
definitely one of the strangest tracks in the album for sure.
All Right, So the next one after that, Diehard the Hunter.
Speaker 3: So Diehard the Hunter is very Pink Floyd to me
when I hear it, you know, the you've got and
it's it's very pre one by Metallica. Yeah, you know,
because you've got the helicopter sounds and the sounds of
war going on, you know, on the wall you've got
helicopter and that one as well. And even but even
the guitar as it comes in, you've got an acoustic
I believe, I'm not sure. I believe it's a twelve
string guitar playing and the melody that's played is very
reminiscent of Pink Floyd. And you've get the gunshots, You've
got this idea of war, and then you hear these
kind of like laser shots, which you're like, well, is
this helicopter or spaceship? What am I hearing here? But
it's another solid track.
Speaker 4: Very very good. In fact, what you're describing, the exact
thing that you're describing could describe God's of War on hysteria.
You have sound effects. Now, Gods of War took it
to the next level where you got Ronald Reagan talking
to Margaret Thatcher and some other stuff. We'll talk about
that one here in a little bit, but it's very similar.
Speaker 3: Right, I can say for sure, and I've even heard
the band members say it. We're picking things that we
like from other bands and we're taking those and making
them our own.
Speaker 4: Oh for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean, if Edi van Halen can do it, anybody
can do it, right. But I think that they've definitely
taken some stuff. Pink Floyd, for example, made it their own,
and I think that possibly Metallica took some of this
one and made it some of their own well.
Speaker 4: As we have discussed, and we'll discuss further, the album
Pyromania set in motion pop metal for the rest of
the eighties into the nineties. I would argue that this
is one of the most influential. This gave us hair metal.
Speaker 3: It really did. Yeah, it really brought a different type
of rock in And you know, we talked about the
fact that rock was disappearing, it was dying. So luckily
we have in America, we have Van Halen. In Britain,
we have def Leppard, who's coming to America where we
also have MTV. It's perfect little pieces coming together. And
to throw back to our original episode again, you have
record producers that are an integral part of the sound
of the band. You know, we talked about thriller than
looking for the sonic sound. There's no question that Mutt
Lang was trying to do the same thing for rock music.
And what a perfect time to do it. When MTV
is like, we want rock, we're tied at disco. We
don't want to hear punk. We want some rock music
and we want some cute boys and videos to go
along with it. Enter def Leppard.
Speaker 4: You just say cute boys.
Speaker 3: And cute boys and videos. All right, everybody listen, I've
got five kids. I am secure and saying there was
a draw that this band had that not many others.
That we're playing hard rock music hat and that's that's documentable,
sixty percent of the audience in any given Death Leoppard
concert is going to be women, and frequently hot women.
Speaker 4: That's right, and that was something new for rock music.
While we're talking about.
Speaker 3: It as far as hard rock goes, Yeah, the predominant
audience for hard rock at that time is going to
be pimply faced guys with dark hair and torn up shirts.
Right enter Death Leopard and suddenly the girls are like, Oh,
I think I like hard rock too.
Speaker 4: It was such a great time for rock and roll
there really.
Speaker 3: Was, yeah, especially for the guy.
Speaker 4: All Right, everybody hit stop on your tape player, kick
it out, flip it over side to.
Speaker 3: Side too, or flip over the LP if you will.
Speaker 4: That's flip the LP there. All right. So now we're
on to the third single released, which is called Foolin'
love It. Let's listen to it, the stuttering song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the foolin is a hook. Okay. So this is,
as Jason would describe it, a summer drive in, top down,
windows down, radio turned up. This song comes on the radio.
You are cranking this thing up and letting the wind
blow in your hair, absolutely and you're singing along folen
So as cool as this song is, and I mean you,
this is such as you would describe it a radio
friendly song. This is a song that you're gonna latch onto.
It doesn't matter whether you're into rock and roll or
disco or punk. You hear this and you're like, this
is a good freaking song. And then the miid the
video and I don't know, this is like the perfect
example of the nonsense videos that we would see on
MTV from time to time. Somebody, some at some point said,
why don't we start the video with a girl in
a mask playing the harp who's on fire?
Speaker 4: What a great idea. What I love it?
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 4: Tell me what.
Speaker 3: Let's chain Joe Elliott down like he's Frankenstein and we'll
angle him backwards so we're getting a full view of
his crotch as the camera.
Speaker 4: Comes in, and his massive white pants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his pants that are way too high. He's got
mom jeans on her. And then just in the middle,
we're going to have this really creepy lady look at
the moon as if it is a crystal ball. That
sounds fantastic. We are willing to spend our money on
that video. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: The videos at this time were a little bit strange.
I mean even photograph. You have all those girls that
are in the cages. You know, Oh my gosh, Joe
does that giant split jump and right into the camera.
But it was cool at the time, and we ate
it up and I don't know, and reached number nine
on the mainstream Rock chart and number twenty eight on
the Hot one. So it was a It was a
big hit from Yeah and rightly so next is Waving
Lapping Glow.
Speaker 3: All Rock of Ages. Yeah, again, brilliant, brilliant photograph and
Rock of Ages brought this album into the public eye
for sure. And just to you know, a little history
on this song. You know, we talked about they had
no songs written when they started recording Pyromania, and they
had this one they had all melodied out, but still
didn't have the chorus to it. They were just like
da da du, I mean, that was it. They just had.
They were just scatting whatever they did. They're in Mutlang's
recording studio one day they come in the day before
another band has been in there, and maybe they were
recording some hymns, because there happens to be a hymnal
and it's propped open to the song Rock of Ages,
the hymn Rock of Ages, the Rock of Ages, the
one you sing in church. Yes, And so Joe Elliott
sees this book lying there and just sings it.
Speaker 4: Lane says, that's it. That's it, that's what we've been
looking for.
Speaker 3: My golly, that was right. I mean, what a perfect chorus.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's so good. I don't know if you know
this or not. I mean, we can talk about this later.
But it is better to burn out than fade away?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, how many people.
Speaker 4: Have said that really Highlander? Right, that scene in Highlander
when he's like, ra better than burnout than to fade away?
Speaker 3: Right, And I'm pretty sure that he got it from
Neil Young as opposed to def Leppard. But you know whatever,
And okay, Pearl Jam does it too. You know, hey,
it's it is timeless.
Speaker 4: Okay. So Rock of Ages did really well. It reached
number sixteen on the Hot one hundred and number one
on the Top Rocks chart.
Speaker 3: Okay. So Phil Collen is a phenomenal guitar player, there's
just no question about. He is technically proficient, really good.
But def Leppard doesn't have a lot of those timeless
guitar solos. It really doesn't have any except for the
song Rock of Ages has a really great and it's
not long, but it's very memorable little guitar solo by
Phil Collin in there. But he's brilliant. He does what
needs to be done. I mean, all of the rock
music that was coming out had these big solos in it,
and everybody was trying to be Eddie van Halen or
you know, trying to recreate the Leonard Skinner and Field.
But this is the one song that you can go, oh, yeah,
I know that, I know that guitar solo. That's a
deaf lever guitar solo.
Speaker 4: One of the things that we need to talk about.
We really haven't covered this, the very very famous intro
the unto gleban glopin Glowman. Right, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean anything, right, And so in the studio
there would you know, Mutt Lane would just beat him
to death and there's this grind.
Speaker 3: But occasionally he would do some levity. Yes, he'd break
it up and be funny from time to time.
Speaker 4: That's how he would sort of crack him up before
the song started.
Speaker 3: Instead of saying one, two, three, four, he said un leader.
Speaker 4: Glob and globin and the rest is the rest is history.
I mean it's rock music, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so we can't let this one go without
talking about the video once again, early eighties videos. Before
he even starts singing, you've got monks, You've got an owl,
You've got a woman playing chess with a wizard. You
have a tree on fire, and you have Phil Cullens butt.
And let's not forget the smashing goblet and the giant
lightsaber that somehow turns into an electric guitar.
Speaker 4: Joe Elliott is swinging a nine foot lightsaber.
Speaker 3: I wonder if there's some sort of analogy that they're
trying to do euphemism, maybe.
Speaker 4: Very phallic sword in this Oh. I love this song
from the minute I heard it for the first time
off Pyramania. I love the burning sound effects and the
idea of setting fire to stuff that was really cool.
All right, we're done with Rock of Ages.
Speaker 3: I think we're done with Rock of Ages. That leaves
just a couple of songs left on the album.
Speaker 4: And they're not bad songs, No, I think they're all good.
I think Coming under Fire is the next one. It
gets radio play now. It wasn't released as a single,
but I've heard it on radio a lot. The chorus
is really good. Yeah, that's a good song.
Speaker 3: Solid, it's absolutely solid. Just not one of their biggest hits.
Speaker 4: Okay, so Coming under Fire not a big hit, but
a good song. Next one, next to last track is
Action not Work.
Speaker 3: I wonder what that song about.
Speaker 4: If you listen to the words, it's about making a movie.
Speaker 3: Right, except it's what kind of movie are we talking
about here? Action? Yeah? I actually need any dialogue.
Speaker 4: You be the hero. I'll be the star.
Speaker 3: Again. I go back to all of this is sex,
guns and rock and roll. Baby.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you a quick story about this song.
Actually not worse.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna give a quick shout out to my good
buddy Scott Foster.
Speaker 3: Okay, hey Scott, he.
Speaker 4: Stayed up late with me. I had a project in
college where we had to make a short film about
anything we wanted. It was basically a get to know
your camera, get to know the editing equipment, and so
I went around town filming my girlfriend, my friends, the
football stadium, ducks, what cars, whatever I could find, and
I pieced it together to this song, and it basically
the song. You know, it's about making a movie. So
I made a movie to a song about making a movie,
and we stayed up all night, and I think it's
it turned out. Okay. I got an a on the project,
got a Yeah, that's all right, that's awesome, that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The euphemism here is about as subtle as Pearl
Necklace by Zeezy Top.
Speaker 4: In Black and Blue by Dan Haley. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Well I like the song. I listened to it when
it comes on, I turn it upright.
Speaker 3: And then we round out finish up the album with
Billy's got a Gun Again. It's a solid song. It's
not good. Yeah, a guy coming home from war guns again.
It's a bit long for my taste. This was nearly
six minutes long, and I think they could probably tidy
that up a bit. But that's probably my my sole
criticism of the songs on this album.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's on the lower end of the album. I think, yeah,
it's good, it's solid, but it's not a not one
I'm gonna crank upright right.
Speaker 3: So, after months and months of recording, they finally piece
it all together brick by brick under Mutt Lang's onerous
tutelage and what comes out is a fantastic album, and
it proceeds to do exceptionally well.
Speaker 4: Six million copies in the US and sold one hundred
thousand copies every week from its release through nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: So this album as a whole is so good. It
was only topped by Thriller, the best selling album of
all time. This Pyromania album spent six months in the
number two position while Thriller retained its title. It's truly,
it's an amazing thing.
Speaker 4: Number two when Thriller is dominating the charts is no
laughing matter.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, just short of Thriller, this is the
number one album of the early to mid eighties.
Speaker 4: This album ramps up pop metal for the rest of
the decade.
Speaker 3: I mean, you talk about a band that defines the
sound of rock music in the eighties. Right. We've talked
about Van Halen and how influential they were. This band
is in that same category. They are as much an
influence on all of the other bands. And when I
say influence, I mean other bands are coming along and
stealing their stuff. You listen to Rat and you go, oh, hey,
there's an American version of def Leppard, except they only
have one good song instead of a whole album.
Speaker 4: Work right, Hey listen. I don't really know, but nineteen
eighty four came out after Pyromania. I mean maybe Eddie
saw their success and thought, hey, I could do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean we know that that album was
more produced, I mean rock albums until this album came out,
where bands getting together and playing some songs and just
another side note while they're recording this album, and Joe
Elliott broke down several times, lost his voice severely for
a time in this one, which would in tears say
to Mutt Lang, I can't do it again. He goes,
it's not good enough. Yet you have to do it again,
he said, I can't do it any better. He says,
you have to. So Joe Elliott leaves the studio, walks
to the next door studio where who happens to be
recording right, and David Coverdale, who has perfect pitch, comes
in records a song in one take, four minutes. Poor
Joe Elliott has been reduced to tears because he's been
spending months trying to get the perfect sound for this
task Master, and David Coverdale comes in and probably smoked
a cigarette before it started singing. Right, it's all worth
the Joe wasn't It was all worth it?
Speaker 4: And I do think that. I mean, David Coverdale has
a better, stronger rock voice, but I think Mutt Lange
gets the most out of joy life.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 4: So and I could listen to Joe sing all day long. Yeah,
all right, So that takes care of pyramaning.
Speaker 3: Right. The album becomes a huge success. They ultimately sell
ten million copies of the album. They're writing high, they're
doing well, and their videos are doing well. They're getting
lots of play on MTV, and they say, okay, let's
now get together. We're going to make another album, and
of course they enlist Muttlang to help them out again.
Speaker 4: All right. So this is where it gets really interesting.
Speaker 3: So the band is at the peak of a success,
it says we got to do another album, and then
Mutt Lang can't do it.
Speaker 4: Anymore, and then some real tragedy.
Speaker 3: Real tragedy. Yeah, it's really questionable how this album truly
got made. But you're gonna have to wait to find
out about those stories on our next episode, where we'll
talk about Hysteria.
Speaker 4: True Hysteria.
Speaker 3: Yeah, true hysteria. That's that's solid. It's interesting that both
of these, both of these albums have a psychological component
to the title, because having to go with this band
went through I could I could see being a little
bit off.
Speaker 4: I can't wait to get into the next when we
talk about Hysteria, one of the defining albums in the
nineteen eighties. Yeah, it's gonna be incredible. Hope you come
back and join us next week.
Speaker 3: Come back and join us next week. As is not
a choice. You are hereby ordered by us to come
back and listen in as we talk about Hysteria and
then give you our final judgment on which of these
two albums is the best def flippard album.
Speaker 4: Thing.
Speaker 3: All music images and movie clips are used for the
purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with the Fair
Use agreement under the US copyright law.