'Fabulist Icons' Book - Pyro Tour & Hysteria Sessions With Phils Guitar Tech

[fabulisticon]

Hi everyone who pre-ordered. It has taken a lot long
than I had anticipated but the results are worth it.
I start shipping tomorrow.

This was done by ourselves alone so it has been a
steep learning curve. We do appreciate you baring
with us.

[andylgr]

Very cool to arrive home from Dublin to find this book had been delivered. Some very cool candid photos in there. Love the shots of the unused Hysteria stage too.

[deflep]

I finally received this book.

It is pretty cool with unique pics and unique perspectives from that era.

What a complete shame that this wasn't done in 1992. I would imagine that this would have sold many more copies back then since the timeframe was more relevant and recent.

[andylgr]

This thread has been criminally neglected, especially as the book is about the bands most interesting era. After having only previously skimmed through to have a look at the pictures I've finally got round to reading it. I'm about a third of the way through so far.

[andylgr]

Review from PUREM

In his book Fabulist Icons: A fragment of rock ‘n roll life, Mike Rogers presents a written account of his life from a young teenager playing guitar with his brother up till and including his time working as a technician with Def Leppard. Containing never before seen photos by Una Williams and personal accounts of Def Leppard’s highs and lows as well as his own, it’s a fascinating read for anyone who wants to learn more about the music industry at the time, the tech and workload involved, or Def Leppard or Mike Rogers himself.

Rogers begins with an account of his early life, and shows how important music was to him from a very young age. He describes how his love of playing music, specifically guitar, and performing with his brother John influenced his decisions hugely as a teenager. He’s open about the experiences he’s had and mistakes he’s made, but never discloses too much information; though his experiences may be unpleasant, they’re factually written and easily read.

While Rogers doesn’t dwell on these experiences and moves swiftly onto his account of working as a technician for Def Leppard, his accounts of the different bands he’s been in and worked for and people he met as a result make for an interesting read. The stories are varied and full of tidbits of information about life as a performer and music technician in that time.

Rogers writes about a wide range of events that happened during his time working for Def Leppard, recounting how he got the job and the highs and lows that follow, up until his departure from the band. Rogers worked as a technician from the beginning of the Pyromania tour to the ending of the recording of the Hysteria album, and we get an insight into the personal lives of the band as well as how the technical side of the band’s performances, tours and equipment were handled.

Fabulist Icons: A fragment of rock ‘n roll life lives up to his name; it gives a fascinating account of the rock and roll lifestyle of that time. With light-hearted stories mixed in with more sombre recollections, and photos by Una Williams featured throughout the book, anyone who has an interest in Def Leppard or music in general would enjoy this book.

[edithanne]

Thanks for the review and analysis of the books - looking forward to reading them.

[andylgr]

Seeing as its the 30th anniversary of Hysteria I thought I'd bring this thread a bit more to the forefront. Written by Phils guitar tech it covers the period from 1982-1986. Below is my review of the book that I posted on here a little while ago, Personally I feel this book is a must have for any long time fan and is well worth tracking down for some very candid anecdotes and some really cool behind the scenes photos.


After having this book for a year I finally got round to reading it.

Mike Rogers joined the bands team in 1982 as Phil's guitar tech on the Pyromania tour. He then continued to work for the band, looking after their equipment and their needs during the Hysteria recording recording sessions. He left the bands employments after the 1986 Monsters of Rock tour.

It starts off with approx 25 pages on his early life before joining Def Leppard. His childhood, his musical background, and his career as a musician discussing the bands he worked in and the experience he gained. Before he eventually fell in to working on concert tours as a guitar tech. Its sounded like such a free and easy life back in the 60s and 70s.

We then go into around 25 pages of how he joined Def Leppard and the subsequent Pyromania tour. In 1982 he went for an "interview" as Phil's guitar tech, both he and Malvin started at the same time. He met the band during the recording of Pyromania and his first role was for the Pyro tour rehearsals in Sheffield, before they moved to Pinewood studios for full stage production rehearsals. He goes on to talk about the tour in Europe before the band head off to the US to support Billy Squier, and then as we know headlining arenas themselves, before winding the tour up in Europe, Australia and the Far East. This covers what it's like to be working on the road for a big act, the main thing that comes across is the camaraderie of the crew and also other crews too that they come in to contact with, plus his relationship and thoughts on people like Malvin and the rest of the backstage team. There are lots of anecdotal quotes about his thoughts on the band, their music and how they were as people. But that relationship comes across as a bit distant and more functional, like if Mike wasn't there then it wouldn't matter to the band who was doing that job, and I think that initial impression I got is born out later when Mike leaves their employment. There is lots of technical talk of the things he did with their equipment, the use of transmitters instead of leads on stage and all the things he had to do to keep the show rolling. The amount of work involved in organising and keeping track of their equipment is ridiculous, especially in an era like the 80s without today's technology. As with Phil's book it's very anecdotal, it covers a period and there's the odd memory and quote thrown in. It seems as though the Pyro tour went off without many hitchs, there's stories of Mensch comes into the story now and again, trying to lay the law down and getting in the the way of the crew and the show. Spread throughout this Pyro era are lots of candid previously unseen photos of the band and crew both on and off stage.

We then move on to 50 pages on the Hysteria early writing and demo sessions in Dublin in 1984. Basically Mikes role then was setting the band up together in a house in Dublin, getting all their living needs organised as well as their equipment to use for the demo recording aspect. Mutt was with the band at the same too as they were putting together ideas for the Hysteria album at the house and at Windmill Lane Studios. It looks like a conscious decision to keep the band together after the tour to keep the creative process going. Again their are lots of rare photos of the band in Dublin at this time. What comes across in these months they spent in Dublin in 84 is how much money they would have been spending during their time there, simple stuff like ordering food out every day, moving equipment around, buying new equipment, and everything was logged for the costs of the project. Also the band would be jetting off to places like home in Sheffield, or to see girlfriends in Paris in the case of Phil and Steve. Buying property and cars. It comes across as money is no object at this time nd this continues when they move to Holland. There's lots of talk of the equipment they used to each make demos and the amount of ideas they had. As the writing and demo phase winds down before moving to Holland there's are some rare pictures of the band in a restaurant, and sitting together are Mutt and Jim Steinman. As Mutt has broken the news that he can't record the album with them they bring in Steinman to produce. 50 pages covering his relatively short few month period in the bands history shows what an important time it was.

The Hysteria recording sessions then moves to Holland and we get 30 pages on this period of the bands history. Again we get more rare pics as the band settles down with Steinman to record the album. He talks of one of the conditions of Steinmans contract being that he would write one song with the band for the album, as well as his fees and percentages as producer. But ultimately the feeling seems to have been that he stemmed the creative process and he was fired by telex. After this they tried to get mutt back involved, but as he was busy he sent over his engineer Nigel green to work with them. Tapes were sent back and forth to mutt to listen to and work on as well. Obviously during this time Rick had his accident so there's more rare photos of him at home and also more stories of the trials he faced recovering, and then ultimately the work that went in to getting a working drum kit for him to use and learn to play.

After a year the band had to move from Holland and they relocated to Paris. This was a short stay and it looks as though the language barrier was a big reason for them deciding to move back to Dublin to finish recording. This is where Mutt rejoined the band, I'm not sure if the exact dates but it would seem to be very early 86. During all this period from moving to Holland and then back to Dublin it looks more and more evident that Mike is on the periphery of the band now, there to help out with anything they need, but not actually as involved or present in the studio with the band for the day to day process of the recording of the album. Maybe he was, but as the book progresses it doesn't come across like that and it seems like he's becoming more in charge of keeping track of everything the band are using equipment wise and all the complications that go with that plus getting them anything they need. So we get lots of stories of what the band are doing out of the studio, how much downtime they had sometimes due to their recording methods, plus his thoughts on how hard Mutt was working Joe and the guitarists in particular, Ricks determination, Steve's apparent problems and also Malvins personality. Plus the willingness of Mutt and the band to try every bit of technology going. It got me thinking that maybe Malvin being on the scene was a small factor in Mike being a little cast aside?

Anyway we then move on to the 1986 monsters of rock tour and the rehearsal shows in Ireland. This has some fantastic photos of the stage model concept they had designed for a world tour. Which it seems that they also built and rehearsed on too, it looks very different to what they ended up using on the actual Hysteria tour "at one end" shows. Why they actually made this stage in 1986 I don't know, maybe they thought the album would be finished quicker? There's some very candid shots of second drummer Jeff Rich backstage with the band too. Plus some live shots of the band onstage during the Irish rehearsal gigs too. Mike was responsible for organising the rehearsal space in Dublin and making sure everything was there for that rehearsal process. For the Irish warm up dates there's plenty of chat about the difficulties they faced in setting up 2 drummers side by side too at these very small venues. We then move on the monsters of rock gigs and Mike says he's fed up of his role with the band organisation and sure enough he quits after the last show. Its evident from the lack of pictures as time progresses also his thoughts on these 86 shows that he wasn't happy. It does come across like he has no set role within the bands structure, but also he seems fed up with the constant moving around it brings. I mentioned earlier how I got the impression that it wouldn't matter to the band who did the roles behind the scenes back then, Mike talks about how no one contacted him after he left, in particular Phil. That's surprising I guess if you consider how long he'd worked with them and him specifically. But there's two sides to things, maybe Mike was a bit bitter about that, but one of the overall impressions this book gives is that it looks like the music business is ruthless and stops for no one. It finishes with him talking about Steve and that Sav did contact him and told him of his death.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this. It's got some great pictures and gives a glimpse into a side of the bands organisation that we rarely hear about. Plus it's someones thoughts who was relatively close to the band during their most interesting time period. Granted it didn't go quite as in detail as I expected, I was hoping for day to day studio stories of track progressions etc. But maybe that's just me unrealistically wanting more, I expected similar of Phil's autobiography, but at the end of the day it's covers time periods with broad strokes, some indepth recollections and anecdotes. Theres lots of technical talk about the equipment they were using, which in particular is very interesting for the Hysteria demo period. Nitpicking there were a couple of date errors I noticed, but I think for any Leppard fan this book is a must IMO, well worth getting if you can.

[andylgr]

For anyone interested the guy that wrote the excellent Fabulist Icons book also has a Facebook page by the same name. Covering the same time period as the book, he usually posts something every week or 2 and has a lot of rare and candid photos on there that are well worth seeing. Not just the of band either but people behind the scenes too.

[Greta]

Thanks much for the info on the Facebook page! My enduring memory of this book--lost in a move some years back, sadly, so now I only have the electronic copy--is of Phil and Steve standing in the doors to their respective rooms, playing air guitar with kitchen appliances, wearing granny nightgowns. There was also all kinds of other good stuff. Wow, would I love it if this was rereleased.

[presspass]

Anyone have picture of this book. With so much downtime looking for DL books. I checked eBay and Amazon. No sighting of it.

[andylgr]

Mar 28, 2020 7:29:03 GMT -8 presspass said:

Anyone have picture of this book. With so much downtime looking for DL books. I checked eBay and Amazon. No sighting of it.

First post of this thread.

Have a look on Facebook for Fabulist Icons and maybe there’s some info on getting a copy on there.

[andylgr]

This book is now available to buy again. Well worth it to see some rare pics of the band with anecdotes from Phils guitar tech.

CLICK HERE FOR WEBSITE

Mike Rogers’s long-awaited account of his years as guitar tech with rock legends Def Leppard during one of their most momentous periods – the worldwide success of Pyromania, and the lead up to the recording of Hysteria.
This 152-page full colour edition features many behind-the-scenes photos of the band taken by Mike, as well as exclusive, never-before-seen pictures taken by the leading Irish photographer Una Williams.

[oliver]

I ordered a copy right away last night.

[andylgr]

Aug 12, 2020 0:40:53 GMT -8 oliver said:

I ordered a copy right away last night.

The book came out about 5 years ago and has been out of print for a while. He also has a facebook page that has behind the scenes photos too.

[churchy]

Aug 12, 2020 0:40:53 GMT -8 oliver said:

I ordered a copy right away last night.

I've just done the same!

[rellis]

Aug 12, 2020 0:40:53 GMT -8 oliver said:

I ordered a copy right away last night.

So did I. Read the Ebook for free and Mike tells a good story. Very absorbing and you feel like you were there. He is also very honest. Good read. But I always did want the actual book with the pictures by Una Williams Photography.

[rondppard]

Thank you so much andylgr for letting us know! I just bought a copy too!

[blainc67]

Can anyone give a link to buy this book? I can’t find it. Thanks 

[andylgr]

Aug 14, 2020 6:06:18 GMT -8 blainc67 said:

Can anyone give a link to buy this book? I can’t find it. Thanks 

Look a few posts above and you’ll see a post by me that says Click for Website on it.