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Post by bucketfinck on Mar 18, 2022 4:23:24 GMT -8
I would love to see the track lengths and dont have access to Apple music
I hope for at least a couple tracks breaking the 5 min. mark and that its not a collection of 3-minute songs
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Post by bucketfinck on Mar 18, 2022 4:51:50 GMT -8
Thanks!  I guess its OK, the longest track being the last one - I loved Blind Faith from the last album. I would have loved them to make a song or two past the 6-7 minute mark, but lets hope for some quality music either way.. |
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Post by seaoflove on Mar 18, 2022 5:09:03 GMT -8
Thanks for the info cmerritt! As another member said, would've loved a few over 5 minutes (or longer) but I'm very happy to see so many in the 4 minute range and NONE under 3 minutes!
Also for the curious, this comes to a total of 1 hour, 1 minute, and 27 seconds for the album length.
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Post by diva on Mar 18, 2022 5:13:09 GMT -8
Joe Elliott on Def Leppard's 'Diamond Star Halos' album & working with Alison Krauss
He exclusively chats to Planet RockNo songs written by Viv? I don't understand that.  To celebrate the launch of Def Leppard’s rip-roaring new song ‘Kick’ and their upcoming 12th studio album ‘Diamond Star Halos’, our very own Joe Elliott joined Redick for a chat on Planet Rock this afternoon (17th March). Released on Friday 27th May 2022, ‘Diamond Star Halos’ is Def Leppard’s first new record in seven years, and it boasts 15 all-new songs including two collaborations with Alison Krauss and David Bowie pianist Mike Garson respectively. Joe gave us the exclusive backstory of how Def Leppard recorded ‘Diamond Star Halos’ and why working remotely in three different countries resulted in such a “diverse” and satisfying record. He explained that after wrapping up their touring commitments in late 2019, Def Leppard set about planning their next studio album. “We kind of made a tentative plan to get together in the new year to just see what we had; make some sounds, just have a bit of a laugh, see what kind of tunes that we get in our heads and see if we could bang something out,” Joe told . “We made a plan to get together in March 2020 and all the flights are booked and all that kind of palaver and all of a sudden, lock down and they literally couldn't come. So, there we were left at the altar, the bride left at the altar. We were really chomping at the bit to see what we had, to get some stuff going.” Undeterred, Def Leppard decided to carry on with work on the album, as Joe says: “Within about 40 minutes of a really, really kind of constructive and positive phone call with Phil (Collen), we decided to have a go at making the album completely remotely. “It's been done in the past in bits and bobs. We've done it many times with the odd little instrument. Previous albums we may have (said) ‘oops, we forgot to do a backing vocal on this section’ or Phil wanted to change his solo or Viv wanted to change his solo. It's no problem. He does it at home and literally just sends it over the internet and it gets dropped into to the files and it all works perfectly. It's just like a kind of a digital jigsaw puzzle really. “Having had experience of doing it and having no alternatives, we decided we would see what we could do by doing everything remotely. And when I say remotely, I mean old fashioned remotely! We didn't even use Zoom. We made phone calls and we used emails to send MP3s to each other. We didn't literally see each other for two-and-a-quarter-years but we were on the phone every day. In fact, I probably conversed with everyone in the band more often because of lockdown than I would have done if we weren't in lockdown, because it kind of pushes you into that scenario.” Joe continued: “We worked out what we had, and I'd written three songs, Phil had written two, and we’d co-written two and little did we know until he joined in the conversation, Sav (Rick Savage) had two things percolating, so we had nine songs on the go. And we thought, ‘well, let's just do them all and sort them out later on.’ So, it took all the blinkers off. We didn't go ‘ah, I’m not sure about that one it might not work.’ We just said ‘we'll make it work’ which is why the album is so diverse. It's got so many different flavours because we just didn't say no to any ideas and it was a revelation and, I'll be honest with you, having made an album like this now, I don't think we'll ever make a traditional record ever again because this was so much more fun to do. “When you think about it when a band go to a studio - they all come to my house - they don’t live there, they live there for a month or two. When they're not working, they're sitting around in my house. Making an album this way, they're sitting around in their’s so when they're not working, they're with their family, they're doing their own thing, which is much more pleasant to be quite honest. It's great having the guys at my place, I love having them over there, but it was much more beneficial for the whole band for everybody to be at home. We're all trying to be as safe as we can and the best way to do it was just not to travel - we weren't even allowed to travel. “The ideas kept flowing and I think because of this situation, we were all a bit giddy, ‘isn’t this great?! Look at this, we’ve got nine songs!’ In 40 minutes, we've already decided we got seven (songs) and a day later we have nine and throughout the project me and Phil wrote five more and that gave us 14 and then we thought the album was finished.” Joe went on to say that lead single ‘Kick’ actually surfaced once the album was wrapped up: “All of a sudden everybody goes back to just doing what they do when you've got an album finished. And then Phil phoned me up and he says ‘I've just written this other song.’ “Normally we’d be like, ‘Oh God really?!’ I said ‘okay, let's hear it’ and it was ‘Kick’. It was Sav that actually said, ‘Hello, Sugar anyone?!’ What he meant by that was he wasn't comparing the song to (‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’). He was comparing the situation and the scenario right at the end of the 11-track album that was to be ‘Hysteria’, all of a sudden we came up with ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ which arguably became the most important song on the album, if not our entire career really. “This was the same kind of thing - we all heard it and went ‘we've got to do it.’ The beautiful thing was we had all the time in the world because we were still in lockdown.” Reflecting upon the Alison Krauss collaborations ‘This Guitar’ and ‘Lifeless’, Joe said: “That was us broadening our horizons. We've known Allison for a long time. Way back in '96 when we released the ‘Slang album’, the now sadly gone Q Magazine had Alison as the interviewer for me for the ‘Slang’ album. She actually interviewed me for the magazine. “She's always been a big fan (of Def Leppard). A lot of our harmonies lean towards country, not a known fact but it's true. Mutt Lange is a huge country fan and he'd maybe just suggest ‘change the melody on that one word to the major or the minor’ and he changes it to a country harmony, which is not necessarily an obvious thing. Country people would accidentally hear a Def Leppard song over the years and go, ‘Hey, hang on a minute. That's a country harmony!’ And those people turned out to be fans of ours – people like Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and specifically Alison Krauss. “It was just by coincidence that my account manager was talking to her manager and just said, ‘Hey, you know, the boys are making a new record.’ And I'd been texting back and forth with Robert Plant regarding something, I think Wolves had beaten us (Sheffield United) in the cup, and he just happened to mention ‘what are you up to?’ I said, ‘we're actually recording’ and he said, ‘You do know Allison is like your biggest fan. She's gonna be over the moon!’ “It just percolated and so we got in touch and asked her if she'd be interested in singing on one of two songs that we thought were appropriate for her. We sent them both and she texted me back after about 40 minutes and said, ‘Oh, my God, I can't pick one. I love them both!’ So I just said, ‘Okay, well then doing both please.’ And she did. So that's how she got involved.” Joe added: “We also have on two tracks that I wrote Mike Garson, keyboard player for David Bowie since the ‘Aladdin Sane’ album. I've worked with Mike over the last three or four years on a lot of David Bowie tribute shows - some of them live and some of them remotely. “I've got a really good relationship with Mike and my piano playing is rather rudimentary. I wrote these two songs on the piano and then we decided like David Bowie did back in 71, he wrote ‘Life on Mars’ but he was sensible enough to have Rick Wakeman play it. “I said to Phil, ‘Listen, what do you think? I know it's a bit avant-garde jazz but how about Mike?’ Phil was like all over it because one of his favourite albums of all time is ‘Aladdin Sane’ along with myself. So, we talked the other guys into like, ‘what do you think about Mike? and they went well, ‘okay, why not give it a go?’ I rang Mike and said, ‘will you do me the honour of playing on a couple of Def Leppard songs?’ and he was all over it. He did a fantastic job. “You think about this logically - what could possibly go wrong with an avant-garde jazz pianist playing on a Def Leppard song? But trust me when you hear it, it works! It really works!” Source I enjoy Viv’s songs. His lyrics are good, the song topics are interesting like Bad Actress and Cruise Control. I’m hoping Joe just forgot to mention him. |
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Post by cmerritt on Mar 18, 2022 5:21:34 GMT -8
Thanks! I guess its OK, the longest track being the last one - I loved Blind Faith from the last album. I would have loved them to make a song or two past the 6-7 minute mark, but lets hope for some quality music either way.. With only a handful of songs like Gods of war, White lightning, overture and pearl of Euphoria (that I can remember) that break the 6-7 minute mark I can’t ever say I’m surprised to not see tracks at this length, |
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Post by tsmith on Mar 18, 2022 5:23:06 GMT -8
Agree! I have a bit of a pet peeve with songs too that are under 3 minutes. I always seem to approach those songs with skepticism right off the bat. I just feel like it's tough to do a proper, complete song in under 3 minutes. And I did feel that way about Battle of My Own and Forever Young off the last album. Both were under 3 minutes and both felt a bit incomplete and like they were missing something to me. Forever Young especially felt like more of an incomplete demo to me that could've been a much better song with more work and another verse or something. I'm on the flip side though with longer songs and often seem to struggle if songs get too long. I feel like about 5:00-5:30 is my max attention span in many cases before it starts to feel like a song is dragging on. Yeah, there have been exceptions but those songs really, really need to be done well to hold my attention like Rocket for example  Anyways, track lengths look great to me and nice to see it looks like all the tunes have a bit of meat on the bone so to speak Thanks for the info cmerritt! As another member said, would've loved a few over 5 minutes (or longer) but I'm very happy to see so many in the 4 minute range and NONE under 3 minutes! Also for the curious, this comes to a total of 1 hour, 1 minute, and 27 seconds for the album length. |
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Post by CindyJ on Mar 18, 2022 6:30:23 GMT -8
Another option for the Japanese release with two bonus tracks. It comes with an A4 size poster of the album artwork. Purchase here on Tower Records In case there is confusion about which version this is (tracklisting is also at bottom of Tower Records page) ....  |
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Post by kestrel72 on Mar 18, 2022 6:38:32 GMT -8
Just to confirm with anyone, if I order the Deluxe from CD Japan, does that contain the stripped version of ANGELS and the MY GUITAR Joe version? I can’t find confirmation anywhere on the listing. I also ordered the Target CD Deluxe and just assuming this one has the LIFELESS Joe version and the Avant Garde mix of GFGTT. Frustrating this is not more clearly called out on either listing. Thanks in advance! I think you've ordered two of the same one. You'll still get a cool OBI strip and probably an English lyric sheet with the Japanese releases. That why I'm likely going to skip the Target release unless it's got something different. Kestrel |
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Post by kestrel72 on Mar 18, 2022 6:40:59 GMT -8
88 BUCKS?? No thanks - I'll take my chances on eBay. Kestrel |
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Post by pete on Mar 18, 2022 6:42:57 GMT -8
Cancelled the Amazon Vinyl and ordered the deluxe CD form Amazon & the Red/Yellow vinyl from HMV. May ask for the regular vinyl at Christmas!  |
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Post by kestrel72 on Mar 18, 2022 6:44:39 GMT -8
Spent a small fortune last night. 4 versions on vinyl (picture disc, clear, coloured and standard) 2 versions on cd (normal and deluxe) cassette I still need to order a Japanese version with the different bonus tracks if anyone has a good link to use for that I'd appreciate it? Frankly I need to have the Joe only versions of the duets too. If this album doesn't get to number one then I would be amazed, because its tapping in to the ages of most of its fanbase and the more disposable income that this age group usually has. Same here, except I went for the Japanese versions and haven't orders any other CD formats. I always get the Japanese CD's first because they seem to be the hardest to find. There's another colored-vinyl version that's UK-only that I haven't ordered yet either. AND it seems I missed out on the signed lithograph  Kestrel |
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Post by andylgr on Mar 18, 2022 6:52:24 GMT -8
Spent a small fortune last night. 4 versions on vinyl (picture disc, clear, coloured and standard) 2 versions on cd (normal and deluxe) cassette I still need to order a Japanese version with the different bonus tracks if anyone has a good link to use for that I'd appreciate it? Frankly I need to have the Joe only versions of the duets too. If this album doesn't get to number one then I would be amazed, because its tapping in to the ages of most of its fanbase and the more disposable income that this age group usually has. Same here, except I went for the Japanese versions and haven't orders any other CD formats. I always get the Japanese CD's first because they seem to be the hardest to find. There's another colored-vinyl version that's UK-only that I haven't ordered yet either. AND it seems I missed out on the signed lithograph Kestrel I think that coloured vinyl is the same in quite a few territories. Did you order all the vinyl and cds from Japan or just the cds? |
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Post by timzy on Mar 18, 2022 7:15:52 GMT -8
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Post by cmerritt on Mar 18, 2022 8:13:21 GMT -8
Cancelled the Amazon Vinyl and ordered the deluxe CD form Amazon & the Red/Yellow vinyl from HMV. May ask for the regular vinyl at Christmas!  Same here, i had originally pre ordered the regular vinyl from Amazon in the morning of yesterday before the bundles went live. |
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Post by rockerduck on Mar 18, 2022 9:33:00 GMT -8
Hope there are at least 2 epic songs like Paper Sun / Billy's got a gun  |
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Post by kestrel72 on Mar 18, 2022 9:33:19 GMT -8
Same here, except I went for the Japanese versions and haven't orders any other CD formats. I always get the Japanese CD's first because they seem to be the hardest to find. There's another colored-vinyl version that's UK-only that I haven't ordered yet either. AND it seems I missed out on the signed lithograph Kestrel I think that coloured vinyl is the same in quite a few territories. Did you order all the vinyl and cds from Japan or just the cds? Just the CD's. Is there Japanese VINYL too?? Kestrel |
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Post by andylgr on Mar 18, 2022 9:46:18 GMT -8
I think that coloured vinyl is the same in quite a few territories. Did you order all the vinyl and cds from Japan or just the cds? Just the CD's. Is there Japanese VINYL too?? Kestrel I wasn’t sure actually. |
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Post by CindyJ on Mar 18, 2022 10:03:52 GMT -8
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Post by leopardnk on Mar 18, 2022 10:15:05 GMT -8
Spent a small fortune last night. 4 versions on vinyl (picture disc, clear, coloured and standard) 2 versions on cd (normal and deluxe) cassette I still need to order a Japanese version with the different bonus tracks if anyone has a good link to use for that I'd appreciate it? Frankly I need to have the Joe only versions of the duets too. If this album doesn't get to number one then I would be amazed, because its tapping in to the ages of most of its fanbase and the more disposable income that this age group usually has. Is the coloured vinyl available only at HMV? They don't ship outside UK unfortunately… any other online shop selling it in Europe? Or just wait for Discogs 🙄… Eccolo! www.emp-online.it/p/diamond-star-halos/531326.html |
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Post by thebspolice on Mar 18, 2022 10:18:35 GMT -8
Joe Elliott on Def Leppard's 'Diamond Star Halos' album & working with Alison Krauss
He exclusively chats to Planet RockNo songs written by Viv? I don't understand that. To celebrate the launch of Def Leppard’s rip-roaring new song ‘Kick’ and their upcoming 12th studio album ‘Diamond Star Halos’, our very own Joe Elliott joined Redick for a chat on Planet Rock this afternoon (17th March). Released on Friday 27th May 2022, ‘Diamond Star Halos’ is Def Leppard’s first new record in seven years, and it boasts 15 all-new songs including two collaborations with Alison Krauss and David Bowie pianist Mike Garson respectively. Joe gave us the exclusive backstory of how Def Leppard recorded ‘Diamond Star Halos’ and why working remotely in three different countries resulted in such a “diverse” and satisfying record. He explained that after wrapping up their touring commitments in late 2019, Def Leppard set about planning their next studio album. “We kind of made a tentative plan to get together in the new year to just see what we had; make some sounds, just have a bit of a laugh, see what kind of tunes that we get in our heads and see if we could bang something out,” Joe told . “We made a plan to get together in March 2020 and all the flights are booked and all that kind of palaver and all of a sudden, lock down and they literally couldn't come. So, there we were left at the altar, the bride left at the altar. We were really chomping at the bit to see what we had, to get some stuff going.” Undeterred, Def Leppard decided to carry on with work on the album, as Joe says: “Within about 40 minutes of a really, really kind of constructive and positive phone call with Phil (Collen), we decided to have a go at making the album completely remotely. “It's been done in the past in bits and bobs. We've done it many times with the odd little instrument. Previous albums we may have (said) ‘oops, we forgot to do a backing vocal on this section’ or Phil wanted to change his solo or Viv wanted to change his solo. It's no problem. He does it at home and literally just sends it over the internet and it gets dropped into to the files and it all works perfectly. It's just like a kind of a digital jigsaw puzzle really. “Having had experience of doing it and having no alternatives, we decided we would see what we could do by doing everything remotely. And when I say remotely, I mean old fashioned remotely! We didn't even use Zoom. We made phone calls and we used emails to send MP3s to each other. We didn't literally see each other for two-and-a-quarter-years but we were on the phone every day. In fact, I probably conversed with everyone in the band more often because of lockdown than I would have done if we weren't in lockdown, because it kind of pushes you into that scenario.” Joe continued: “We worked out what we had, and I'd written three songs, Phil had written two, and we’d co-written two and little did we know until he joined in the conversation, Sav (Rick Savage) had two things percolating, so we had nine songs on the go. And we thought, ‘well, let's just do them all and sort them out later on.’ So, it took all the blinkers off. We didn't go ‘ah, I’m not sure about that one it might not work.’ We just said ‘we'll make it work’ which is why the album is so diverse. It's got so many different flavours because we just didn't say no to any ideas and it was a revelation and, I'll be honest with you, having made an album like this now, I don't think we'll ever make a traditional record ever again because this was so much more fun to do. “When you think about it when a band go to a studio - they all come to my house - they don’t live there, they live there for a month or two. When they're not working, they're sitting around in my house. Making an album this way, they're sitting around in their’s so when they're not working, they're with their family, they're doing their own thing, which is much more pleasant to be quite honest. It's great having the guys at my place, I love having them over there, but it was much more beneficial for the whole band for everybody to be at home. We're all trying to be as safe as we can and the best way to do it was just not to travel - we weren't even allowed to travel. “The ideas kept flowing and I think because of this situation, we were all a bit giddy, ‘isn’t this great?! Look at this, we’ve got nine songs!’ In 40 minutes, we've already decided we got seven (songs) and a day later we have nine and throughout the project me and Phil wrote five more and that gave us 14 and then we thought the album was finished.” Joe went on to say that lead single ‘Kick’ actually surfaced once the album was wrapped up: “All of a sudden everybody goes back to just doing what they do when you've got an album finished. And then Phil phoned me up and he says ‘I've just written this other song.’ “Normally we’d be like, ‘Oh God really?!’ I said ‘okay, let's hear it’ and it was ‘Kick’. It was Sav that actually said, ‘Hello, Sugar anyone?!’ What he meant by that was he wasn't comparing the song to (‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’). He was comparing the situation and the scenario right at the end of the 11-track album that was to be ‘Hysteria’, all of a sudden we came up with ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’ which arguably became the most important song on the album, if not our entire career really. “This was the same kind of thing - we all heard it and went ‘we've got to do it.’ The beautiful thing was we had all the time in the world because we were still in lockdown.” Reflecting upon the Alison Krauss collaborations ‘This Guitar’ and ‘Lifeless’, Joe said: “That was us broadening our horizons. We've known Allison for a long time. Way back in '96 when we released the ‘Slang album’, the now sadly gone Q Magazine had Alison as the interviewer for me for the ‘Slang’ album. She actually interviewed me for the magazine. “She's always been a big fan (of Def Leppard). A lot of our harmonies lean towards country, not a known fact but it's true. Mutt Lange is a huge country fan and he'd maybe just suggest ‘change the melody on that one word to the major or the minor’ and he changes it to a country harmony, which is not necessarily an obvious thing. Country people would accidentally hear a Def Leppard song over the years and go, ‘Hey, hang on a minute. That's a country harmony!’ And those people turned out to be fans of ours – people like Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, Keith Urban and specifically Alison Krauss. “It was just by coincidence that my account manager was talking to her manager and just said, ‘Hey, you know, the boys are making a new record.’ And I'd been texting back and forth with Robert Plant regarding something, I think Wolves had beaten us (Sheffield United) in the cup, and he just happened to mention ‘what are you up to?’ I said, ‘we're actually recording’ and he said, ‘You do know Allison is like your biggest fan. She's gonna be over the moon!’ “It just percolated and so we got in touch and asked her if she'd be interested in singing on one of two songs that we thought were appropriate for her. We sent them both and she texted me back after about 40 minutes and said, ‘Oh, my God, I can't pick one. I love them both!’ So I just said, ‘Okay, well then doing both please.’ And she did. So that's how she got involved.” Joe added: “We also have on two tracks that I wrote Mike Garson, keyboard player for David Bowie since the ‘Aladdin Sane’ album. I've worked with Mike over the last three or four years on a lot of David Bowie tribute shows - some of them live and some of them remotely. “I've got a really good relationship with Mike and my piano playing is rather rudimentary. I wrote these two songs on the piano and then we decided like David Bowie did back in 71, he wrote ‘Life on Mars’ but he was sensible enough to have Rick Wakeman play it. “I said to Phil, ‘Listen, what do you think? I know it's a bit avant-garde jazz but how about Mike?’ Phil was like all over it because one of his favourite albums of all time is ‘Aladdin Sane’ along with myself. So, we talked the other guys into like, ‘what do you think about Mike? and they went well, ‘okay, why not give it a go?’ I rang Mike and said, ‘will you do me the honour of playing on a couple of Def Leppard songs?’ and he was all over it. He did a fantastic job. “You think about this logically - what could possibly go wrong with an avant-garde jazz pianist playing on a Def Leppard song? But trust me when you hear it, it works! It really works!” Source I don't see any writing credits listed yet. Viv no doubt contributed writing wise. |
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Post by Armageddonit on Mar 18, 2022 10:41:36 GMT -8
Thanks for the song length info, Seaoflove! Why don't we try to fill in with song writers and more feat. too? 1. Take What You Want - 4:14 2. Kick [feat. Dave Bassett and Debbi Blackwell-Cook] - 3:42 (Dave Bassett, Phil Collen) 3. Fire It Up - 3:19 4. This Guitar [feat. Alison Krauss] - 3:50 (Phil Collen, ??) 5. SOS Emergency - 3:25 6. Liquid Dust - 4:01 7. U Rok Mi - 3:33 8. Goodbye For Good This Time [feat. Mike Garson]- 4:27 (Joe Elliott, ??) 9. All We Need - 4:46 10. Open Your Eyes - 4:19 11. Gimme A Kiss - 3:12 12. Angels (Can’t Help You Now) [feat. Mike Garson] - 4:57 (Joe Elliott, ??) 13. Lifeless [feat. Alison Krauss] - 4:19 (Phil Collen, Joe Elliott) 14. Unbreakable - 3:46 15. From Here To Eternity - 5:37 Total = 1:01:27 I'm disappointed to hear of Vivs lack of involvement again. |
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Post by andylgr on Mar 18, 2022 11:12:38 GMT -8
I'm disappointed to hear of Vivs lack of involvement again. Have you seen the writing credits? |
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Post by Armageddonit on Mar 18, 2022 11:40:32 GMT -8
I'm disappointed to hear of Vivs lack of involvement again. Have you seen the writing credits? I haven't. Nothing I've seen yet mentioned Viv in the writing yet. I hope that I'm wrong! |
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deef
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Post by deef on Mar 18, 2022 16:05:31 GMT -8
Somewhat related, but are there more new photos of the band, other than the 2 pics of them in suits? I love seeing promo shots of them as time goes on! Plus, Joe rocks that white hair…but I can’t tell if it’s natural?
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Post by CindyJ on Mar 18, 2022 18:04:21 GMT -8
Def Leppard Talks Upcoming Album ‘Diamond Star Halos,’ Preview New Song “Kick”
BY TINA BENITEZ-EVESIn advance of their 36-city stadium tour with Mötley Crüe and guests Poison and Joan Jett, Def Leppard is releasing their 12th album Diamond Star Halos on May 27. The band’s first album since Def Leppard in 2015, Diamond Star Halos, a nod to the 1971 T. Rex hit “Bang a Gong (Get It On),” is a collection of 15 songs roused by the glam-rocked era of Bowie and Mott the Hoople, T.Rex, and Roxy Music that has continually resurfaced in the band’s music throughout their 40-year career. “We actually use that to reference an era when we got introduced, sucked in by David Bowie, Marc Bolan and T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, and all of these bands and artists,” guitarist Phil Collen tells American Songwriter of the album title. “We kind of celebrated it in a way and there was no real agenda. We didn’t really know we were doing an album. We were just writing songs so it naturally went along, and before we knew it we were paying tribute and homage to our heroes.” Throughout, Leppard melds the past and present, featuring Bowie pianist Mike Garson on tracks “Angels (Can’t Help You Now)” and “Goodbye For Good This Time,” and offers up more classic Leppard on “Fire It Up,” which was co-written with Sam Hollander, “Take What You Want,” and the thrusting “Kick.” They even dip into country and Americana with “Lifeless” and the nostalgic ballad “This Guitar,” both featuring Alison Krauss. Initially set to write and recorded at singer Joe Elliot’s home studio in Ireland on March 22, 2020, when travel shut down around the pandemic, the band decided to compose everything remotely with Savage in England, and guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, and drummer Rick Allen in the U.S., a first for the band in their four decades together. “We were writing for ourselves,” says Elliot. “Phil was writing with other people in California just for fun, and I was writing on the piano just for fun, and when the lockdown kicked in, we were planning on a month in the studio because we were still on tour as far as we were concerned, in June of that year, so we just kept working, and we figured out how to do it remotely.” Elliot says the band has dabbled in working remotely in the past but the urgency of the new structure this time turned into a brand-new format for the band. “It turns out that we preferred it much more than the traditional way of working,” shares Elliot. “So it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever go back to the traditional way of working again.” No boundaries and blueprints, which the band have typically followed in the past, while writing and recording, this time around everyone wrote as songs came to them. “Because of that, I think the album is way more diverse, it’s way deeper,” says Collen. “There’s, there’s more on it than a lot of our previous records, in terms of depth, in terms of instrumentation, in the way we experimented with different sounds, and how we actually projected the songs themselves.” He adds, “That was mainly because we had the opportunity to do that. When you record it on your own, there are no time constraints. You weren’t holding anybody else up that wanted to get into the studio chair to record their bits. You just did it on your own, in your own time, and sometimes you allowed yourself the freedom to go down some like blind alleys.” Devoid of any social or political elements, Diamond Star Halos is Leppard’s ode to music with no agenda, no statement. “We’ve always tried to make music that cheers people up,” said Joe Elliot in an earlier statement. “We want to pull you out of politics, what’s going on in the world, and anything you’re dealing with. That was a really important statement for ‘Diamond Star Halos.’ We didn’t write about everything going on right now. We just wanted to make a classic album. End of story.” Source
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seb00
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Post by seb00 on Mar 18, 2022 23:51:07 GMT -8
Have you seen the writing credits? I haven't. Nothing I've seen yet mentioned Viv in the writing yet. I hope that I'm wrong! It would be a shame if he doesn’t have any credits or songs that were initially his idea. He has said in interviews over the years that he has found it hard to contribute because he likes to present a finished song to the band. But I feel better these days knowing that he has his creative outlet with Last In Line and maybe that gives him a happy balance with his work. |
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Post by lepp703 on Mar 19, 2022 8:51:09 GMT -8
I have one question. If they made this album last year, then why do we have to wait another 2 months to get it?
I would’ve much rather have not known about it until the week before.
I have no patience for patience.
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Post by andylgr on Mar 19, 2022 9:07:31 GMT -8
I have one question. If they made this album last year, then why do we have to wait another 2 months to get it? I would’ve much rather have not known about it until the week before. I have no patience for patience. Probably because once they got it finished they have to go into production with it. At the moment it’s around 12 months for vinyl to come out of the pressing plants. Plus you can factor in the timing of it too, which is just before the stadium tour which is perfect too. |
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Post by fna692002 on Mar 19, 2022 9:27:06 GMT -8
I have one question. If they made this album last year, then why do we have to wait another 2 months to get it? I would’ve much rather have not known about it until the week before. I have no patience for patience. I’m sure there are going to be at least one more or two tracks released prior to it dropping. I’d expect Fire It Up probably and maybe one of the AK songs as that would drum up interest for sure. |
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Post by CindyJ on Mar 19, 2022 10:26:24 GMT -8
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