Joe Elliott
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Yes, I have actually stayed at Airbnbs from time to time. And truth be told, I do really like them. I'm being totally honest right now that I've had great experiences with them. Yeah. I mean, you can have your look at you go get your own place, get your own pool, your own living room. You're not going to walk in an elevator. You're not going to see people when you're walking around in your undergarments. Yeah.

Yes. And if you don't understand what we're talking about, you should go online. What we're saying is you have a house with a kitchen and a bathroom and it's just for you, tailored for you. You liked your Airbnb over a hotel. Yes. And I do think I've had relatives stay nearby and sometimes it's very nice for them to do an Airbnb and have a little house and they're not underfoot. The last thing you want is your house guest to say, excuse me, um,

Where would I find a towel? That's a toughie when it's because they're naked. Well, it's like the 1800 time you say on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. I was going to look there. People don't even think hotels sometimes just go, Hey, I'll go there. I'll get an Airbnb. So, um, you won't regret it. I'm a nibbler Dana. And I think you are too, but you always know me that I just have to keep the energy going. Um,

And I think because I learned from my dad, pistachios are a good source of just, you know, nibble, wake you up. They're always delicious. I actually named a character in a movie I did called Master of Disguise. The lead character's name is pistachio. That's how much I love pistachios. Yeah. Well, wonderful pistachios have literally come out of their shells. It's the same taste. It's delicious, but...

It's a lot less work. As you know, cracking them open can be a little bit of a job. Less cracking, more snacking is what I say. That's what I say. That's what you say. And I'm going to use that when my wife goes to the store. Wonderful pistachios. No shells. Flavors come in a variety of award-winning flavors, including chili roasted. Honey roasted. Mm-hmm.

Sea salt and vinegar, smoky barbecue. Sea salt and pepper is one I like the most. And I'm going to try this jalapeno lime. They don't have a red, red necky flavor just yet. Yeah, look at him there. Red, red necky loves pistachios. I like to crack things open and put them in my mouth.

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Dana, Joe Elliott is the lead singer of the rock and roll band Def Leppard, who everyone knows, pretty much everyone loves. Pour Some Sugar On Me, two albums that sold over 10 million copies each, has only been she by five other bands in history. And they're out there on tour with Journey and sometimes Steve Miller.

And we got to talk to Joe Elliott, the lead singer, who's an incredibly nice guy. He's so pretty. He's so working class. You can't really give him a compliment. I do the best I can. When did you know you could really sing your ass off? I still don't know if I can. He's an incredibly likable chap. Still loves his job. The guy is still right together. They tour. They're out with Steve Miller, Journey.

I'm going to see them in LA. That's a really fun one. I'd go in Arizona if it wasn't 193. So I've, and I have roughed it in concerts in Arizona. Don't get me wrong.

Those days are over. He, we for once didn't talk over him because that's true. He had a lot of great things to say. He literally in a five minute period unpacks that evolution from the Beatles all the way through the seventies. Yes, Ziggy Stardust. And then all these other bands, Scorpion. I can't remember the name of the bands, comprehensive and psychopathy. Yeah. He went on to where they took the, uh,

The horn with... Yeah, where it went from punk to grunge. Like all that and how they stayed through it. And they're still playing stadiums. I mean, it's borderline impossible, but...

He had a lot to say, and we talked about Joder. We talked about a lot of stuff. So here he is. And one other thing. You'll notice that he refers to British money, which I always find funny. And we had full – I only had full quid. It was 10p for that. I just love British money names. We just have a quarter, a dime. Ours is boring. Yeah, a quid is $100,000. That's what they don't tell you. Yeah.

So it's not that bad. Yeah, they split a pint. They split a pint. So I had four quid. I had to give three quid to be mother full. The bed, the food, you know, like room of boys. Anyway, I thought he was incredibly charming and it was a very fun interview. So don't click off now and smash that subscribe button. Yeah, smash and like. That's the other podcast. Yeah, that's right. Oh, you can smash anything you want. Smash some potatoes then.

Let me get a good look. You look great. It's scary. I just had to shower because I was in the gym, so I didn't want to stink all the way over to wherever you guys are. I was in a big sudsy tub. Wait a minute. You're not working tonight. You're working tomorrow night. Is this your day off? Are you traveling? Yeah. Yesterday was a travel day.

And today is, well, we call it a day off. It's a no-show day because obviously I'm talking to you guys and then I've got to nip down to some room somewhere and do some pyromania stuff. And then at 5.30, we've got a private tour of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because, you know.

Hello, Cleveland. Hello, Cleveland. Damn. And it's pissing it down out there. It's fucking miserable. It's like Sheffield was when I was growing up. Sheffield. That's right. Yeah, you don't want to grow up in California because I'm Irish, Scottish, Norwegian.

So I couldn't tell. Yeah. We're the two pastiest. I look a little bit Irish, if you think if you look at me close. But I absolutely I like I see a lot of European in you right there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I'm part of your tribe. If we'd have grown up in California, we would have had nothing to aspire to.

Because it was, you know, as kids when we used to see on the three channels that we had in the UK, BBC One, BBC Two and ITV, we would get, you know, Starsky and Hutch or whatever programs are on. Dukes of Hazzard was more Midwest, but we'd get the roller skating guy in Venice Beach or wherever he was. Yes. And all the palm trees and the bikinis and think,

I really don't see that where I live. Why work? We at one point had a British nanny and the Brits. Is that a slang or you can say Brits? Yeah, no, you can totally say that. The Brits come to LA, they go crazy because the weather is insane. Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins and she turned into a bit of a slapper, did she? Sorry. I hope she didn't. She was a real slapper.

I love all the slang, you know. We've interviewed Paul McCartney. We haven't had a lot of musicians, but we're so glad you decided to come on our podcast because we're huge fans. Spade has already bought tickets for SoFi September 10th. I would have given you some if you'd have asked. No way. I want to get in there. And I love it. I've seen... You know where I saw you guys recently was...

if this is true, possibly the whiskey about two, three years ago, it was a small show. Dana, I got wind of this one, grab Theo, another comedian. We went down there and it was so fucking good. And, um,

they were so great i mean you rarely get to see him that that up close it's on youtube i saw it yes is it on youtube it is indeed yeah it was the first show that we did for the diamond star halos tour with we went out in the stadiums with motley so we'd launched the album by playing the first time that we'd ever played there i think you know because we has been a british band

We weren't like, you know, we weren't sluts of the boulevard in the 80s. We didn't do like the Troubadour or the Roxy or the Rainbow. We went to a couple of times, but that wasn't a gig, was it? There was the Roxy. There was the Whiskey and the Troubadour. And we went there to see a few bands, but never played there. Yeah. It must be cool, though, to go back. I mean, you guys were such a stadium band to play in a little...

tight place like that was so fun and I think I'd seen you obviously in the old days. I lived in Arizona so you guys that would usually be on the route. You know we usually get pretty good bands in Scottsdale, Phoenix and

And yeah, you know, it's funny because if you're out with a crew, I was always thinking like, I call them the crew, Dane. It's lingo for Motley Crue. That's pretty hip. Yeah. And so it's always funny when I see these bands that tour together. I saw Joan Jett, Heart and Cheap Trick. And I went thinking it was Joan Jett first and it was Cheap Trick first.

And I was like, oh my God, I just missed most of Chief Drake. How do they figure that out? I guess it's just pure ticket sales or something. It must be. Popularity for bands still existing since the 70s or whatever. It rides the waves. Sometimes it just takes one song. Like you think about Journey and The Sopranos.

and it elevates their entire touring situation. They double their sales. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. Joan Jett may well have had a song that resonated somewhere at that particular time that elevated her above Chip Trigger. I mean, I don't know, because everybody you just mentioned, they're bands that we all grew up listening to. I mean, I saw The Runaways.

in 76 at the Sheffield University. In fact, I gave Joan Jett a photograph two years ago that was taken from behind the stage. And you can see me, this 16-year-old me, about four rows, you know, they're all crammed down the front. I was my head popping up between two

two guys and there it was a 16 year old throwing your underpants on stage yeah throwing my pants on stage to Cherry Curry because she was in the middle you know but I'm honored by the way to be on the same podcast as Paul McCartney because wow you know what a great coattail to ride on you know yeah amazing I don't know he was big over there

Yes, he was quite popular, wasn't he? He was big. I mean, you know, for as casual Beale fans at my age group, you know, it's always the tease of what did Paul do and John do? There were certain songs, clearly a John song, clearly a Paul song. But when they were collaborating, you always wonder. And I think Paul has a little bit, I wouldn't call it a chip, but he likes to

point out that, you know, I played the bass on that, you know, and I wrote the middle. I'm like you. I'm like you. I, you know, we've had these discussions where you've gone on some long overnight or on the bus and you're listening to the Beatles for whatever reason. And a song comes on and you go, McCartney wrote that bit.

That's the Lennon bit. The greatest example for me is Day in the Life because you've got, I heard the news today, oh boy. And then it gets a little bit, got up, got out of bed, grabbed a comb across my head. And you go, yeah, that's the vaudeville McCartney that gives it, it gives you a break from this kind of surrealism that Lennon supplied. Because you think about the Lennon stuff.

You know, Tomorrow Never Knows or whatever it was called. You know, the kind of weird stuff. It was just brilliant. And then McCartney was always very capable of writing a great rock song. I think Helter Skelter was one of Paul's. But he could also write When I'm 64, which I doubt Lennon could.

or would actually want to. But it balances out. Sometimes you have to have a song like that to kind of showcase the one before and after it and bring them to the light. Name your favorite album of all time. There's a 10th worst track on it. Or if it's only an eight-track album, an eighth-worth track. A worst track. A secret Beatle album. But it's sort of a mash-up because I think Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane might be the best...

45 ever released, A side, B side. But that wasn't really on an album. But then on Magical Mystery Tour, which people don't really mention, they put on I Am A Wall or Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane. And you're kind of like, well, that's a good record. That's three of their greatest bits of work in the kind of past 60s. There was the touring Beatles, the black and white Beatles, if you like. And then there was the colored Beatles.

And they went, it went multicolor with things like strawberry fields. When they started taking vitamins, they, their outputs got way more creative and weird, which was great. Yes. One thing I wanted to ask you, cause you're our guest today, but I love talking about music in general is that.

You play the guitar, but then I find that bands really need a front man, a band like yours or the Rolling Stones. You need someone with a voice. When did you discover that? Were you singing as a little kid or when did you realize you had this voice, this raspy, perfect hard rock voice?

I'm not sure I ever even got there yet, to be quite honest. As a kid, I thought so. You're getting there. When my mom was... When I was about eight, so it would be 1967, 68, my mother bought an acoustic guitar through one of these...

catalogs that you pay on the weekly and they post it out to you and you're sending a coupon and you know it was a 20 quid guitar and she probably paid a pound a week for it and I used to be sat there fascinated with this woman who had this like Americana playing a day kind of Burt Whedon book or whatever teaching herself to play um

Pete Seeger type songs, Bob Dylan and John Baez. And the woman just picked it up real quick. And she had a really sweet voice. She's a really great singer. My mom, bless her, still alive, 92 years old, doesn't sing so much now, but she was great. She was only 36 years old, you know, and I was just sat there thinking, well, I got to have one of these. And rightfully so. My father said, well, if you learn to play your mom's, we'll think about getting you one for Christmas.

So I spent the next six months or whatever it was trying to learn what my mom was doing, which is essentially about four chords. And as this book said, I think if you know three chords, there's 2,500 songs right there. So once I'd learned to play, the first thing I ever learned to play was she'll be coming around the mountains because it just started to be the

the first thing my mom learned exactly it was all very um gcd yeah yeah and it's all very dueling banjos in its in its you know present presentation um so consequently for the next six months all i did was play around those things oh there's another song there that i can do so i never really learned to play the guitar i learned to play the four chords and then i that progressed

Literally, as I joined the band, really, I was about 18. I learned to play better chords and more different chords and stuff. But so consequently, it was never my thing to be able to go diddly diddly diddly do on the guitar. I was happy enough to be the rhythm player, like Malcolm Young in ACDC or Bob Dylan for his own music or whatever, just to accompany my voice.

And I always had a sweet voice as a kid, but then puberty comes along and then your voice goes down. And all of a sudden, and then, of course, I also discovered girls and Wimbledon and the US Open and soccer and stuff like that. So I always came back to music at night, having gone and done whatever's going on during the day. So it was always there in my life, but it was never a consistent where I would be really crafted at my craft because I came and went to it, but

I was always anchored to it, if you know what I mean. - But you were like 12, 13, 14, like the formative years. What was the music you were listening to?

Everything British pretty much because the way that the world was set up, my life was set up. We had the one national channel, which is the BBC one, which played the pop music. So it was a top 40 channel. So occasionally some rock music would infiltrate that chart. You know, we had all the British glam bands. So we had T-Rex, we had Bowie, Roxy Music, Slade, Sweet, you know, Queen came along. I mean, yeah, absolutely. Some great bands.

And we also had the Top of the Pops every Thursday night for half an hour. You know, you would have to sift through the crap because there'd be Tire Yellow Ribbon and this kind of stuff. And then you'd get Come on, Feel the Noise by Slade. And then something else, you know. But you actually learn to realize that everything you listen to,

It influences who you are because the stuff you hate makes you not go there anymore. And it makes you, it's a mention to John, I'm only dancing or Ziggy Stardust or something like that. You know, so we didn't get a great deal of American music over there. The only bands from the States really infiltrated big time was like Credence.

Queen's Clearwater Revival had loads of hits in the UK. I don't know why, they just did. They are great, though. When I say bands, we've got to forget the 60s when it was the Four Tops, The Temptations, Diana Ross and The Supremes. All that stuff was just a no-brainer. Hit after hit after hit. When it came to rock bands, we had The Who, we had The Kinks, we had The Stones and The Beatles. And then it went on to Zeppelin, Sabbath, Uriah Heep.

And then it was Bowie. And then there was all the prog rocks of like Uri, Uri, he came along. Yes. All these bands were album bands and they'd be on the old gray whistle test, which is the nighttime show once a week. So that's where you learned, uh,

That was grown up music. Everybody on the whistle test had a beard or a mustache. They could play really serious music, where it's Top of the Pops is all platform boots, glittery top hats and come on, feel the noise or ballroom blitz, you know. And that was what we grew up with, you know, and it's always been part of our DNA. And what the bridge like from glam or, you know, Bowie, who was transcendently different than Zeppelin and so forth. And then there was punk.

And then there was the idea of grunge and maybe grunge was later, but you weren't required to sing on key or play very well. It was just a little messy. Thanks for noticing. A raw emotion. No, but I mean, you guys were a bridge to influence and then you took it in another direction, which is awesome.

always very interesting listening to you and this. Timing is everything, Dana. It really is. Timing is everything. When Glam kicked in, I was 10, 11, 12 years old, T-Rex. The first hit they had was a song called Ride A White Swan, and then it was Hot Love, and then it was the big one in America. You called it Bang-A-Gong because there was a song called Get It On in the charts, but it was Get It On to us.

And T-Rex, it was just T-Rex to see for two years, 71, 70 into 73. Then Bowie came along mid 72 and he wasn't just Bowie. He was like this almighty Lord shining down from another planet because he released Ziggy Stardust. He produced all the young dudes. He produced Transformer for Lou Reed. So we had walk on the wild side and he did raw power for Iggy Pop.

And then, you know, you go through this 72, 73 into 74. And a lot of those bands started to wane a little bit. Mott split in 74. Um, and then we started reading about people like the New York dolls. Yes. And, and then we get to 75 and there's a, there's a stirring going on in London. And then in 76, there's a full like seismic event with the pistols and the clash coming along. And, um,

These bands had the integrity, supposedly, to not do Top of the Pops. But other new wave punk bands said, fuck that, we're doing it. So you had Generation X, which was Billy Idol's first band, and you had The Damned, and you had...

Eddie and the Hot Rods who played these three minute fast songs with really short solos and singing that was more Alice Cooper than Paul Rogers let's put it that way you know it's like portrayed the vocal brilliant there was a great band

from the UK called the heavy metal kids who were absolutely weren't heavy metal, but they were loved by rockers and punks the same way that very, very early ACDC were. Yeah. So you, you had this, you had this kind of mixture of those type of bands. And then,

Hard rock breaking through at the same time. Thin Lizzy, UFO, the Scorpions were all starting to take off in the kind of mid-late 70s, 77, 78. Deep Purple? Purple was 70. Purple was 68. By the mid-70s, they were already...

done with David Coverdale, never mind Ian Gillan. You know, I mean, they were split by then and we had Rainbow instead and we had Whitesnake instead. There was no Deep Purple till back in, they reformed in 84. So we had this massive mixture. So, I mean, I was always jealous of every,

single city in America had two or three radio stations that played rock music 24 hours a day. We had a two-hour specialist show on a Saturday afternoon when you're most likely going to be at a soccer game. And you couldn't tape it back then or record it onto some hard drive. You missed it, you missed it. So we really had to mine for everything that became part of us. And it sticks with you, which is why I can –

I always used to think it was an age thing that I can't remember last week's chart, but I can remember the chart from 71 and the B-sides and the catalog numbers of those singles. But I do think it's because we were... It was all...

It was analog. It was, you know, you could touch it. The record cover, they had a smell. You walk into a secondhand record store now, I get a boner on because the smell of the cardboard, you know? Me too. Well, the sound of a needle dropping is magic. Yeah, you can't get one of those when you're pushing a button on your laptop. Yeah.

But it benefits both ways. I mean, look, you can't listen to your records on the treadmill or on an airplane. So an iPod or your phone is perfect. It's better and it's worse. That's a discussion that we can have. Well, vinyl, one flashpoint. Vinyl, I think last year for the first time, outsold CDs. So that went full circle. Oh, really? Absolutely. Now we're digital and all that. Which is fantastic, you know. Right. But, you know,

it did all those things, you know, album covers are 12 inches square. So you could really go to town on the artwork, you know, look at album covers by say Elton John, goodbye, yellow brick road, or even better captain fantastic King. It's like, yeah, you can go right in and look at all these little details. Like, and then it came to like CDs and we go, what about the album sleeve? Say, well, it's only five inches square. So somebody's going to spot that from a mile away on in a CD shop. It's got to just have a big star in the middle. That's,

you know, so you had to change your thoughts about presentation, visual presentation. Well, half the fun growing up, Joe, is for me, a pipsqueak in Arizona was, uh, you get the ELO album or you get whatever album, and then you,

just think it's so cool. Then you pull it out, then you open it up. Then sometimes they have the words. And so you just keep playing it over and over and you look at the words cause you didn't know the words. You're like, Oh, that wasn't what I thought. And sometimes when I, cause I was, you know, I went into writing later, but that really got me going because I liked the way the songs are written. So yeah,

When I go back to songs, I go, oh, it means more when I figure out what it's about. Then you go, oh, there's something going on there. I never knew there were little stories. There were this. I just thought it was noise and fun. And so now that means a lot to me when I go back and hear something or even a simple one, like from the old days. And you can hear it and understand it. That's why I'm a curmudgeon when I can't hear it. You said something. You say it betrayed the vocals. Is that what you said about punk?

No. I thought you said something about the vocals. They stylized them. Yeah, basically what happened was when punk came along, it was a reaction to prog rock. You had all these people that were singing Siberian katru or, you know, Gumball.

in the court of the crimson king and it was all you know look how fast i can play or how high i was saying they wanted to rough it up there were some kids that knew they didn't have that kind of talent but they wanted to be on stage so they sang i am the antichrist or they sang white riot you know and and they just barked it out and there were a few singers like that in the past there was you know mc5 iggy alice cooper i and i'm really not

I love Ali. I've got every record he ever made. I'm a huge Alice Cooper fan, but when it comes to singing, his voice is not like the guy at Kansas, at the Sanctuary on my wayward son, or Paul Rogers, or Lou Graham from Foreign, or Bryan Adams, who can sing the phone directory. You have to portray the song. And he was a big influence, was Alice Cooper, on the punk movement. And then you had David Johansson, who was like a kind of an alternative Mick Jagger, and Mick Jagger himself was

wasn't exactly what you'd call a singer in the sense of hitting every note. But there's no better singer than Mick Jagger because it's not about being able to hit the notes like an opera singer. It's how you portray the lyric that you've written. And when you hear Jagger sing, one of my favorite vocals of all time is Street Fighting Man by the Stones. I just think they caught Jagger on a day where everything just worked.

And then when you listen to things like Symbiote for the Devil, and you hear him like, please allow me to introduce myself. He's doing it like a Bob Dylan, you know. You don't have to hold the note. As long as you hit it somewhere, you've hit the note. I'm a big fan of that. It bails me out every time. Well, his voice is pretty strong at 80. I've seen a clip recently, and maybe part of it is that

You know, Paul McCartney was singing just these high ranges. He's writing at age 21, 22, you know, and seemed like Springsteen and Jagger have a certain frequency or an area that they sing in and they still can really, but Jagger's voice is really strong. Well, I think that the diamonds, diamonds, Hackney diamonds album, uh, which came out like nine months ago, whatever it was. Yeah. The latest one. Angry, angry.

And the one they did with Sweet Sounds of Heaven with Gaga. Yeah. That's one of the greatest songs that they've ever written. And I think Jagger is showcased on this record so brilliantly. It's produced by a guy called Andrew Watt, who did the last couple of Aussie albums. He did, I think he did the new Pearl Jam, but he did the solo album by Eddie Vedder. He's a fantastic producer, and he got the best out of those guys. It was lovely. It was a beautiful song. Like Wild Horses, if you think, that was 60s.

And there he is.

20 years later doing something he defies gravity he defies logic you know and he's something to aspire to I'm 65 in two days time so I can get a bus pass you know all that kind of stuff push my shit to the center of town yeah and then I can retire and I look at Jagger and I think you know like he's 16 years older than me he's 20 years older than certain people in this band you know and he's still out there doing two hour shows it's incredible it really is

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which isn't us. E harmony is a dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. We are not dating. I want to clarify that, but the connection is what you want in a dating partner. Um, just someone like if you found someone that listened to this podcast, that's somewhat of a connection. And then you sort of build on that. You want someone with some common ground. Yeah, it's not it. Look, if you want to connect romantically over, you know, super fly or fly on the wall, um,

It just makes us happy. You don't want to be watching The Godfather and the person next to you goes, this movie sucks. You want to- So dumb. Yeah. You want to connect on all issues and harmonize in life. Similar sensibility, similar sense of humor, and similar sense of sense. I don't like when they watch The Godfather and they're like, everyone in this movie is so old. I'm like, they're 40.

Watch 2001 Space Odyssey. Too much of this movie is in outer space. I don't like it. When do they land? When do they land? Why is that stupid red light acting so silly? Who's friends with a robot? We know dating isn't easy. That's why we partnered with eHarmony because dating is different on eHarmony. They want you to find someone who gets you, someone you can be comfortable with.

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Well, it seems like you guys, part of your brand is like when I watched you on those YouTube clips at the Whiskey A Go-Go, it was like, okay, the flag is not touching the ground at all. We are loud. We are, you know, you guys are not, there's not like, oh, remember they used to be Def Leppard. So I think a lot of it is a mindset or a competitive nature with yourself.

That you don't want to be, they used to be Def Leppard. They are Def Leppard. I mean, that's what I'm getting from you guys. It's a challenge. It's been a challenge all our lives. You know, ever since you mentioned grunge a while back, grunge didn't really come in until like 92. And even then people were suspicious of, is this just a passing fad?

You know, I remember when all the Rolling Stones and these kind of magazines were going, it's all over for us, thumbs down, because here come Nirvana and Pearl Jam. But during that tour for the Adrenalize albums, 92, 93, we were still doing multiple arenas around America because it hadn't really kicked in. Where it started to pull us down was in the mid-90s, like 96, when...

And basically our own record label were like going, really? And so you have to, you have to go. Your eyes are still here? Yeah. So you have to look at it. You know, I often use the phrase like, it's just like a plane going through a turbulence in a cloud. As long as you still got the power to keep going, sooner or later you're going to come out the other side, the nice,

Smooth blue skies, you know, and we never split up. We never stopped believing in ourselves, right? We just had to reconvince the world who we were was that so we for you that got you out of that Sort of well, it's that was the start of it. You know, that was the end of the night. Yeah, it was 99 We had this kind of one hit kind of semi hit of it called promises Which is those working with mutt lang again for the first time in about eight years um, and then

It was the touring that did it really. We've really only taken, we took 2004 off in 2010 and there hasn't been a year except for during the pandemic years where we haven't toured. There's always been somewhere in the world that wanted us at a certain level. And we've built it up and built it up and built it up to the point where in 2018, we were doing a double header with Journey and it was going so well that they added 10 stadiums on the end of it and they all sold out.

So this, then all the business people are looking at us going, ah, because a lot of the bands that people would always pigeonhole us with were playing bowling alleys. And we were like, no, we're not going to go there. You know, you, you look at the success of bands like Bon Jovi or U2 or slightly different music, but you know, still rock, you know,

Depeche Mode, even Duran Duran, they had audiences that weren't really going anywhere. They'd waned a bit, but their core audiences and our core audiences were always bigger than everybody else's. Because when we were Def Leppard in the eighties, if you like, we were selling 10 million albums or we was just behind Michael Jackson. And then in 1988, we were the biggest selling album of the year.

Even if some fans go away, that core audience has bought 10 million records. Other bands that might have been number, you know, in the top five with you, maybe only sold one and a half or 2 million records. So when their audience shrinks percentage wise, it's a lot smaller than ours would have been. So there was always, if we could keep them on side by continuously coming out and entertaining them and being as good as we could be and making new music and not relying on the old stuff, because the one thing that this band will never be is a nostalgia act.

Of course we'll play the hits. Would you want to go see the Stones or McCartney? No, you have to. Satisfaction or, you know, Love Me Do or whichever Beatles song. And you have a lot of hits to point at. There's a lot of people these days that don't have hits hits. They're just famous. There are songs that if we don't play, we wouldn't get out of building a life. And we are aware of that. Yeah. And, you know, we call it the Pete Townshend factor. Within the band, we call it, it's like, does he really want to play My Generation? Probably not. Yeah.

Do we want him to? Absolutely. So you do it for your crowd. It's fun. Yeah. You have to have a respect for the audience and your own self dignity, if you like, to realize that sometimes you just have to get over that hump of like, oh, God, not this song again. I think it's totally legit to say that in rehearsals. I mean, seriously, when we got back together after COVID, we hadn't seen each other for two and a half years, never mind played together.

And two days into rehearsals, we got to like Rock of Ages and Photograph. And I just remember me and Phil looking at each other going, do we have to? Because we know it, you know. But we did, and it sounded just like when we left off, you know, in 2019. But you do, you know, you have to give it the respect because that's, of all songs, is the one everybody wants to hear is play well and sing well. So you have to put the effort in and

Sooner or later you get over that hump and it just becomes part of your day. Like when we become adults, unless you want a big beard, you shave, you know what I mean? It's like, I hate it, but you got to do it. And it's like rehearsals. It's the same thing. You, it's part of what we do. And a lot of artists get sick of doing the same stuff and they, they live on that and they thrive off it. And certain artists it works for when, when Bob Dylan does a song and the audience come out and go, I didn't even recognize that was hard. Rain's going to fall.

because he's done it for so long that people expect him to be like that, at least like curmudgeon, a nice word that you used earlier on. Whereas with us, we're more like the Stones. If you're going to play sympathy with the devil, play it like it sounds on the record. Oh, yeah. Because that's why they're coming. They're not coming to hear a reggae version of Rock of Ages. That's the work part. I mean, I was asked once, how do you turn someone on? And I just spontaneously thought, turn yourself on.

which, you know, so you have to, you, Joe have to get turned on, pour, pour some, pour some sugar. It's not hard when you get up on stage at the side of the stage and there's 35, 38,000 people in the stadium and you can see them cause they haven't put the house lights down yet. And you stood behind the screen and you're just looking, we're all high fiving each other going, can you believe this is amazing? You can,

people that work with us that have worked with other bands go, I can't believe you guys get so excited about doing this. And we're like, well, where we came from as kids, you have to understand one in a billion gets the chance to do that. And there's five of us here doing it. You know, this is like, we won the lottery twice,

You know, we won it once and then we won it again the next week. So I think it's like, it's amazing. So turning ourselves on is not that difficult. It really isn't. Comedians all want to be rock stars. You know that. It's not just a cliche. And there's some really funny YouTube clips out of you backstage singing Georgia and you're about to go on and then it plugs in and I get it. That stadium and then you've got your bandmates which sound fantastic. You're

Yeah, we all want to... You know, you guys want to be rock stars. We want to be comedians. It works out really well, you know. I think the grass is always greener on the other side, so we think... But once you realize you get over there and you go...

This is not as easy as I thought. You know, I think like Keanu Reeves, does you really want to do a tour for nine months in the back of a transit van? Or do you want to make John Wick five and then 20 million bucks? You know, I mean, it's, it's a tough one. You've got to have such immense willpower to battle through the, being lazy, you know, with those, it's never been that difficult to be,

to, you know, we've never been lazy. We work really hard. Like I said, this is a day off and we're doing loads of press because there's stuff to be talked about. And it's a pleasure because if it wasn't me, it'd be somebody else. And then we, we start to sink down the plug hole, you know? So it's like you,

Everything we do is part of keeping the momentum of the band going. From America, we always heard that working class lads like Ozzy Osbourne or you guys, I mean, are you guys considered working class? I don't know what economics. No, no, but when you grew up. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a ridiculous term because we work harder than we ever worked as working class kids. I used to work at Factory in Sheffield, right? Yeah.

When I was, I started when I was 16 and I left when I was 19 and I was, so it was like almost a quarter of my life. I worked in this factory where you'd clock in clock out.

And you're thinking 50 years of this shit and you're watching everybody else going in and they're all like zombies. You know, they're taking the paycheck, they go home to their 3.2 kids and the mortgage and this kind of thing. And I'm, you know, when, and we also had, you know, the benefit of having all these punk bands giving it something, thinking, Jesus Christ, I'd rather do that for 18 months than this for 50 years.

So, you know, we were absolutely were working class. You know, when we first started, this is absolutely no lie. When we first got together as a band, we all had day jobs, but it was traditional to give half your wages to your mom.

because now you're paying board for the food, for the laundry, for the bed. And so my first pay pack, it was eight pounds. And I think I gave three of it to my mom. So I had five quid to last me the week. And if I went out and bought a ticket for a gig, it'd be a pound 25, a pound 50. Half your money's gone. You're borrowing money by three days before payday. That was working class. We used to go to the Sheldon pub just around the corner from our rehearsal room. And,

We would buy one pint and get five straws. Okay. Now, if we bought the pint, it meant that we were walking home because that was the bus fare, you know, and we went through that for 18 months, two years before we, you know, got any traction as a man, but the ones that left by the wayside were gone. You know, our first drummer, Tony didn't last for more than a year. Rick came in and then we were the same lineup.

right up until 1982 when Phil joined. And we had to part company with Pete Willis, our original guitar player. And that lineup would have stayed the same had Steve not died. And this lineup now has been together for 32 years because we have something in common that you can't buy.

I mean, I don't like using the phrase X factor because of the show, but that X factor, that hidden gene that we've got that's kept us all focused and on the same page and willing to try different things and not just shut stuff down at first suggestion of going off the rails a bit.

We've all grown into finishing each other's sentences, if you know what I mean. That's a true example of a band. I mean, 32 years, same five people, pretty impressive when you think of the health issues that we've all been through. Vivian's currently dealing with cancer and has been for 10 years. Rick's got one arm. How many one-armed drummers are out there? We've survived...

We've survived a hell of a lot of crap that's been thrown at us, whether it be from the media or just life in general. Sure. And when people say, why do you do it? We go, wouldn't you? I mean, you think about take five random people off the street and say what's happened to you over the last 40 years. I think the downs would be very similar. Death.

Yeah. You know, okay. What's your hopes compared to ours? Wouldn't be close. Wouldn't be close because look at what we've been through. We, we went down to come up. So you appreciate a second wave so much more than you do the first time around. We have all the same, all the same feelings in our, our lives to absolutely feel great. I got a question for Mr. Joe.

Uh, you're, you're on tours. We're plugging with, uh, I think it's Steve Miller and journey. Yeah. Is that right? Okay. Uh, the question about obviously journey, uh, has a, I'd say new singer, but it's been a long time. Who's great. I'd seen him, uh, with no offense to him with Steve Perry. Did you know Steve Perry and will he sing again? Or is there something where he's just.

He's done. That is actually a question for Neil Sean. But in my world, I wouldn't know any of their internal politics except for all the infighting that was going off between him and Jonathan Cain before the tour started, which I don't know on the surface appears to be

you know, sort of, you know, so they're going on stage and doing it. I don't, I don't think they'd be able to, I certainly wouldn't be able to go on stage with people I didn't like. So I don't, but their dynamics may be different than ours. I did meet Steve Perry once in 1983 in Lexington, Kentucky, and,

I know it's a bizarre thing to remember. We were playing the night after them and we were in the day before. So we got invited down. Brian Adams was the opening act. It was 1983. I saw that. And we were in the dressing room just having, you know, just talking to these guys that we'd,

bought their records and we'd seen them on tour in England. And then Steve Perry roller skated into the dressing room. So these are the things that you remember because it's like, I've never seen that before, you know, now the breakup makes sense. No, I'm just, I don't know. Yeah. Maybe dancing on ice. He's so good. And,

Incredible, you know. But Arnell's got almost exactly the same voice, so it works, you know. Yeah, of course. I saw it. It's extraordinary. You think about, say, Van Halen. They totally reset themselves after they parted company with David Lee Roth. Sure. And they got Sammy Hagar in. It was almost like a different band, or it was like... It was almost like...

Eddie Van Halen joined the Sammy Agar band because the flagship thing is always the voice. And Sammy didn't sound anything like David Lee Roth, whereas Arnel sounds exactly like Steve Perry. Because he used to be in Indonesia. He used to be in a Journey cover band. That's how they found him on YouTube. Well, I'd have a question. You guys sit around. First of all, I just wanted to observe...

that comedians have a likability quotient. I could point to David or Adam Sandler, friends of mine. The audience really likes them. I say that your band is really likable and you exude joy. And when I've seen stuff about you guys writing or working together, you're kind of giving each other credit. Like you came up with a little guitar lick that became pour some sugar on me. And then I think

I think it was Phil just said, oh yeah, that was Joe's and then I put it here. I don't know, you guys don't seem to compete in that way. Do you have any, how do you write? You sit around with guitars, how do you make your songs? What's your process? Well, in those days, yeah, when we were writing, we'd all be sitting around in a room and it was, you see, the thing is with this band, the boss is the song. It's not me, it's not Phil, it's not Sav.

The song is the boss and we work for the song and we bow down to the song and we used to sit around and it was like,

Literally, musically, it would always be coming mostly from a guitar player. He'd say, well, I've got this riff. And then they would play the riff round. And we go, okay, can we sing any melodies over that? And then he'd say, okay, where do we go from that riff? That's the verse. Now we need a bridge and a chorus. And so people would just dig out little bits that they've been saving on cassettes or in their head and say, well, I'll glue this bit together. A great example is the song Hysteria. The jangle over the verse was Savv.

The bridge, I think, was Phil and the chorus was Steve and me and Muck came up with the melodies and the lyrics mostly. I think Sav came up with the lyric for the bridge. So it was a total team effort. But we've kind of changed a bit because I think we were a little uncomfortable or not confident enough to walk into a room and go, I've got this song.

We always said, I've got this idea for a song because it's what you did as a band. You put it all in the pot and sturdy round. But then when you spend more time away because you do a tour and then you get into your 30s and you're married with kids, you tour maybe a bit less and you're at home more. You tend to just pick up a guitar or a piano or pen and paper and you start and you finish. You don't leave it all finished for somebody else to do. So our songwriting changed dramatically.

We still do write as a team. We were doing that as recently as two albums ago. But then during the pandemic, when we were going to get together and see what we had, when we couldn't get together, we wrote literally individually and presented each other with finished songs for the first nine. And then the following five, Phil did say to me, I've got this half idea and he'd send me an MP3 and I would fill in the gaps.

So, you know, there's a couple of songs that were written by three of us, but most of the songs on Diamonds Are Halos were written by one person because we all just got confident over the last 12, 15 years of being able to write songs on our own. So it just depends on the time of year, you know, which part of the career you're talking about. You can kind of feel what works. We're writing jokes and after years, you can just think, I think this one will work. Just from so much experience of you guys playing, you might go,

We need something like this. This is a good one. What you guys need is this one. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? How? I don't know. You put it in a microwave until it's Bill Withers. Finally, one we haven't heard. That's good. Bill Withers. Yeah, it's my favorite joke of all time, and it's clean. And it's music related. You can have that, guys. You can have that one.

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Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Sell order assessment fee not included. A limited number of ETFs are subject to a transaction-based service fee of $100. See full list at fidelity.com slash commissions. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC. Member NYSE SIPC. I have something for Joe. I know we're going to wrap you up, Joe, in a little bit, but we appreciate the tour and everything and talking about it. But I will tell you, this is not a quickie, but it's a story of when we were doing this movie Joe Dirt. Dana, I don't think you know this. We...

So the kid rock was the bad guy. So two things, one, we did get a good song for the trailer and, and getting songs and movies is so hard. And especially if we were low budget movie, you know, when you go out to Ted Nugent, we go out to, you know, Joe Dirt was like a rocker and Joe Dirt loves Def Leppard. Right. So we cleared wearing a Def Leppard shirt and Joe may or may not know the ins and outs of this kind of stuff. But so we have to clear it with somebody. And so I wear as Joe Dirt, this Def Leppard shirt. And,

You have to use a shirt in a positive manner. It's kind of part of the deal. You can't be derogatory. You can't say negative things. It's so weird, but it's, I get it. So he's my favorite band. And now we're doing a scene and Kid Rock and I are in an argument. And when I leave,

I said, hey, yell to me, Def Leppard sucks, because that's like the worst dagger you could say to me. So he goes, and Def Leppard sucks. And I go, oh, you know, it's like the last thing I want to hear. So just to finish me off. So then we're not allowed to use the scene because we're breaking the deal with Def Leppard. So either me or someone got on with someone from the record company, maybe never got to Joe, but

explain the situation and they said, oh, so the good guy likes definitely. Yeah, that's fine. You can keep it or that would have been gone. And that's one of my favorite things in the movie. And so, uh,

A, he was part of Joe Dirt, the band was, and B, we got that one in. I think I wore a Def Leppard t-shirt as Garth. Yes, you did. I remember it well. That's two movies out of two? Yeah. Goddamn. Wow. David, you may well have forgotten this, but in 1998, maybe 1999, I met you in the Riot House, and it was just after that film had come out.

Yeah, yes. You don't remember. I don't remember. Because we were both drinking. And I remember I went up to you and I said, I've got to do this just for fun. I said, I heard what you wrote. And then you looked at me and went, dude, I was on your side. It was Kid Rock. It wasn't me. Said the same bullshit story. So cut to about 15 minutes later, we were talking at the bar and then we just looked over and there was Chris Rock

Kid Rock, and Justin Timberlake all at the bar. And we all stood as a five for hours talking about everything. That's a power five, dude. Yeah, and Chris Rock broke into singing Fooling, and then he looked at me like, dude, black man can't like your music? It was hilarious. Yeah.

And then me and Kid Rock went down to a nightclub to watch this band called Kids in America, who did 80s covers. And he dragged me up on stage to do Pour Some Sugar on me with him. And right in the middle bit, when he goes to this little breakdown guitar, he went into a rap over the drums. And then we seamlessly came straight back out until, and then back into the song, like we'd rehearsed it a hundred times. Love it. And that was the same night.

Go figure. I love it. Wow. Yeah. That's so funny because Kid Rock is funny because, uh,

He's good to jump on stage. He goes, this guy gave me a 50 grand to sing two songs his birthday. And I go, does he give you another 50 to get off? Was it Ted Nugent? He stayed for two hours. Well, that's great, man. That's so fun. I love it. Well, thank you, Joe. Danny, got anything else this young man is taking time out? Not at all. Just a huge fan. Have fun on the tour. You got another six weeks or something? Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. I'm so glad that you guys actually just did cop on and wear those Def Leppard shirts all those years ago because people are still doing it now. It just occurred to me. I see babies in them. It was a great shirt. It just had a great design. I don't know which. And we don't care if you take the piss out of us at all because that's life. We take the piss of ourselves more than you ever could. Well, I love it, man. Thank you for talking to us and good luck. My pleasure. We'll see you there at SoFi. Thanks, guys. Be good. Yeah, absolutely. Come say hi.

I probably will. Yeah, absolutely. I'll remember it. All right. Enjoy it. Thank you, man. Bye-bye. This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts. Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.