DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen was recently interviewed for “The French Connection: The Music Business And Beyond”, the new podcast hosted by TWISTED SISTER guitarist Jay Jay French. You can now listen to the chat below.
Asked to name the best piece of advice he ever got, Collen said: “I get great advice all the time. Ian Hunter… When Mick Ronson died, we had a benefit at Hammersmith Odeon. And it was Roger Taylor from QUEEN, it was a bunch of guys. Mick Jones from THE CLASH — lots of different bands. Me and Joe [Elliott, DEF LEPPARD] had a band called the CYBERNAUTS, which was [David] Bowie‘s Trevor Bolder, Woody Woodmansey on drums, and we’d done all these Bowie songs. When we did that, I was rehearsing with Ian, and Ian said, ‘When you’re at 55, you stop caring, you stop worrying about things as a man.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘You don’t worry if you’re being judged by a 16- or a 20-year-old, no matter how hip they are. You really don’t care.’ And I said, ‘Oh, really? Okay.’ And around 50, or whenever it was, absolutely, you stop worrying about it, and it’s such a brilliant thing. I wish I would have known earlier, because you’re worried, you’re concerned about things that are not really worth worrying about. Obviously, the band’s gotta be great, you’ve gotta keep writing songs, you’ve gotta keep this level of excellence, but I’m talking about things that put you off, that you’d go, ‘I don’t feel good about it.’ If someone thought it was uncool, fuck them — it really doesn’t matter. And I thought it was a great bit of advice.”
The last DEF LEPPARD studio album, a self-titled affair, came out in 2015.
DEF LEPPARD released a box set, “The Early Years 79-81”, on March 20 via UMC/Virgin. “The Early Years 79-81” box set represents the band’s first two albums, “On Through The Night” (1980) and “High ‘N’ Dry” (1981), and was prepared in conjunction with Elliott who acted as executive producer on the set. The mastering was done by the band’s long-serving sound engineer Ronan McHugh.
Eagle Rock Entertainment released DEF LEPPARD‘s “London To Vegas” on May 29. This limited edition 2Blu-ray+4CD, 2DVD+4CD, DVD/Blu-ray+2CD and digital format release features two concert films: “Hysteria At The O2” and “Hits Vegas, Live At Planet Hollywood”.
DEF LEPPARD‘s latest greatest-hits collection, titled “The Story So Far – The Best Of”, was released in November 2018.
