In a new interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station, Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen spoke about the band’s collaboration with Robert John “Mutt” Lange, considered by some to be one of the greatest music producers of all time. Lange‘s big break came with the success of his work with AC/DC, specifically on the 1979 album Highway To Hell and the 1980 classic Back In Black, before he started his relationship with Def Leppard on 1981’s High ‘N’ Dry, and continued working with the latter band on 1983’s Pyromania and 1987’s Hysteria. He also helped executive produce Adrenalize for Def Leppard in 1992.
Asked how responsible Lange was for the band’s success in the 1980s, Collen replied (as transcribed by blabbermouth.net), “Probably about 99%. [he taught us] everything. He taught us how to sing, he taught us how to play guitar. He sings on every song we’ve ever done [with him]. He does backing vocals. He’s got the best singing voice out of all of us put together. And he sings on everything he does. I mean, I even hear him on, ‘I’m on a highway to hell.’ His backing vocals are on that, and all the Bryan Adams stuff, Shania Twain stuff. Obviously, all of our stuff. And, yeah, you hear him on Foreigner, I think on The Cars. He’s just got a great voice. It’s just amazing.”
After Meltdown noted that some record producers tend to be very hands off in the studio, unlike Lange, Collen said, “[Mutt did] everything. He’s the best producer in the world, [and a] songwriter as well. You’d come to him and you go, ‘I’ve got this chorus.’ He’d go, ‘Okay, well, that’s not strong enough for a chorus. We could use that for a middle eight or a bridge or something like that, but, yeah, we need a stronger chorus.’ And he’d come and he’d write with us as well. So that was a great thing.”
Reflecting on the songwriting and recording sessions for what became Hysteria, Collen recounts, “We’d got 11 songs, and [Mutt] heard [singer] Joe [Elliott] play an acoustic, and he goes, he’s, like, ‘What’s that?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know.’ He’s going, ‘Pour some sugar on me,’ and it’s, like, ‘Whoa, stop.’ So we, we went in, took about 10 days to do that song. We stopped everything, and Mutt just kind of orchestrated the whole thing. So he was very active in everything we did. And most of the bands that he worked with, he did that kind of thing with everyone.
“Mutt does everything,” the guitarist repeated. “Everything. And he’ll play stuff. He’ll play something on a guitar. He’ll go, ‘Well, play this.’ And you hand him the guitar and it’s, like, ‘I can’t play that.’ It’d be insane. Or at singing. ‘So sing this.’ He’d be, like, ‘Hey, hey, hey, hey.’ And whatever, and you’re, like, ‘Really?’ And he does it just, like, one take. It’s amazing.”