CLASSIC Rock 300
JOE ELLIOTT
He can look back on a long and successful past with Def Leppard and Down ‘N’ Outz, but he ends this interview teasing Classic Rock with what is yet to come.
Interview: Paul Elliott
Since Classic Rock began in 1998, Joe Elliott has been busy leading Def Leppard’s renaissance and fronting another group – Mott The Hoople tribute-turned-‘actual band’ Down ‘N’ Outz – on the side. It’s been a busy 24 years. But his biggest challenge was becoming a dad in his fifties. The Leppard singer looks back on his two bands, his musical family, and the genius of David Bowie.
In Classic Rock’s lifetime, Def Leppard have been through good times and bad. How would you sum it all up?
For the first ten or fifteen years of this century we were fighting
a losing battle, but we weren’t prepared to give up. We weren’t
down and out, but we knew we weren’t thought of in the same
way as in the eighties, and we needed to do something about it.
The business model changed – it became all about touring.
Selling ten million records was an eighties thing.
Apart from Taylor Swift or Adele, nobody’s going to
sell ten million records again. So we toured and
toured… and it worked!“