Speaker 1: Do you want to get right?
Speaker 2: 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 your co hosts and James D.
Graves and Jason Colbn.
Speaker 1: All right, Jason, step inside, walk this way, you and me, babe.
Speaker 3: Hey, Hey, welcome back everybody. We are so glad you're
joining us again. This is part two of our Death
Leopard episodes. We are super excited to talk to you
today about Hysteria. If you haven't heard our last episode,
that was the one where recovered Pyromania. And then when
we're done with those two albums, we'll give you our
final judgment on which we think.
Speaker 1: Is the best of def Leppard. I'm freaking stoked to
talk about Hysteria.
Speaker 3: This album brings back far more memories for me than
Pyromania did. Pyromani came out, I was still pretty young,
really more listening to Michael Jackson. When Hysteria came out.
I was middle school, moving into high school as those
singles were being released, And yeah, I have lots of
memories associated with.
Speaker 1: The Really unique thing for me about this album is
when you're fourteen years old and an album stays prominent
for two whole years. Yeah, it covers a lot of
your life. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it really does. Yeah.
So we'll get more. We'll get more into that as
we go, but let's dive into the history of the
making of Hysteria before we talk about the songs. Okay,
sounds good. Okay. So after Pyromania, and after they had
gone from eight hundred at the beginning to Jack Murphy
Stadium and they're playing in front of gobs of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, massive success, opening for Billy Squire and people would
leave after their opening set.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to becoming a headline prominent eighties band with this
pop metal masterpiece Pyromania. Yeah. So they are going back
in the studio now to make a follow up to Pyramania,
and they expect to make it really in a couple
of years, maybe a year or two. Right.
Speaker 3: Well, it had taken them longer to record Pyromania than
it had any other album that they had done up
until that point. But you know, when they had so
much success with Pyromania, they're thinking, Okay, we're willing to
put in the time. We're willing to be abused by
Mutt Lang, right, because this, I mean, the success of
this one has been incredible. And so they had one
or two songs that they started off with that they
put a few demo tapes together for and then things
started to get bad.
Speaker 1: So they go back to the studio on February of
eighty four. They actually moved to Dublin. They're leaving England
for tax reasons, right, And they go to Dublin in
February of eighty four to start work on the follow
up album. Yeah, but the big problem at this time
is that Mutt Ling is unavailable, right. I mean, this
guy is their mentor. He's the guy who we talked
about built the album Brick by Brick, and he's out. Yeah.
Speaker 3: When you get an album that sold six million copies
as much heck as you went through with the guy,
you can go, well, he knows how to put together
an album.
Speaker 1: We're going to have to do this again, all right.
So with Mutt laying out, and they go to this
list of possible producers, Yeah, and one of the guys
they actually look at is Phil Collins of Genesis, the
singer Phil Collins. Yeah, that's right, So studio does he
produce album I don't know that he's ever produced an album. Okay,
all right, well that's an interesting choice. They didn't go
with him though they didn't, but yeah, his pop sensibility
is I don't know. I mean, I can see that,
but they settled on Jim Steinman. Okay. So Jim Steinmond
was the songwriter for that out of.
Speaker 3: Hell right, so he's a songwriter but not a record producer.
This seems kind of odd, do you know, from what
they went through before when we looked at the way
that Mutt Lang puts the record together. He is the
sixth member of the band, and to take somebody who
basically doesn't know how to play the instrument that's in
front of him seems a no odd choice.
Speaker 1: It does seem like a no odd choice. And we
should say before we leave out Lane, he actually did
do some songwriting sessions with the guys, so he did
start the process with them, but he bows out due
to exhaustion. Jim Steamon steps in and how did that
get Well? I've heard Joe Eliot talk about he was
not a fan really from the get go right and
during the recording sessions that they would work on. I
remember talking about when they're recording Don't Shoot Shotgun, which
is a song on the Backside of Hysteria that Jim
Simon said, all right, guys, go for it. They played
a little bit and Jim Steimon was like, yep, sounds great,
and Steve Clark was like, dude, we haven't even warmed
up yet, which is the exact opposite of lang. Right. Yeah, right,
So it just wasn't a really good fit, so they
decided to let him go, kind of like Eric Stoltz
really in Back in the Future. They were down the road,
decided to make that hard choice of the same work
and we gotta change, right, So they cut him loose.
And then on New Year's Eve of nineteen eighty four,
Rick Allen is driving in his Corvette.
Speaker 3: Right following behind an Alfa Romeo driving with his girlfriend
at the time. The Alfa Romeo is going slowly yes,
and so he tries to pass. When he tries to pass,
the Alpha Romeo speeds up, and so he has to
back off because they're curves coming ahead, and it goes
on like this. He gets behind the Alpha Romeo, it
slows down, he tries to pass, it speeds.
Speaker 1: Up, and when he decides to finally hit the gas.
That's it, I'm leaving this guy behind. Uh huh. There's
a big swerve and before he can do anything, he
crashes into a brick wall, flips his car upside down,
and he tears his arm off. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the seatbelt is the thing that probably took his
arm off because he was not wearing it properly. This
is a tragedy, but he is so blessed to have
been where he was when the accident occurred, because it
turned out there's a nurse who lives right there next
to where the accident occurs. She goes out to see
what's wrong, and then a police officer who is her
neighbor puts his head over the wall to see what's
going on, and Rick Allen is standing up still conscious.
Didn't even lose consciousness, which is probably a part of
why he didn't bleed out because he was so tense.
All he can say is I'm a famous drummer and
I've lost my arm.
Speaker 1: What a crazy nightmare scenario. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The police officer ended up having to go find the
arm up under the dash of the car, and so
they pack it. They rush him and his girlfriend over
to the hospital, but they make the decision to reattach
the arm. It Actually they think it went pretty well.
The surgery went well, but takes up. They thought it
was going to revive.
Speaker 1: After like a week, it started to become infected and
that infection was actually going to threaten him.
Speaker 3: Can you can you imagine that heartbreak of number one,
I have to have my arms for my career. It
makes me millions of dollars and I've just lost with them.
And then number two, I get this momentary they've reattached
it and everything looks like it's going to be okay,
and then you've taken it away from me again.
Speaker 1: It's utterly heartbreak. Every second of that week, you've got
to be thinking, okay, I think it's working. Yeah, I'm
on back arm.
Speaker 3: And then after that, after they had to take that
arm off, they said, you know, the other thing is
that there's an infection and if it spreads to your
other arm, you're going.
Speaker 1: To live that one too. I mean, it was serious.
I just can't imagine. So the band is distraught for him.
Initially they were worried that he might not even live, Yeah,
his life. Disinfection, the losing the arm, and they had
to worry about him living. Then they had to worry
about what are we going to do? What are we
going to do?
Speaker 3: I love to listen to these guys talk because it
was never even a thought in their mind that they
would say, you know, we got to find somebody else.
It was Rick, what do you think? And Rick said,
I'm going to make this work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome, And what a tribute to him. They
went and visited him like three weeks after this, after
they had taken his arm back off. Yeah, and he's
sitting there playing with one arm and pillows. They walk
in and he's like, guys, I think I can do this.
I just need to play the other thing with my feet.
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy is a guy who had been
playing drums since he was a little kid. And then,
as we talked about in our last episode, he's the
youngest member of the band, and he goes from hey,
we're in this garage band to hey, we're doing world
tours by the time he's seventeen or eighteen years old. Yeah,
it's incredible drumming his whole life, he said. At this point,
he's like, Okay, this is a wake up call. This
is a new challenge. For me, I'm going to take
this and I'm going to use it as motivation to
become an even.
Speaker 1: Better drummer than I was before. So the band leaves
him to recover and they get back in the studio
and they start. By this time, Mutt Lange had finished
up with Heartbeat City.
Speaker 3: He had been involved as in a car accident as well,
but ultimately he healed up.
Speaker 1: So Mutt Lang decides, guess what, guys, I'm back back
in and there was much rejoicing. That's right, I'm back
and now I'm going to beat you guys to death
to get an even better album out of you. Right,
And it was that process, but they need what to
expect at this point. That's right now. They literally worked
from February of nineteen eighty four, I mean, if you
want to be technical, through like February of eighty seven,
three years. But during the process, during all this craziness,
Rick Allen made the comment that between Mutt Lang and
the concerts and the music and the album and my
crash and all this, that we fired this guy. This
is crazy. This is like hysteria. And they thought that's it.
That's the name of the album, so we can talk
specifically as we go through the songs, but we've talked
in the previous episode that this is built brick by brick.
When they strum the guitars on the song Hysteria, yep,
it's actually they recorded it no by no no by no. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So even if you don't play guitar, you can easily
imagine the pick goes string by string. Even though it's
going fast, it still has to just hit one string
at a time, and so there's a sound of succession.
Speaker 1: What Mutt Lange did was to take out.
Speaker 3: That sound of succession, and the guitar is all of
the strings at the same time, almost as if you
were you're beating them with a drumstick, except it's the
sound of a plucked string, all of them plucked at
the same time.
Speaker 1: That's why it gives it that unique sound. Yeah, a
very unique sound. Okay. So when they were working on
these songs, yeah, and Mutt Lang is beating them to
death in the studio and they're talking about songs, they're
writing songs, yeah, and they sit down for a meeting,
Mutlang says, all right, guys, here's our goal. Yeah, we
want a pop metal album that is Thriller.
Speaker 3: Which means what it means, every song on this album
could be a single. Do you think they accomplished it.
Speaker 1: I do think they accomplished They.
Speaker 3: Certainly accomplished it for the A side, There's no question
about that, because every single one of them was a
successful son.
Speaker 1: I would say ten of twelve. Wow, I mean, what
a lofty goal. We've talked to you and I have
talked at length about Thriller and Bad. It has been.
Speaker 3: Really exciting to go through the albums that we're going through.
I didn't appreciate as much. I did appreciate, but I
appreciate it as much. How much the producer is a
part of the sound of the band. With Michael Jackson,
obviously we had Quincy Jones is a huge part of
the success of Thriller and Bad with Van Halen, Ted
Templeman is a huge part of success with David Lee
Roth and the Boys, and Don Landy is a huge
part of the way they sound and sound differently with
Sammy Hag Yeah. So with this we've got Mutt Lang
the producer and the production is a huge part of
all popular music from.
Speaker 1: As far back to the Beats, all right, So their
goal is thriller and they want to make every single
a releasable song, right, So let's go through the list
and find out what we think about these songs.
Speaker 3: Okay, sounds good, all right.
Speaker 1: So the first song on the album and the first
single that they actually released in the United States and
only in the United States, it was a song called
Women Love It. Women was released in July of eighty seven.
They hoped that the hard rock sound would reconnect with
their rock audience, particularly because they know that they had
some softer songs to come, like hysterian love bites. So
the Women single was released in July of eighty seven.
I actually remember when the video came out. I was
super excited because I had that history with Pyromania, right,
But it kind of landed with a thud in the US.
Speaker 3: It didn't do as well, No, as awesome as a
video is, it's still the news. Well, and let me
just say, as far as the hysteria videos are concerned, well,
they certainly made up.
Speaker 1: They got better.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, videos were so bad and these not
all these were great, but they were certainly a sight
better than the other ones.
Speaker 1: So it goes to number eighty on the Hot one hundred. Yeah,
doesn't even crack the top fifty on the Top Rock charts.
It gets to number seven, but really it was kind
of disappointment. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So interestingly, the B side of this one, which was
a song that wasn't on Hysteri Area, actually did really well.
Speaker 1: It's a song called Tear It Down.
Speaker 3: So we'll take a listen to that report.
Speaker 1: That's a kick by song. That song is awesome.
Speaker 3: So they ended up it got radio play, and they
ended up performing that on the MTV Music Awards in
eighty nine, and then later they re recorded it for Adrenalized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me take you back to a time
when we didn't have Spotify or the Internet. Okay, some
people will not remember this time, but for me as
our listeners will remember this time. Yeah, that's right. I
help you will.
Speaker 3: And if you are one of the select few of
seventeen and a hundred guys who are listening, this is historical.
Speaker 1: There was a time where music was much harder to
come by, that's right, and we're glad to have you. Yeah,
but during this time, so for me, I didn't buy
I had the cassette tape first Area. Yeah, right, but
this is a time early on in CDs, right would
release the CD with the B side of tear It Down,
So Women released the United States had the other track
was tear it Down. Right. Flash forward to April of
eighty nine. Yeah, it gets radio play. Tear it Down
is like a hit. Yeah. I can't get my hands
on it all right because two years prior that CD
single is long gone. Yeah, And I can't spotify it,
I can't internet it. I got to wait for the
radio to play it.
Speaker 3: Right, which I'm sure that most of our listeners have
a memory pretty clearly of sitting by the radio with
with a Maxell cassette tape plugged in, just hoping against
hope that the DJ didn't.
Speaker 1: Talk over the introduction to the song you wanted to record.
That's right, that's right. But yeah, tear it Down kind
of a timely thing about the Berlin Wall relatively. Yeah,
I mean, there's songs are not real. No, they're not politically,
they're not political, which I appreciate. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then so on this video the video, the boy
is reading a comic book and it is def Leppard
and the Women.
Speaker 1: Of Doom is the name of the comic book.
Speaker 3: And you have a superhero who rides around on a
sort of space skateboard kind of thing that looks very
much like Joe Elliott, and he ends up on the
planet Doom where they're making robotic women. And this kid's
reading this outside of the warehouse where the band is
inside performing the song and they've robotic women when they're instructed.
Their instructions are worship our masters every need this anagram
being women.
Speaker 1: I didn't even guess that have our masters every need.
It's kind of like step fo wise there in the video.
Other than the drawn comics. Yeah, there's not a single
woman in the video.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: This is the first video that they did after Rick
Allen had had his arm amputated.
Speaker 1: It's a great song. Oh yeah, it's a great song
and it's a staple of they're live. I mean I've
seen them live times and they play this all the time.
Speaker 3: And just to touch on their live shows, you know,
they did a in the round concert tour.
Speaker 1: With this album. And there are a few things to
keep in mind here. Well.
Speaker 3: The first one, what was going on underneath the stage
was described by one photographer as sodom and gomorrah or
there were sixty women with no clothes on whatsoever. And
so as the band performed, they would need breaks, and
so a couple of guys would stay on stage.
Speaker 1: And it was Joe Elliott and Rick Allen. So Rick
Allen's playing the drums and Joe Elliott is kind of
thunder god, you know, let's hear it for Rick Allen. Yeah,
Phil and Steve and Saver under the stage. Yeah, good doing.
Who knows what, And we won't go into the family show.
I'm sure they were just having coffee.
Speaker 3: But you know, when they started that tour, Rick Allen
wasn't as confident in his ability to play, and so
they had a guy named Jeff Rich come in and.
Speaker 1: Be there, their drummer that was there to kind of
fill in.
Speaker 3: And then a few shows in it was like pre
shows to this tour that they're about to go in,
jeff Rich's plane ends up getting delayed.
Speaker 1: He doesn't show up to the.
Speaker 3: Concert on time, and so Rick Allen's just got to
do it. And Jeff Rich comes in kind of sheepishly
toward the middle of the concert and kind of fades
back into the back, and when the concert is done,
he says, well, it was nice knowing you guys. But
I think, Rick, you don't need me.
Speaker 1: That's such a cool story. Yeah, when he came out.
Speaker 3: When Rick came out on stage that first time after
the amputation, there were fifty thousand people chanting his name.
Speaker 1: That's so cool. It's it's beautiful, all right. So the
second track on the album is Rocket. This was released
in January of eighty nine. This was their last singles.
The last video was Steve Clark. Yes, it's actually filmed
in the same warehouse that Women was filming in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's to me it sounds a lot like Women.
They have a very similar sound to him. These two songs.
They did a thing on this called backmasking, where they
would record things backwards. It wasn't the weird stuff that
you heard about with led Zeppelin decades before.
Speaker 1: It was just the kill yourself now stop it.
Speaker 3: They would record things like we're fighting with the Gods
of War, which is one of the lines from Gods
of War.
Speaker 1: Record that one backwards. Okay, wait, that is such a
cool little nugget. We really had to play that because
the beginning part of Rocket, I'm listening to it going on,
it's weird. You can't verbalize it. Yep. And then when
I hear, oh my gosh, that's we're fighting for the
gods of war backwards. Yes, in the middle of it.
They're making these songs, these sounds. This is a sampling
of love Bites.
Speaker 3: Now the coolest part of this thing is the drums.
Listen to it right here, you gether. So this actually
came from a song called Barundi Black, and we'll play
a snippet of that for you right here. So the
sound of those drums is unmistakable as the same drums
that are in Rocket. So what happened was Joe Elliott
heard that song, he heard the Barundi Black, and he's like, Okay,
I think I can do something with this. And they
took that, just that drum piece and then built the
song off of that.
Speaker 1: It's really cool.
Speaker 3: And then it was just supposed to be those drums
and him singing Rocket over and over again. And then
decided just at some point he threw in Satellite of Love. Well,
Satellite of Love is an old lou Reed song and
it was kind of on, you know, Joe Elliott's list
of awesome songs, and so they thought, why don't we
do a whole song that are awesome influences that have
influenced this musically over the years.
Speaker 1: Part of the songs mentioned so here, I'll just give
you some of the lyrics. Right. They say Jack Flash
rocket Man, Sergeant Pepper and the Band, Ziggy, Bennie and
the Jets. So Jumpy Jack flash Rocketman by Elton John,
Sergeant Pepper by the Beatles, Benny and the Jets by
Elton John, and Ziggy started Us by David Bowie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there would think three different David Bowie songs because
they also said something about.
Speaker 1: They say Major Tom yep, they say Johnny b Jeene
Genie Killer Queen by Queen Major Tom, Johnny be is
Johnny be Good Flashback to Our Raiders back in the
Future episode. Okay, so this is early on in CD time, right,
Like I mentioned, I had this on tape, on cassette
tape and it's one of the very one of the
about five tapes that I played it so much it broke.
But you could buy CD singles. But as you acquired
these CD singles, it actually you laid it down on
the floor and it made a huge picture of hysteria. Yeah,
the album pover and for a kid like me at fourteen,
it was like collecting baseball cards, Like I wanted to
buy the CD singles, so I'd have this thing lay
down on my floor. Yeah, that's awesome, all right. So
this brings us to the third track on the album,
which is Animal.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: The demo on.
Speaker 3: This one was recorded before Rick Allen had his car accident.
Speaker 1: This is one of the oldest songs on Hysteria, so
having a track where rig Allen plays with both arms
is kind of a neat thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then they just never felt like it was right
during the recording process.
Speaker 1: Is this took some three years to perfect this song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they had recorded all of the instruments, the drums,
the vocals, and as two and a half years down
the line, they're like, you know what this this is
already kind of getting old to us, and they're thinking,
we don't want something that we want something it's going
to be timeless, not something that we're going to be
tired of before it's even released, and so they stripped
it of everything except for the vocals.
Speaker 1: And Rick Allen thoms.
Speaker 3: The video on this one, if you're trying to remember
all of your deaf Leopard videos, is the one where
they're at the circus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the guy throws knives in Joe Elliott. Then Yes,
it was during.
Speaker 3: This particular video that has sudden suddenly occurred to me
how often Steve Clark holds his guitar up in.
Speaker 1: The air whenever the camera's I mean, God rest his soul.
Speaker 3: He I kind of look back at some of the
other videos, like every time the camera goes on to
Steve Clark, He's like, hey, look.
Speaker 1: At my cane. Hey aw, I like, how to hold
it really low or really high? This was their first
hit in England. Yeah, it was the first time they
cracked the top ten for anything in England. And just
to mention, Jim Steamond's version of this had a sweeping orchestra. Okay,
i'd be interesting. I don't know what whatever the course
it took to get the song to where it is today. Yeah,
I like it a lot to where it is today.
So I'm not sure I want to hear the orchestra
version of this song. I'd listen to that. This is
the song that caused me to buy the tape by
the whole album. Yeah, okay, so when Women came out
I saw the video, I'm like, all right, Deth Leverer's
back at it about time. Yeah, you know. But when
I heard Animal, I was like, take me to the
record store right now, right.
Speaker 3: So the next song that's on the album is Love Bites.
This one is a definitive power about.
Speaker 1: With now when you make it. This is their first
number one hit, by the way, yeah, reached the number
one spot on the Top one hundred. Right.
Speaker 3: So I can remember school dances, slow dance under this song,
heart pounding, wondering what's gonna happen?
Speaker 1: Nothing ever, nothing ever happened this one.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, this is kind of crazy. This one was supposed
to be like a country style song.
Speaker 1: By munt Lang.
Speaker 3: I mean it was a I cannot imagine what that
could have sounded like.
Speaker 1: I cotten to hear this as a country song sometimes.
Well okay, let's see, we'll see if I can find.
Speaker 2: That for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, sounds good. This is the only track on Hysteria
that has keyboards. According to this song love Bites, ye
bleeds brings me to my knees, lives, dies, begs, bleeds
of stuff. Here's a quick story for Love Bites. You
ready for this? All right? So, like I said, I
had this tape, I played it all the time, had
it with me all the time. I bring it in
the car, but can you play this one that? No,
you can't play it in the car. But at my house,
my parents were very cognizant of what I was listening to. Okay,
so Molly Crue not in this house, mister, not in
the house. Oh yeah yeah. But so I had this
tape and my dad was like, all right, let me
check this tape out right, And he looks at it,
and he's looking at and he's reading through it. Okay, women,
all right, rocket animal, okay, whatever, Wait a minute, what
exactly are love bites? Oh? That's funny. Yeah, I love you, dad,
Thank you. They like bun buns? Would you like to
try some up for love bites? This song actually has
a little bit of controversy to it. I don't know
if you're you remember this, but at the very very
end of the song you can hear just a little
bit of just barely voices right right right, Okay, So
people thought that it said Jesus of Nazareth go to hell.
What Yeah, at the very end, actually that's mut Lang saying,
yes it does bloody hell, but it's really quiet. Yes,
it does bloody hell. All right, that wraps love bites. Right,
this brings us to.
Speaker 3: My gosh, yeah.
Speaker 1: You talk about blowing your frigging mind. So here's my
story on this song. Come on.
Speaker 3: So I'm in eighth grade and I'm the king of
the middle school, right, Me and my buddies are the
king of the middle middle school because we're in eighth
grade and we're the oldest ones there, and we're like,
you know.
Speaker 1: What, We're gonna go to a high school dance.
Speaker 3: And so we decided we're gonna go high school dance,
firs high school dance I've ever been to.
Speaker 1: And I go in. I'm like, oh my gosh, this
is crazy awesome. I don't want to know, and I'm
nervous and all of this.
Speaker 3: And if anybody remembers your first dance, especially if you're
a guy, you're like, do a dance?
Speaker 1: Do not dance?
Speaker 3: Do I just sit here and act cool? What am
I supposed to do? And then yeah, girls are begging
you to dance, and you're just like, oh, okay, finally
you go out there and dance, and you look like
a white kid dancing, a puberty ridden white kid dancing.
But hey, it's okay, you're having fun, and I can
remember it the first dance into the dance and the
DJ says, all right, everybody, here is the song you've
all been waiting all night for. And they start cranking
pour some Sugar on me, and the room erupts.
Speaker 1: In the name, and I was like, this is amazing.
Speaker 3: I've never heard this song before, but I'm gonna go
find it right after this is done. I've got to
go find this because this song is in prodible.
Speaker 1: It was incredible. So let's let's dive into it. Because
before we talk about the videos. Yeah, not the video,
the videos, yeah plural. Yeah, let's talk about the song.
This song is when the album actually.
Speaker 3: Took off, right, So they had you know, they had
a good had good sales with Pyromania. They spent five
million dollars recording this album.
Speaker 1: They sold three million copies with Hysteria, which was pretty good.
Speaker 3: I mean, hey, we just sold three million albums. Yeah, yeah,
that's awesome success. Except we haven't made back the money
that we spent make my album, which is kind of
a big deal.
Speaker 1: For the record companies.
Speaker 3: Until Poorts Some Sugar comes out and everyone goes crazy.
Speaker 1: I heard a record executive say that they moved four
hundred and fifty thousand units on one day because of
the success supports some sug drummy. Yeah, that's almost going
gold in one day. That's amazing. So he said he
had never seen a song be that powerful. If you
listen to it, it's it's kind of like a rap Yeah,
I mean. Joelie talks about how this is modeled after
Walk This Way.
Speaker 3: They were not really sure how rap and rock and
roll would go together, and then run DMC and Aerosmith
came out with a rendition of Aerosmith's old seventies song
Walk This Way, and they go, well, I guess it
can be done.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. But this is really interesting. First of all,
before we even get into that Sugar, there is a
song I believe from the sixties called Sugar Sugar by
the Archies. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna blow your mind on
this here, ready for this.
Speaker 3: Everybody will recognize the enter to this song, but what
you may not remember is the end.
Speaker 1: Of this song. It is freaking unbelievable. I just found
this out this week after living with this album for
thirty years. So Joe Elliott, this is his first record
that he actually bought Sugar Sugar by the Archies.
Speaker 3: So this song they actually they didn't have this song
for most of the recording process.
Speaker 1: They were toward the.
Speaker 3: End of the album and Mutt Lang is walking by
and he hears Joe Elliott playing a riff on the
guitar and.
Speaker 1: He says, that's good. What is that? And so they
take it and they play with it. It's incredible, it's incredible.
They were on a coffee break when he was fiddling
around with this. This is in January of eighty seven. Okay,
they are wrapping up Armageddnett, which was the last song
on the album. Yeah, Mutt Lange felt like the album
is great, Yeah, but we're really we really need that
signature song that we don't have yet, right, and they
the record company is impatient. This is taken three years.
What the heck get this album out right?
Speaker 3: And so here's Joe Elliott playing this and he's like,
who this could be it? This could be the one.
And so the way that they get the lyrics to
this is this is funny as it can be. You've
got the sound, and so how do we get the lyrics? Well,
Mutt Lang and Joe Elliott go to opposite sides of
the room and they have a little dictaphone and they
listen to their recording of the riff and they just
do this kind of stream of consciousness. Here are the
lyrics that just pour out as I'm thinking of them.
And then they trade dictaphones and they listen in and
they try to figure out what the other guy was saying,
and at some point Joe Elliott hears the words love
is like a bomb. Whether that's what Mutt Lang said
or not, that's what Joe Elliott heard, and that was
what they built the entire so.
Speaker 1: A freaking incredible story.
Speaker 3: This was ranked number one on MTV Top three hundred
Videos of All Time in May of ninety one. In
two thousand and six, it ranked number two on VH
one's Greatest Songs from the Eighties. Number one was living
on a Prayer Before you move on to that yeah
number VH one ranked this as the number two song
from the eighties.
Speaker 1: Yes, it only reached number two on the Hot one
hundred chart. The number one song that week, hold On
to the Nights by Richard Mars, just went up. There's
no way that song is better than fort trigger.
Speaker 3: On me right when they do the video for this song.
There's two versions.
Speaker 1: There's two versions. One is spectacular and one is terrible.
One is god off, Oh my gosh. It's not as
bad as the Pyromanium videos. It's worse.
Speaker 3: It's way worse, because at least the Pyromania videos were
weird and interesting.
Speaker 1: This is just bad. Got we gotta post this video
on our Facebook page. Yeah, we'll do that. If this
video is the v hippo for this song, this song
does not do as well.
Speaker 3: No, it may still do great, but nothing compared to
what it did do.
Speaker 1: It took a great song made a looking dorky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you don't know the original video to
this song, the guys are singing in this kind of
old lady looking house apartment in this building that is
being torn down by these very manly looking women, and
sporadic shots of a crowd of nerdy looking people shouting
por some sugar on me.
Speaker 1: It's whoa, what happened? This is terrible. Fortunately they are
wise enough to look at it and go, this is terrible.
Speaker 3: What else can we do? And live in a round
in your face? They took footage from that tour, specifically
their performance in Denver, and they made the video that
everybody knows and loves. In the video, he's wearing the
T shirt, the women T shirt. Yes, he's got the
comic book that the kid was reading from the women video.
It's got he's got his own picture, he's got his
own superhero. I want to have that. Okay, I want
to have a T shirt that's me as a superhero
in a comic book on the T shirt.
Speaker 1: Can we get one of those? Here's a funny story
for you. Okay, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap myself out.
But in that video, he's got the women's shirt cut down, sleeveless, right,
it's really cool. The mullet is in full glory. But
he has a pair of jeans that have like the
horizontal ribs on them all the way through. I took
a pair of jeans, yeah, cut them up, washed them,
didn't wear them in public, just wore them in my
room when I listened to songs play the air drums.
True story, that's true story.
Speaker 3: This song has an entirely to me an entirely different
field than all of the rest of the songs on
the album.
Speaker 1: It is stripped down.
Speaker 3: It is not the mut Lang We're gonna, We're gonna
put all these things together. It is very very basic,
very much drums and singing and just music and sporadic
bursts that gives it that kind of black Dog from
Led Zeppelin feel where you just this song kicks more
butt than any other song on the album.
Speaker 1: And it's vaguely sexual too. Pour some sugar on. I
don't know what the bubble is that they're breaking it.
Speaker 3: I don't, but for some reason it makes me feel
a little dirty.
Speaker 1: You've got the peaches, I've got the cream. I we're
having an ice cream party. Yes, that's okay, it is yeah,
all right, it's a cobbler. Okay. Are we done with?
Por some sugar on me? Pole song on the album?
All right? So the sixth track on the album is
armageddet This is the most fun the nuclear war has
ever been. I mean, armageddon has nothing to do with it,
nothing at all. This is This was released in January
of eighty nine. Yeah, this is This is almost a
year and a half after the album came out, right,
and they're still they're wiring it up.
Speaker 3: Well, they're riding that poor some Sugar on Me way, Yes,
I mean it's and love bites, love bites, Poor some
Sugar on Me, armor gedding it.
Speaker 1: They're they're cruising that thing first while they are surfing
that wave. Yep. This song reached number three in January
of eighty nine on the Hot one hundred, only, beat
out by Two Hearts by Phil Collens Oh, former possible
producer for Hysteria Ironic and Don't Rush Me by Taylor
Dan Match. So but it's a play on words, right,
Are you getting it?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: You're getting it? Yes, I'm getting it right. I love
this song. The hook of the guitar is so catchy.
It is a pop metal, awesome five star song. Yeah.
I like the play on words. It's got some novelty.
I was. I liked it when I was a kid.
They do their video in the exact same way as
they did with Pour Some Sugar on Me and why
Not it works so well. Again, Yes, and once again,
this was the last. This was supposed to be the
last song completed for the album. Huh but thankfully what
Lange said, you know what, Joe, We're going to go
explore that poor Some Sugar on Me vidio that you
got there, yeah, and keep building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the poor you know, we talked about them
not making their money back.
Speaker 1: It was pour some sugar on me.
Speaker 3: They caused the album sales to Skyrocket, beating Pyromania and
making them the money back, and then multiple folds over.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Hit stop on your tape deck,
kick cast your cassette, flip it over. Now we're going
to side to Okay, but before we do, Side one
of Hysteria maybe the best one side of any album
in the eighties. Wow, Women Rocket, Animal Love Bites, purse
some sugar on the armagatin it. Yeah. I might have
agreed with you back in nineteen eighty nine. I don't
know that I'm going to agree with you right now. Okay, Well, hey,
we're gonna dive into a whole bunch of albums, so sure, yeah,
let's go for it. Okay. So the first track on
side two, it's a song called Gods of War. This
song has Ronald Reagan sounding like Dirty Harry. This is
kind of a diehard the Hunter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Pyromania ye jacked up on steroids. Yeah, so it's
a little tougher. I felt like a little they're trying
to kind of get into that Metallica side of things
a little bit, but it's still very mud laying.
Speaker 1: Very highly produced. I think this is a song that
if it had a killer video behind it, it could
have been a successful single. The chorus in this song
is awesome. They only play it twice, and then you
close out with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan saying you
thought America is going to be passive, you counted wrong,
and then all these you know, war stuff and hey,
let's go okay. Song after that is a song called
Don't Shoot Shotgun, catchy song. I know all the words.
It's a little goofy, more sex, more guns. There you go.
This is one of the oldest songs on the album.
Jim Simon actually worked on this with the band. Good song.
Not a great song, but a good song. Moving on
to a song called run Riot for Me, this is
the weakest track on the album. I mean it's it's
a good song. I still love it, but it's not
a not a high recommend for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just I mean to shoot you straight. On
the B side, I had to push through. I had
to push through to get through these hysterias.
Speaker 1: Obviously.
Speaker 3: On the B side, and it's a decent song, but
the rest of the songs I had to just kind
of force myself to listen through.
Speaker 1: All. Okay, well, run Right is not the best track
on the album. Number ten track.
Speaker 3: Hysteria, Hysteria which I'll do something for you. Now you
know you gave us that little Archies gold nugget.
Speaker 1: I'll do something for you. Okay.
Speaker 3: So this song is Goodbye Blue Sky by Pink Floyd.
Speaker 1: Wow Wow Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Goodbye Blue Sky by Pink Floyd off the Wall album.
It's one of my favorite songs off the album, and
it's unmistakable. You know when you when you when you
hear hysteria. If you're a semi Pink Floyd fan, you're
gonna go. This sounds familiar. If you're a big Pink
Floyd fan, you're gonna go. Are they playing Goodbye Blue Sky?
Speaker 1: Huh? Because it's bottomn wow. I've never heard that before.
I'm not a Pink Floyd guy, so wow. So you
blew my mind with the Archies, Thank you. I'll blow
your mind with Pink Floyd and we can keep on rolling. Well,
that's cool for me. Goodbye Blue skuy Aside, this song
is gorgeous. Yeah, it's layer upon layer upon layer of
guitars and just it just sings to my soul. I
love this song. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think the reason one of the reasons that I
like this song so much is that it reminds me
so much of the Pink Floyd style. And I said
that about I said that about some of the songs
from Pyromania as well. They're definitely taking some ideas from
the Pink Floyd library and running with them and make
them there out.
Speaker 1: I did hear Phil Collen talk about how he and
Rick Savage had come together with some different ideas, and
Rick Savage had played this guitar part and Phil Collen
would play there that little strum that we talked about yep.
And it was very similar to when we talked about
right now from Van Halen. Two guys different rooms working
on the same song. They just didn't know it. When
they came together. They say, well, I'm working on this.
Oh that sounds good. Hey, I've been working on this. Hey,
that sounds good. And they put it together and that
became this song. So this song did very well. I
think it reached number ten. Not this was definitely a
put it on the Girlfriend Makeout Mix of eighty eight, right, yeah, okay,
ye are you excitable? Are you excited? Okay? Excitable? This
was Mutlange's attempt at making some sort of rock dance song. Okay,
it's kind of vaguely naughty at the beginning, right, No,
are you excitable? Right? I like it. It's good, It's
it's kind of got.
Speaker 3: It's got that same thing going the action what's the
action song from Action not Words, Action not Words from Pyromania.
Speaker 1: It's got that same kind of subtlety going. Yeah. Yeah,
I have the Hysteria Super Deluxe Edition and it has
a excitable the orgasmic.
Speaker 3: Mix, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: And then finally we top it all off with Love
and Affection, which for me, this is another song that
could have been released as a single. If you could
put a put a cool video with this, it could
have been a huge hit. Yeah. I love Love and Affection.
I am standing on this hill and dying. Love and
Affection is in the top percent of the songs on
this altum.
Speaker 3: You have to say, I'm ranking it up for sure
on the top percentage.
Speaker 1: I rank it above Lovevites. I like it better than
the Wow. Yeah okay, so it's it's just a it's
a really cool song, all right.
Speaker 3: So you know, the band sadly Highs and Lows, Highs
and Lows. Tragically, after they finished their tour, Steve Clark
lost his battle with alcoholism. It had been a constant
issue that he had to deal with. His fiance came
to the band couple different times to go, hey, guys,
I mean and they were all heavy drinkers. And Phil Collen,
his guitar partner the Terror Twins, was his drinking buddy,
and at some point Phil Collen said, I've got to quit.
And so Steve, who had dealt with depression and used
alcohol as a way to deal with that, suddenly has
lost his drinking buddy and his downward spiral could not
be stopped despite multiple attempts.
Speaker 1: They sent him to rehab for a significant portion.
Speaker 3: Of time, and he was just biting his time until
he could start drinking again.
Speaker 1: He was in the looney bin where yeah, Joeli it
talks about that with the people that talked to Trees. Yeah,
he had some significant personal problems, yep, and they were
one of these deals were like, look, dude, if you
don't straighten up, you're on the band, right, And it's
such a hard thing. You don't you know, until you walk.
Speaker 3: A mile in somebody else's shoes, you cannot judge their actions.
I had I actually had a friend from high school.
I'm forty five four years old. I had a friend
from high school die three weeks ago from his paddle
with alcoholism. If you've if you've got that problem, and
you've got that depression that you're dealing with, you get
to ask yourself, would you rather not be alive? Or
would you rather just not be sad? And if the
answers you'd just rather not be sad? Please seek professional help.
There are people out there who love you, who want.
Speaker 1: You to stay around, right. I thought it was interesting.
On the inside cover of Hysteria, the band said, sorry,
we were gone so long from Paramania. It took us
a long time to get here. We won't be gone
this long ever again. Right. Well, with the problems that
they had and the death of Steve Clark, they were
gone even longer. So I remember where I was sitting
when I heard the news of Steve Clark had died.
I was such a big deaf Leopard fan, and I'm
sitting around of course, this is before the internet. This
is nineteen ninety, Like, when in the crap are they
going to get a new album out right? And I'm
sitting on my wife's bed as we're cleaning upper room.
We're working on something, and the radio says sad Announce
with Steve Clark died, and I'm like, what, Yeah, it
blew me away? All right, so we're ready to dive in.
Are we ready to talk final judgment? Let's talk final judgment? Okay.
Speaker 3: So I got to say I said this in the
first episode when we started talking about Pyromania. When I
listened to Pyramania for the first time, it really was
like I was listening to it for the first time
because I didn't listen to it when I was a kid.
I would see the videos that came on, but I
never owned the album. I was never a big Deaf
Leopard fan, and so I when I listened to the
album for the first time, it was like, hey, them
back in the early eighties, and I'm just imagining myself
with my headphones in my room, you know.
Speaker 1: And I put that on and I was like, Wow,
this is really good. I was blown away, and I
mean I knew def Leppard from Hysteria.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I remember dances with Pour some Sugar
on Me, blowing it up and love bites and dancing
with the girl, and there's a.
Speaker 1: Lot of emotion there, so I knew them from that.
Speaker 3: But to go back and listen to Pyromania, I thought
when we started this conversation, I thought, Okay, well, I'm
gonna be making the argument for Hysteria.
Speaker 1: Because those are the songs that I know. But going back,
Pyromania is my album.
Speaker 3: Wow, I will listen to that. I will listen to
that one over and over again. When I got you know,
when I got to Too Late for Love and you've
got the swirling wind going on, and you've got that
guitar that comes in and Joe Elliott singing on top
of that, just the wind, the guitar and Joe Elliott's
voice and then bam, you get hit with that the
chorus and the harmony of the rest of the band.
I was like, holy crap, this is freaking awesome. I
was telling people. I was like, we're doing this right now.
I was like, have you listened to this album lately?
I became an evangelist.
Speaker 1: That is so cool.
Speaker 3: Man for Pyromania, and I was just like, this is
really really good.
Speaker 1: And then we're doing Hysteria.
Speaker 3: So I started listening to Hysteria, and like we talked
about Side A Solid right, and I'm listening, I'm like, yeah,
I'm remembering all these songs, but as I'm listening to it,
I'm like, these don't appeal to me the same way
that they did before.
Speaker 1: They're good.
Speaker 3: I still have an emotional connection. It's that nostalgia that
you've talked about before. But as I'm driving in my
car from here on out, I can say, if I'm
driving my car and you can present me with only
two options, I'm picking Pyromania over Hysteria.
Speaker 1: Hey, that is really cool. First of all, the fact
that you have discovered one of the eighties great rock
albums is super cool. Yeah. And I have had people
who have commented on the podcast it only took me
forty years. Hey, well, that's so cool, and I'm glad
to be sort of a part of that deal for you. Yeah.
I have had people comment on the podcast to me
that they had forgotten how much they enjoyed Spaceboll's or
Airplane or Bad. I've had a lot of people tell
me that they now appreciate bad better. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And when we did the Van Halen episode and I
started listening to all the Sammy songs again, I was like, man, these.
Speaker 1: Are these are pretty darn good.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was kind of like, eh, I still
like Dave better, but I was really impressed that, you know, hey,
I should have given these more of a chance than
I did.
Speaker 1: And this one was just I mean, it was brand new.
It was brand new for me, and I loved it. Well,
that's really cool. I'm so glad to be a part
of that. Now. I got to tell you why you're
off face, all right, Yeah, okay, So first of all,
I absolutely love Pyramedia. Okay, so I am the world's
biggest def Leppard fan. I think I'm probably have said
it many times. I'm not really good at masking my feelings.
But for me, Hysteria is the soundtrack for my high
school years. I'm ultra nostalgic, but I think these songs
are just great. I mean, they're all great, but Pyramania
is great too. So what's the dividing what's the breaking
point for me? Yeah? So for me, Pyromania is the
Mona Lisa Yeah of pop metal albums. Okay, it's perfection. Okay, okay, Now,
then Hysteria is the Mona Lisa except for the girl
looks like Jennifer Lopez. All Right, they took they took
something perfect and made it perfect or okay, they made
it better, you know. And we didn't talk about that.
Speaker 3: But Mutt Lang, he came to the guys after coming
back into the album. He's like, do you guys really
want to make Pyromania too? And the answers no, that
we want to do something different and we want to
do something better. We want to take it up a notch.
But the question is did they take it up a
notch in your opinion?
Speaker 1: Yes? Okay, did they did? And I'll tell you kind
of where I am when Mutt Lang goes and gets
coffee in nineteen eighty seven January of ninetis and comes
back and walks by and Joy is playing on the
guitar and he's.
Speaker 4: Love's like a bomb man to come and get it
on living like another with a er my phone looking
like a tramp Lager video on Ma'm damn woman canapeo
man man, and.
Speaker 1: He says, stop the presses. We need to add that
song listen baby good sometimes right, Okay, actually do that right,
the accidental drip. The difference between Pyramede and Hysteria is
that song. Okay, you take you remove pors some Sugar
on Me, and those albums are deadweight on the scale.
They're even and for me, the absolute mind blowing power
of that song poor Some Sugar on Me tips the
scales first.
Speaker 3: Okay, So you and I are on the same page
on poor Some Sugar on Me. And this you know,
in this experience that we have of making this podcast
and listening to albums and learning about the albums, I've
told you that listening to the producers and what their
impact is, I had no idea, right, Mutt Lang has
a huge effect on Pyromania, and I think an even
bigger effect. And here's I'm going to put it as
simply as I can. The more produced an album is
the more to me, it sounds kind of canned. And
so you know, you talk about whether nostalgia is really
the thing that influences or not. I can say when
I hear love bites, I can remember slow dancing with
a girl. I can remember when I hear poor Some
Sugar on Me, the crowd going crazy and everybody dance
in like Lord of the Flies, and it was awesome.
But if you take that part out, if you take
that experience out, if I'm just listening to hysteria in
the car, it's not got the same connection. It doesn't
have that emotion because it's so produced. Mut Lang wanted
perfection and he achieved it. It's just that perfection kind
of leaves me a little bit cold. I like, and
obviously Pyromania is really really produced, right, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, they spent so much time on it.
Speaker 3: It's a heavily produced animal, but it's not as much
And it's those little moments like in Too Late for
Love where you're breaking it down, where it's a guitar
and a singer and then a chorus and a harmony, that's.
Speaker 1: The best part.
Speaker 3: And in Pour Some Sugar on Me, it's not hyper produced.
It's drums and a singer and a simple, simple blues lick.
That makes this song so good. It's that they've taken
out the overproduction that makes poor Some Sugar on Me
so good. And I agree with you. If you take
Pour Some Sugar out of that album, it's not a
spectacular album. I'm telling you Pyromania is better overall because
the songs are good from beginning to end. It doesn't
have the sparkling, big hitter that pour Some Sugar on
Me is. But if you lose poor Some Sugar on
Me from Hysteria, Pyromania is obviously a better album.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I don't know. Here's what I'll
be interested to see once we put this out on
social media. This is gonna be very similar to Michael Jackson,
So thriller bad, thriller bad, thrill bad, thriller bad, and
then we get the occasional off the wall person. So
we're gonna hear somebody's gonna say I and DRIs of this.
I'm gonna we're gonna hear it. Yeah, trust me, we're
gonna hear it.
Speaker 3: Now, if somebody says Adrenalized is the best album they're out,
we're gonna have to see your ide Did you show
me your idea?
Speaker 1: Adrenalize is kind of the third in the trilogy, you know,
they kind of see it as the trilogy, but it
is a down well, but it's it is. It was
your candy rock. It was candy rock.
Speaker 3: They took it that they just kept getting more and
more pop and pop and poppy pop.
Speaker 1: And then it's like eating chocoate Jim Cookies for dinner.
It's too much. Yeah, but for me it's hysteria. For you,
it's paramedia. Yeah, I love them both. Yeah. What do
you think we want to hear from you guys?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me just say I walked in today so
excited because I love doing this with Jason. He's my
best friend and knock knuckles there, Yeah, we're falls. I
love geeking out with him, but I love listening to
you guys. We are getting so much feedback on Facebook
and it is fantastic. People telling us what you're crazy?
You know, why would you think this? This is ridiculous
and we love it. I mean it's we want you
guys to dive in with us, and again.
Speaker 1: We're blown away.
Speaker 3: We thought we'd have a handful of listeners that we
all knew their first name.
Speaker 1: There are lots of you out there who are telling
your friends about us. Thank you means so much to us.
We love you.
Speaker 3: Please keep sharing the good news and please keep talking.
Speaker 1: With us on Facebook. That's right, Thank you so much
for listening. Give us a five star honest review.
Speaker 3: If you can and share with your friends, or if
it's a dishonest five star review.
Speaker 1: That'd be well, take us as well. It'd be fine too.
It's been fun and we will see you next week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when we're going to talk about Braveheart and Gladiator. Yes,
and on this one we can say with some strength
we do not love both.
Speaker 1: Of these movies. That one still kills me. Come back. Yeah,
after this one, you want to hear a real argument
that those will be the episodes to listen to. All right,
signing off.
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.