Post by CindyJ on Mar 17, 2022 7:09:49 GMT -8
Def Leppard to Unveil ‘Diamond Star Halos’ Album Ahead of Tour With Motley Crue
"It was joyful to do" Joe Elliott tells Billboard
Nearly a year ago, around the time Def Leppard was releasing The Collection: Volume III box set, frontman Joe Elliott spoke about the band being “ahead of the game” in making a new album, working remotely and trading files for “a bunch of songs that one day will come to fruition, I’m sure.”
Turns out things were a little further along than he let on.
The fruits of Def Leppard’s latest labors will surface as Diamond Star Halos, the quintet’s 12th studio album — and first in seven years — set for release May 27 in front of its Stadium Tour with Mötley Crüe and special guests Poison and Joan Jett. The 15-song set, produced by the band and longtime engineer Ronan McHugh, takes its title from the lyrics of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” while the first single, “Kick,” nods unapologetically to that totem as well, with the rest of the album drawing from the band members’ early influences as well.
“It wasn’t planned that way; It’s just how it happened,” bassist and co-founder Rick Savage tells Billboard via Zoom from the Savoy Hotel in London, where he, Elliott and guitarist Phil Collen have gathered to talk about Diamond Star Halos. “We were all really influenced by an era that was somewhere between 1971 and 1974, where you were just learning and a sponge for all the stuff you were watching on Top of the Pops.
“And the way we’re presenting the songs, it’s not just the rock of that era. It’s the other people like Elton John and Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, even the Eagles. There’s flavors of that flooding all the way through the album.”
Diamond Star Halos is certainly diverse. There are plenty of big, proto-Def Leppard style arena anthems such as “Kick,” “Fire It Up” (co-written with Sam Hollander), “Take What You Want,” “Gimme a Kiss” and “U Rok Mi,” but the band also ventures into Americana territory, joined by Alison Krauss for “This Guitar,” which Elliott says has been around for 17 years, and “Lifeless.” Longtime David Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson adds a different flavor to the orchestrated “Angels (Can’t Help You Now)” and the dramatic “Goodbye For Good This Time,” while Def Leppard explores other moods and textures on tracks such as “Liquid Dust,” “Unbreakable,” “All We Need” and the twisting album closer “From Here to Eternity.”
“It was joyful to do,” says Elliott, sporting round shades as he sits between his bandmates. He credits the remote recording process with allowing the group to explore and experiment and pursue some different sonic directions than it has before. “As Sav says, at any one time there were possibly four songs getting worked on at once. And everybody was at home, so you didn’t have to work on it constantly or be sitting around waiting to do your bit if we were all in the studio together or something. You could get on with doing other stuff.
“So it was a leisurely way of recording, but we could concentrate wholly on the record when we were actually recording. What we learned was it’s not where your body is, it’s where your mind’s at. We were in three different countries, but we were all on the same page.”
Collen contends that, “I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. There was so much more energy by not having to go to a studio or a situation where you were waiting on anything. I’d finish something, send it to Joe in Ireland and he’d send it to Sav and…we’d just be back and forth, and when I’d wake up in the morning there’d be something new in my mailbox. It was constantly exciting. I don’t think we don’t want to go back to whatever that standard way was that we did before.”
Diamond Star Halos was finished “the better part of a year” ago, according to Elliott, but held back when it became evident The Stadium Tour, originally slated for the summer of 2020 and rescheduled for 2021, was going to be postponed yet again. “We didn’t want to drop the record and then not be able to promote it properly,” he says. At the time it was a 14-song set, and then Collen came up with “Kick” as an additional track — just like he did with the No. 2 Hot 100 hit “Pour Some Sugar on Me” for 1987’s Diamond certified Hysteria. “Phil rang me up and said, ‘I’ve got this other song…but we’re done,'” Elliott recalls. “And I’m like, ‘Well, it’s open-ended. There’s no delivery date. There’s no record deal yet. Send me an MP3.’ So he sent it to us, band-wide, and Sav was the first one to comment, ‘OMG — “Sugar,” anyone?'”
Collen adds that “‘Kick’ represented where we were at as well. It’s got that glam rock feel, that hand-clap groove, big vocals. It was just a no-brainer. It was not only that it’s got to be on the album, it’s got to be the first single as well.”
“It’s a stadium anthem, and we were about to go into stadiums,” Elliott continues. “We didn’t write it for that reason, but Phil’s always trying to write the next ‘Sugar’ or ‘We Will Rock You’ Or ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.’ We all are, but he actually came up with one, and it’s like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to do that,’ so now it’s a 15-song record.”
The new album has Def Leppard even more excited about The Stadium Tour, which kicks off June 16 in Atlanta and wraps up Sept. 9 in Las Vegas, 36 dates in total. “Had we done that tour when we were supposed to (in 2020), we’d have been doing the tour with no new music,” Elliott explains. “Now we’re doing it with a new album to promote, which puts a totally different slant on it. I think the fact we’re going out there refreshed and energized by new music that we can incorporate into the show, which we wouldn’t have been able to do in 2020, is going to make a huge difference in the way we present ourselves.”
Collen also points out that during and because of the pandemic, “there’s a lot of bands, who we have lots of respect for, who have stopped touring, stopped performing — lost interest more than anything else. We’re the complete opposite. We’re rarin’ to go. Everything about it is gonna be bigger.”
The album and tour — along with an appearance in a new Netflix film The Bank of Dave later this year — also coincides with the 45th anniversary of Def Leppard’s formation in Sheffield, England, as well as the 35th anniversary of the Hysteria album. The latter will not be acknowledged in a particular way — “We made a pact we’re not going to indulge in anything Hysteria until it gets to 40,” Elliott says — but there’s an undeniable pride in turning 45, with a track record that includes worldwide sales of more than 110 million, two Diamond albums and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
“I don’t think we expected to get as far as 1983,” Elliott says. “When we formed in ’77, Led Zeppelin was still together, the Beatles were only seven years gone, the Stones were only 15 years old and The Who were maybe 13 years old or something like that. The only thing that had been around 20 years or so would’ve been a solo artist. So it’s just been a forward momentum thing, and then someone tells you it’s been 45 years and you’re like, ‘Oh? Really?!'”
Collen chimes in that, “We haven’t achieved what we set out to do, and it’s to be kind of what we’re doing now — an album like this, a tour like this, this frame of mind. All those things together…but we still want more.”
And Elliott is confident more will come. “Now that we’ve reached 45,” he says, “I don’t have any problems thinking, ‘Oh, OK, we might as well start planning for 50. And then 55. And then 60.’ Who knows! The world is our oyster, isn’t it?”
Source
"It was joyful to do" Joe Elliott tells Billboard
Nearly a year ago, around the time Def Leppard was releasing The Collection: Volume III box set, frontman Joe Elliott spoke about the band being “ahead of the game” in making a new album, working remotely and trading files for “a bunch of songs that one day will come to fruition, I’m sure.”
Turns out things were a little further along than he let on.
The fruits of Def Leppard’s latest labors will surface as Diamond Star Halos, the quintet’s 12th studio album — and first in seven years — set for release May 27 in front of its Stadium Tour with Mötley Crüe and special guests Poison and Joan Jett. The 15-song set, produced by the band and longtime engineer Ronan McHugh, takes its title from the lyrics of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” while the first single, “Kick,” nods unapologetically to that totem as well, with the rest of the album drawing from the band members’ early influences as well.
“It wasn’t planned that way; It’s just how it happened,” bassist and co-founder Rick Savage tells Billboard via Zoom from the Savoy Hotel in London, where he, Elliott and guitarist Phil Collen have gathered to talk about Diamond Star Halos. “We were all really influenced by an era that was somewhere between 1971 and 1974, where you were just learning and a sponge for all the stuff you were watching on Top of the Pops.
“And the way we’re presenting the songs, it’s not just the rock of that era. It’s the other people like Elton John and Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, even the Eagles. There’s flavors of that flooding all the way through the album.”
Diamond Star Halos is certainly diverse. There are plenty of big, proto-Def Leppard style arena anthems such as “Kick,” “Fire It Up” (co-written with Sam Hollander), “Take What You Want,” “Gimme a Kiss” and “U Rok Mi,” but the band also ventures into Americana territory, joined by Alison Krauss for “This Guitar,” which Elliott says has been around for 17 years, and “Lifeless.” Longtime David Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson adds a different flavor to the orchestrated “Angels (Can’t Help You Now)” and the dramatic “Goodbye For Good This Time,” while Def Leppard explores other moods and textures on tracks such as “Liquid Dust,” “Unbreakable,” “All We Need” and the twisting album closer “From Here to Eternity.”
“It was joyful to do,” says Elliott, sporting round shades as he sits between his bandmates. He credits the remote recording process with allowing the group to explore and experiment and pursue some different sonic directions than it has before. “As Sav says, at any one time there were possibly four songs getting worked on at once. And everybody was at home, so you didn’t have to work on it constantly or be sitting around waiting to do your bit if we were all in the studio together or something. You could get on with doing other stuff.
“So it was a leisurely way of recording, but we could concentrate wholly on the record when we were actually recording. What we learned was it’s not where your body is, it’s where your mind’s at. We were in three different countries, but we were all on the same page.”
Collen contends that, “I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. There was so much more energy by not having to go to a studio or a situation where you were waiting on anything. I’d finish something, send it to Joe in Ireland and he’d send it to Sav and…we’d just be back and forth, and when I’d wake up in the morning there’d be something new in my mailbox. It was constantly exciting. I don’t think we don’t want to go back to whatever that standard way was that we did before.”
Diamond Star Halos was finished “the better part of a year” ago, according to Elliott, but held back when it became evident The Stadium Tour, originally slated for the summer of 2020 and rescheduled for 2021, was going to be postponed yet again. “We didn’t want to drop the record and then not be able to promote it properly,” he says. At the time it was a 14-song set, and then Collen came up with “Kick” as an additional track — just like he did with the No. 2 Hot 100 hit “Pour Some Sugar on Me” for 1987’s Diamond certified Hysteria. “Phil rang me up and said, ‘I’ve got this other song…but we’re done,'” Elliott recalls. “And I’m like, ‘Well, it’s open-ended. There’s no delivery date. There’s no record deal yet. Send me an MP3.’ So he sent it to us, band-wide, and Sav was the first one to comment, ‘OMG — “Sugar,” anyone?'”
Collen adds that “‘Kick’ represented where we were at as well. It’s got that glam rock feel, that hand-clap groove, big vocals. It was just a no-brainer. It was not only that it’s got to be on the album, it’s got to be the first single as well.”
“It’s a stadium anthem, and we were about to go into stadiums,” Elliott continues. “We didn’t write it for that reason, but Phil’s always trying to write the next ‘Sugar’ or ‘We Will Rock You’ Or ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.’ We all are, but he actually came up with one, and it’s like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to do that,’ so now it’s a 15-song record.”
The new album has Def Leppard even more excited about The Stadium Tour, which kicks off June 16 in Atlanta and wraps up Sept. 9 in Las Vegas, 36 dates in total. “Had we done that tour when we were supposed to (in 2020), we’d have been doing the tour with no new music,” Elliott explains. “Now we’re doing it with a new album to promote, which puts a totally different slant on it. I think the fact we’re going out there refreshed and energized by new music that we can incorporate into the show, which we wouldn’t have been able to do in 2020, is going to make a huge difference in the way we present ourselves.”
Collen also points out that during and because of the pandemic, “there’s a lot of bands, who we have lots of respect for, who have stopped touring, stopped performing — lost interest more than anything else. We’re the complete opposite. We’re rarin’ to go. Everything about it is gonna be bigger.”
The album and tour — along with an appearance in a new Netflix film The Bank of Dave later this year — also coincides with the 45th anniversary of Def Leppard’s formation in Sheffield, England, as well as the 35th anniversary of the Hysteria album. The latter will not be acknowledged in a particular way — “We made a pact we’re not going to indulge in anything Hysteria until it gets to 40,” Elliott says — but there’s an undeniable pride in turning 45, with a track record that includes worldwide sales of more than 110 million, two Diamond albums and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
“I don’t think we expected to get as far as 1983,” Elliott says. “When we formed in ’77, Led Zeppelin was still together, the Beatles were only seven years gone, the Stones were only 15 years old and The Who were maybe 13 years old or something like that. The only thing that had been around 20 years or so would’ve been a solo artist. So it’s just been a forward momentum thing, and then someone tells you it’s been 45 years and you’re like, ‘Oh? Really?!'”
Collen chimes in that, “We haven’t achieved what we set out to do, and it’s to be kind of what we’re doing now — an album like this, a tour like this, this frame of mind. All those things together…but we still want more.”
And Elliott is confident more will come. “Now that we’ve reached 45,” he says, “I don’t have any problems thinking, ‘Oh, OK, we might as well start planning for 50. And then 55. And then 60.’ Who knows! The world is our oyster, isn’t it?”
Source
