Def Leppard's Joe Elliott shares process of new album: 'Laptops have become Abbey Road'
Even nearly 50 years into their career, Def Leppard still has something to say.
The band recently announced Def Leppard: Live at Caesars Palace The Las Vegas Residency, and will play a dozen shows in February at The Colosseum.
But in the midst of planning that hits-filled spectacle, the quintet of singer Joe Elliott, drummer Rick Allen, bassist Rick Savage and guitarists Vivian Campbell and Phil Collen are also tinkering with a new album for release next year.
It will be the band’s first new material since 2022’s “Diamond Star Halos,” which paid tribute to the glam rock that inspired Def Leppard’s sound and returned them to the charts with the soaring rocker, “Kick.” That album marked first time the fivesome recorded remotely from around the world, primarily because of the pandemic-era timing. But the arrangement worked so well that they returned to an individual recording format.
“We’re blessed that technology has allowed us to do this,” Elliott tells Paste BN. “We get together metaphorically rather than physically and do Zoom meetings all the time. This way five people can work on the same song at the same time and it adds excitement to the flavors of what you’re doing. Laptops have become Abbey Road.”
Elliott said Def Leppard already has “plenty of stuff” ready to go, with the next steps finalizing which tracks make the final cut and determining the title and running order of songs.
The new album is the 13th of the band’s career, which began with 1980’s “On Through the Night.”
Elliott is proud that this current incarnation of Def Leppard has been solid for 33 years (he and Savage are the longest tenured at 48 years, while Campbell joined a year after the 1991 death of Steve Clark).
“That’s a remarkable feat in itself,” Elliott says. “Back in 1977, if someone said, you’re going to be together 50 years, we’d look at them like they had two heads.”
Def Leppard is now on tour with dates through August and a couple of shows in September and October before they break to prepare for their residency. Now, Elliott says, the goal is simple: “Health allowing, we’ll keep going until we feel we can’t anymore.”