Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott recently spoke with the Associated Press. Fox 411 posted highlights from the interview and they appear below.
AP: Is Jethro Tull’s song Too Old to Rock and Roll: Too Young to Die! still relevant?
Elliott: He was probably just in his late 20s when he wrote it. Now (Jethro Tull frontman) Ian Anderson is in his 60s and still making great music. … Age doesn’t matter anymore. That’s the one thing that’s become a pattern over the last seven or eight years, with (Paul) McCartney still out there and the (Rolling) Stones still out there, and even Aerosmith and AC/DC getting up there. Billy Joel, Elton John. These are people that have been around since the ’60s and they’re still selling stadiums out. There’s nobody else that seems to be coming through to take over. They’re not stepping aside, they’re fighting. They’re fighting us, and we’re fighting the generation below us.
AP: Why do you keep going back out on the road?
Elliott: My generation grew up watching bands live. Yeah, we loved albums, but we never thought about how they were made. They just appeared. And you’d see the tours being announced. … I think that’s what attracted me to it. Seeing those people onstage and how us down on the floor were looking and cheering and going crazy, thinking this is pretty cool. I’d like some of that. I think that it’s the attraction of playing in front of people and creating music so you can go out and do that is what keeps us going.
AP: Did you have any idea that you would remain relevant for so long?
Elliott: No, not at all. When we first got together in ’77, ’78, there was no such thing as a band that had been around for 35 years.
AP: How did the new album come about?
Elliott: We got together in February 2014 for a month with the full intention of … just recording a couple of songs, maybe putting out an EP. By the end of February, we got 12 songs written, so we (were) like ‘Oh, ahh, I think we’ve got an album here’ by accident rather than design.
AP: Will you play anything from the new album on this tour?
Elliott: We won’t be playing any new songs because they just end up on YouTube in a really bad version filmed on somebody’s iPhone. We’ll play them when the album comes out and not just let them drift out into the ether.
AP: Has there been a shift in the so-called “rock star” lifestyle?
Elliott: We weren’t monks in the 1980s, but we weren’t as bad as everybody made out. We aren’t as boring as people might think, but we’re not exactly Motley Crue. … When we were doing ‘Pyromania’ and ‘Hysteria,’ we were all single and we didn’t have kids. Now we’re all married with children, so life has changed. Music is very important, but family is more important. Let’s be honest, we have to juggle both. It’s a case of getting everybody onboard.
In addition to a new album, Def Leppard have announced a summer tour with Tesla and Styx. Tour dates can be found here. Also, the band announced that they will be hosting a Caribbean cruise in 2016 called, Hysteria On The High Seas. More information about this event can be found here.
additional source: foxnews.com/entertainment
17 Responses
I agree that there are a lot of great new Rock/Metal bands out there right now. I’m in my mid 40’s and but I try to keep current with what’s new. But it’s a different time now and it is a lot harder to be as big as the Rock bands from the ’80’s. But bands like Falling in Reverse, Black Veil Brides, Volbeat, Halestorm, Pretty Reckless, and others all are carrying the Torch of Rock And Roll and keeping it alive.