Def Leppard's "Pyromania" (1983): Track by Track

<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious podcast,
<v Speaker 1>discussing and debating the iconic and the forgotten of eighties
<v Speaker 1>and nineties pop culture with.
<v Speaker 2>Your co hosts James D. Graves and Jason Colvin. All right,
<v Speaker 2>welcome back everybody.
<v Speaker 3>We are Jason and d from the Shirley You Can't
<v Speaker 3>Be Serious Podcasts coming to you live from Sheffield, England.
<v Speaker 3>I am in my Union Jack sleeveless shirt and Jason
<v Speaker 3>is in his Union Jack shorts with no shirt at all.
<v Speaker 3>We are here to go toe to toe and rock
<v Speaker 3>and roll with def Leppard and the comparison of the
<v Speaker 3>Pyromania album and Hysteria.
<v Speaker 4>I'm so excited to do this. This is I've had
<v Speaker 4>a love affair with these two albums for almost forty
<v Speaker 4>years now and frankly, there's only one way we can
<v Speaker 4>start this podcast. Yeah, even out and gool. We're going
<v Speaker 4>to talk about the history a little bit of def Leppard,
<v Speaker 4>the tragedy and the blessings that they had, and then
<v Speaker 4>we're going to go through these two hugely impactful albums
<v Speaker 4>of the nineteen eighties.
<v Speaker 3>I'm super excited.
<v Speaker 4>That would mean maybe the most defining sound of the
<v Speaker 4>nineteen eighties.
<v Speaker 3>Absolutely like there are a handful of bands that defined
<v Speaker 3>what rock and roll sounded like in the nineteen eighties,
<v Speaker 3>and this is one of those, one of those.
<v Speaker 4>Bands, without a doubt, without a doubt. So step inside,
<v Speaker 4>walk this.
<v Speaker 3>Way, you and me, babe.
<v Speaker 4>Let's start with just kind of a pre story, how
<v Speaker 4>DEFL was formed and how it kind of came about
<v Speaker 4>and win and all that stuff.
<v Speaker 3>Sure, there's a whole big I mean, there's a big
<v Speaker 3>story that leads up to Pyromania. And it starts with
<v Speaker 3>Joe Elliott as a young teenage boy with dreams of
<v Speaker 3>becoming a rock star, and he decides he wants to
<v Speaker 3>have a band. He wants the band to be called
<v Speaker 3>Deaf Leopard spelled properly, and he makes posters and learns
<v Speaker 3>how to play the guitar and has these dreams. And
<v Speaker 3>then one day he misses his bus and he happens
<v Speaker 3>to meet this guy named Pete Willis, and Pete Willis
<v Speaker 3>starts talking to him and they realize, hey, we both
<v Speaker 3>like music. Pete Willis had a band.
<v Speaker 4>Called Atomic Mass, right, he had been in that band
<v Speaker 4>with Rick Savage and Tony Kinning.
<v Speaker 3>And so they invite Joe Elliott to come and try
<v Speaker 3>out for the band. Joe wants to play guitar with him.
<v Speaker 3>When they first put Atomic Mass together, Rick Savage played
<v Speaker 3>the guitar, Pete Willis played the guitar, and Tony Kinning
<v Speaker 3>played the drums. Rick Savage said, well, I don't play
<v Speaker 3>guitar as good as you, so I guess I'll play
<v Speaker 3>the bass because we have to have a bass. We
<v Speaker 3>can't have two guitar bass. And so he started playing
<v Speaker 3>the bass and brought Joe Elliott in. They said, well,
<v Speaker 3>why don't you sing and let's see what you got.
<v Speaker 3>His audition was Stairway to Heaven. Okay, So as he
<v Speaker 3>sang Stairway to Heaven when it goes up at the end,
<v Speaker 3>Joe stayed low and they were all like, well that
<v Speaker 3>was great, except he didn't go up.
<v Speaker 4>What's the deal? And so he didn't really fancy himself
<v Speaker 4>a singer initially, but he would soon learn right.
<v Speaker 3>So they weren't in love with his voice, but they
<v Speaker 3>thought he had a good voice. They were in love
<v Speaker 3>with his dream and his passion for becoming a huge success,
<v Speaker 3>and that's really what got him the job as the
<v Speaker 3>lead singer in the.
<v Speaker 4>Band, and really what drives Steph Leppert today. I mean,
<v Speaker 4>he's the engine that makes it go. And he doesn't
<v Speaker 4>have a terrific voice. I mean, he's got a good
<v Speaker 4>rock voice, and I think Mutt Lane kind of got
<v Speaker 4>the most out of it.
<v Speaker 3>So, Jason, tell me, do you remember the first time
<v Speaker 3>you heard these guys.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, I have a very clear memory of when I
<v Speaker 4>heard these guys for the first time. It was after
<v Speaker 4>High and Dry, So in nineteen eighty three, I'm bebopping
<v Speaker 4>in my fifth grade class, mister Hoover's class. If you've
<v Speaker 4>listened to our episodes before, I was mister Thriller.
<v Speaker 3>Mister Thriller.
<v Speaker 4>I loved Michael Jackson. I love Thriller. And I had
<v Speaker 4>this guy that came to my school and he's like,
<v Speaker 4>Thriller's great, But have you heard these guys? And I
<v Speaker 4>saw the album cover, I'm like, I mean, it's a
<v Speaker 4>cool album cover, but I think I'm gonna stick with
<v Speaker 4>Michael Jackson. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, you got to
<v Speaker 4>listen to this song.
<v Speaker 3>At least.
<v Speaker 4>I'm like, all right, I'll listen. I mean, I'm seriously
<v Speaker 4>Michael Jackson and he's like, no, Well, you got to
<v Speaker 4>listen to this song. So he plays Photograph and I'm like,
<v Speaker 4>that sounds amazing. That song's amazing. And that's how I
<v Speaker 4>got hooked in was Photograph.
<v Speaker 3>So your introduction to the band was Pyromania back in
<v Speaker 3>the early eighties. Yes, my introduction to the band. And
<v Speaker 3>I say introduction, I'd heard them, you know, I had MTV,
<v Speaker 3>so I had heard bits and songs, but it was
<v Speaker 3>never an investment for me. I never bought an album.
<v Speaker 3>But in eighth grade, I went to my first high
<v Speaker 3>school dance. And if you guys went to high school
<v Speaker 3>dances when you were a kid, you can imagine the
<v Speaker 3>fear and the nervousness and whether you should dance and
<v Speaker 3>whether you should not dance, and slowly you get your
<v Speaker 3>courage up. And that was what was happening that night.
<v Speaker 3>And I had these girls coming up and talking to me,
<v Speaker 3>and I was like, this is awesome. And then you know,
<v Speaker 3>they convinced me to come out and dance, and we're
<v Speaker 3>dancing in a big circle and that's getting to the
<v Speaker 3>end of the night. And then the DJ says, and
<v Speaker 3>now the song that you've all been waiting for, and
<v Speaker 3>they crank up pour some sugar on me and the
<v Speaker 3>entire gymnasium rough.
<v Speaker 4>You wouldn't be babe.
<v Speaker 3>And people are going crazy. So my my first wow,
<v Speaker 3>hey this is a band I need to be listening
<v Speaker 3>to was Hysteria. Was pour some Sugar on.
<v Speaker 4>I think that that was probably a lot of people's
<v Speaker 4>introduction because I mean, the summer of nineteen eighty eight,
<v Speaker 4>poor some sugarman own the airwaves, yeah, and dominated that.
<v Speaker 4>I remember dial MTV. You could call and request your
<v Speaker 4>favorite video. It was like number one for like three months.
<v Speaker 3>So when we started to do this, what I said
<v Speaker 3>to myself is, I've never never had the album Pyromania.
<v Speaker 3>I know some of the song cluff of it, but
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to treat it like I'm that kid from
<v Speaker 3>long ago. I imagined myself, my young self, if I
<v Speaker 3>had been a teenager listened to this type of music
<v Speaker 3>in the early eighties, get the album bring it Home.
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to put my headphones on, I'm going to
<v Speaker 3>crank it up. And I gotta say I was blown away.
<v Speaker 3>I was like, holy crap, this is really really good.
<v Speaker 3>Even now, what is it nearly forty years later? Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it's still amazing. I was floored.
<v Speaker 4>It's a pop metal masterpiece.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>So in January nineteen seventy eight, Steve Clark he joined
<v Speaker 4>the band. Yeah, he played Freebird for him and they
<v Speaker 4>were like, well, this guy's really good.
<v Speaker 3>Right, played it from beginning to end. And if you
<v Speaker 3>don't know Freebird, Freebird is Lynyrd Skynyrd's signature song. That is,
<v Speaker 3>depending on which version, nine to ten minutes long. And
<v Speaker 3>so you can imagine a you know, young, long haired,
<v Speaker 3>skinny kid rocking out on one of the most well
<v Speaker 3>known guitar solos for a solid ten minutes and they
<v Speaker 3>were hooked.
<v Speaker 4>I don't play guitar, but in guitar hero. Yeah, that
<v Speaker 4>was the hardest.
<v Speaker 3>Song on that Well, yes, that's I think I'd say
<v Speaker 3>that's an accurate reflection of how how difficult it is.
<v Speaker 3>But they not only were amazed by his guitar playing,
<v Speaker 3>but he had the right look. He came in with
<v Speaker 3>no shirt, just a jeans jacket on, had long blonde
<v Speaker 3>hair slung his guitar hung it way too low so
<v Speaker 3>that he had to pick it up and move it,
<v Speaker 3>and there was just a motion in a dance to
<v Speaker 3>his playing. And then of course he had that amazing
<v Speaker 3>ability So there you go. They've got their second guitarist,
<v Speaker 3>they've got their bass player, they've got their singer, and
<v Speaker 3>they've got their drummer for a while.
<v Speaker 4>Except the drummer decides that hanging out with his girlfriend
<v Speaker 4>is more important than being in the defining metal band
<v Speaker 4>of the eighties.
<v Speaker 3>He and Rick Stone, I'm sure, commencer, Yeah, Rick Stone,
<v Speaker 3>yeah yeah.
<v Speaker 4>If you don't know who Rick Stone is, go back
<v Speaker 4>and listen to Van Halen episode one. Right, But here's
<v Speaker 4>a funny story. So there's a young kid in the
<v Speaker 4>area named Rick Allen, Richard Allen.
<v Speaker 3>He's fifteen years old, fifteen. He'd started playing drums when
<v Speaker 3>he was nine or ten years old, so he was
<v Speaker 3>a decent drummer, and even at fifteen, had said the
<v Speaker 3>drummers around here suck and the bands suck. And then
<v Speaker 3>after Tony left the band, def Leppard put out a
<v Speaker 3>one ad and it said Leopard loses skins.
<v Speaker 4>And Rick Allen said, hey, look at this, Mom, will
<v Speaker 4>you call the band for me?
<v Speaker 3>And hey, mom, hey mom, will you will you call
<v Speaker 3>these guys?
<v Speaker 4>I'd like to play drums.
<v Speaker 3>But he's good, he's fantastic.
<v Speaker 4>And he's right place, right time. Jumps on the opportunity
<v Speaker 4>and he becomes their jar.
<v Speaker 3>Right, and then just what a few short years later
<v Speaker 3>they're opening for Ozzy Osbourne and Billy Squire. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>can you imagine a young kid being involved with that
<v Speaker 3>kind of star power.
<v Speaker 4>At his age? Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, I have a
<v Speaker 4>fifteen year old home. I barely let him feed the dog.
<v Speaker 4>So they rehearse and they rehearse, and they rehearse and
<v Speaker 4>they rehearse.
<v Speaker 3>Sheffield, England, where they all come from, is an old
<v Speaker 3>steel town. It's steel factories everywhere. If you live in
<v Speaker 3>the town, you're pretty well going to be working in
<v Speaker 3>a factory somewhere, that's right. And they ended up rehearsing
<v Speaker 3>in an old spoon factory and we're there for nine
<v Speaker 3>months or something like that, And finally.
<v Speaker 4>Steve Clark went to Joe Elliott and said, Joe, listen,
<v Speaker 4>if we don't play a gig, I'm quitting, right, I'll
<v Speaker 4>go find somebody else.
<v Speaker 3>Right. He's like, we're polishing and polishing and polishing, and
<v Speaker 3>I can be in here ten years and we're still
<v Speaker 3>polishing the same songs. So it's interesting because you get
<v Speaker 3>the impression from the band that they want to be
<v Speaker 3>perfect before they go out into the world. They've obviously
<v Speaker 3>got this drive that they don't want to put out
<v Speaker 3>a bad product. But it's interesting that he's the one
<v Speaker 3>that says this to them, because he's ultimately the one
<v Speaker 3>that ends up dealing with the biggest stage fright once
<v Speaker 3>they get really big.
<v Speaker 4>It is interesting. Yeah, So Joe Elliott borrows two hundred
<v Speaker 4>and fifty bucks from his dad and they create an EP.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's They ended up selling twenty four thousand records,
<v Speaker 3>which I mean, if you just think about a group
<v Speaker 3>of teenage kids spent a two hundred and fifty bucks
<v Speaker 3>to press out an album and they sell twenty four
<v Speaker 3>thousand of them. I mean, if I could sell twenty
<v Speaker 3>four thousand songs, I'd be like in Evan. And they
<v Speaker 3>get an album that's a pretty significant hit.
<v Speaker 4>And that leads to their next album, which their debut
<v Speaker 4>album technically is called On Through the Night.
<v Speaker 3>Right. This is the first professionally produced album. Yes, this
<v Speaker 3>is the one where they've signed with the record label
<v Speaker 3>and the record label is producing their album.
<v Speaker 4>This is released in March of nineteen eighty has a
<v Speaker 4>song Hello America, which is kind of famous gave kind
<v Speaker 4>of a bad taste for the locals in England.
<v Speaker 3>They didn't like it. It's yeah, it's kind of sad.
<v Speaker 3>You know, Sheffield didn't really own this band until they
<v Speaker 3>were a really big success. They had a lot of
<v Speaker 3>bad press that they received, which is unfortunate, but they
<v Speaker 3>had aspirations to get out of the town anyway, so
<v Speaker 3>it worked out right well.
<v Speaker 4>This album On Through the Night caught the attention of
<v Speaker 4>this guy.
<v Speaker 3>Named Robert John mutt Lang Mutt Lang or if you
<v Speaker 3>are from Sheffield, Langa.
<v Speaker 4>And this guy is when he calls them. Yeah, he's
<v Speaker 4>a celebrity. I mean he had produce is Highwaight to
<v Speaker 4>Hell Yeah and Back in Black.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, which I mean, holy smokes, right, I mean, come on,
<v Speaker 3>but if you look at his library of work, you've
<v Speaker 3>got ACDC and def Leppard, but you've also got Shanaia
<v Speaker 3>Twain who ended up marrying Taylor Swift, Brian Adams. I mean,
<v Speaker 3>there's a whole slew of genres that he deals with
<v Speaker 3>and he is, without question, one of the biggest keys
<v Speaker 3>to their success.
<v Speaker 4>Absolutely, if I took you and I said, all right,
<v Speaker 4>grab acdc's entire catalog, pick their best album, it's going
<v Speaker 4>to be produced by mut Lane. Yes, if I say,
<v Speaker 4>take the entire cars catalog, Yeah, pick their best album,
<v Speaker 4>Heartbeat City, yes, Mutlane.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>So when they get in the studio with Mutt Lane,
<v Speaker 4>they produce an album called High and Dry. So it's
<v Speaker 4>their first commercial effort. I mean it does pretty well,
<v Speaker 4>sells two or fifty thousand copies.
<v Speaker 3>Again, I mean it got into the top twenty albums
<v Speaker 3>in the UK and Top fifty in the US I believe.
<v Speaker 3>But the way of music back then, even after all
<v Speaker 3>that success, the band wasn't making enough money to have
<v Speaker 3>being a band as their only job.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, Joe Elliott talks very publicly about having a
<v Speaker 4>top fifty album in the United States and having to
<v Speaker 4>work at a construction site.
<v Speaker 3>Right, Yeah, we don't have any money left. You're going
<v Speaker 3>to have to go do some real work.
<v Speaker 4>So that's crazy. So High and Dry is released July eleventh,
<v Speaker 4>nineteen eighty one.
<v Speaker 3>Just before the inception of MTV and then another key,
<v Speaker 3>another key.
<v Speaker 4>It's huge in their in their career. Yeah, they're spot
<v Speaker 4>on ready when MTV hits.
<v Speaker 3>Right, So Joe Elliott is working construction jobs after having
<v Speaker 3>this big album. But as it turns out they recorded
<v Speaker 3>a video for one of the songs off of High
<v Speaker 3>and Dry called bringing On the Heartbreak. I cannot imagine
<v Speaker 3>a guy who's singing like that, band playing like that,
<v Speaker 3>who's now working construction because they don't have enough money.
<v Speaker 3>It's crazy. But the video that they had fell right
<v Speaker 3>in where it needed to because MTV had.
<v Speaker 4>They needed videos.
<v Speaker 3>They said it over and over. They had about two
<v Speaker 3>hundred and fifty videos when they're on their first year,
<v Speaker 3>and so that Bringing On the Heartbreak made it into
<v Speaker 3>the rotation and they played it and played it, and
<v Speaker 3>everybody at that time had started to watch MTV and
<v Speaker 3>people started to go, who is this def Leopard band?
<v Speaker 4>That's right? Timing is everything?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Now they're going back in the studio to record their
<v Speaker 4>third album, Pyromedia.
<v Speaker 3>Right, and they kind of entered a really specialized deal here.
<v Speaker 3>Mutt Lang had produced that first album and it was
<v Speaker 3>all a regular style of production. He was meticulous about things.
<v Speaker 3>But you can still on high end I hear the
<v Speaker 3>edginess that they had at that time, and they had
<v Speaker 3>been placed in this category called the new wave of
<v Speaker 3>British heavy metal. But listening to even their early stuff,
<v Speaker 3>I wouldn't describe it as heavy metal. I don't think
<v Speaker 3>they ever saw themselves as a heavy metal band.
<v Speaker 4>And I've heard Joe Eliot say that we have a
<v Speaker 4>lot more in common with Duran Durant right than we
<v Speaker 4>do Quiet Riot or ACDC or whatever.
<v Speaker 3>He really admired the band Queen, and he really admired
<v Speaker 3>David Bowie and the Hoople Mota Hoopl, thank you, Mata
<v Speaker 3>Hoopl and Queen. He loved Queen and that was kind
<v Speaker 3>of the sound that they were going for, kind of
<v Speaker 3>an ACDC meets Queen kind of sound. Never really again
<v Speaker 3>what I would describe.
<v Speaker 4>As metal, all right. So as the recording Pyromania, they
<v Speaker 4>start to have these personal problems within the band, right
<v Speaker 4>that ultimately they've got to deal with.
<v Speaker 3>So they entered this deal with Mutt Lang where he
<v Speaker 3>basically had complete control over the sound. The first album
<v Speaker 3>that they recorded they had done in thirty days. The
<v Speaker 3>second album that they had recorded, they had done in
<v Speaker 3>twelve weeks. They had been recording on Pyromania. At the
<v Speaker 3>five month mark, five months of recording, they had not
<v Speaker 3>committed one single song to tape. It's incredible, right, Mutt
<v Speaker 3>Lang had a definite vision about what he wanted to happen,
<v Speaker 3>and the mixing board became an instrument for the band.
<v Speaker 3>This is what Mutt Lang did for def Leppard, and
<v Speaker 3>he was the ultimate perfectionist, which for the band meant
<v Speaker 3>agonizing hell. And at some point they said to Steve Clark, hey,
<v Speaker 3>you need to go dry out, buddy. So Steve went away,
<v Speaker 3>which left only Pete Willis to do the guitar parts
<v Speaker 3>for a time. Well, Pete also was a drinker and
<v Speaker 3>didn't handle his liquor as well as Steve Clark did,
<v Speaker 3>and one day came into the studio after a night
<v Speaker 3>of heavy drinking and was still under the influence and
<v Speaker 3>could not could play, couldn't play with a flip.
<v Speaker 4>I've heard Joylia talk about how in the early days,
<v Speaker 4>Pete Willis, after a little bit too much of the drink,
<v Speaker 4>would readily go into the ring with Mike Tyson. He
<v Speaker 4>was that type of sort of angry drunk Steve Clark
<v Speaker 4>drink twice as much. What was half the a hole
<v Speaker 4>that Pete Willis was, apparently, And so when he couldn't
<v Speaker 4>play and they're trying to impress this guy.
<v Speaker 3>They had said they had told him over and over
<v Speaker 3>and over, Hey, you can't do this. You know, we'll
<v Speaker 3>let you drink during our stage shows, but you cannot
<v Speaker 3>come into the recording studio drunk. When he does this,
<v Speaker 3>and they you got to think about how long they've
<v Speaker 3>been working their tailoff, long days, killing it. Frustration tears.
<v Speaker 3>And then Mutt Lang comes to Joe Elliott with this
<v Speaker 3>sad attempt at a guitar solo by Pete Willis, and
<v Speaker 3>he says, listen to this, and then he just starts laughing,
<v Speaker 3>laughing to tears. Mutt Lang is laughing to tears at this,
<v Speaker 3>and Joe Elliott isn't laughing at all. He just has
<v Speaker 3>to say, we can't do this. We can't take the
<v Speaker 3>chance that Mutt Lang is going to walk out on
<v Speaker 3>us after all of this work. We can't take the
<v Speaker 3>chance that Pete Willis is going to destroy this album
<v Speaker 3>because of his alcoholism. We have to let him go.
<v Speaker 4>Said he didn't want Mutlange to think they were a
<v Speaker 4>bunch of losers. They only had one loser, right, so
<v Speaker 4>they gave him the old get out. Yeah, but phil
<v Speaker 4>Colin they hire the same day.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Joe Elliott made a call. Phil Colin had been
<v Speaker 3>playing he'd played for several bands, but at the time
<v Speaker 3>that this occurred, he was playing for a glam rock
<v Speaker 3>band called Girl and they called Phil and he came
<v Speaker 3>over and they said, hey, you know, we've already got
<v Speaker 3>the bulk of these songs done. We just need some
<v Speaker 3>guitar solos. Why don't you go listen to this one
<v Speaker 3>for an hour or two and you know, make up
<v Speaker 3>a guitar solo and let's see how it goes. And
<v Speaker 3>he came back in thirty minutes and executed a perfect
<v Speaker 3>guitar solo. And those are the words of Mutt Lang.
<v Speaker 3>And if Mutt Lang says it's a perfect guitar solo,
<v Speaker 3>you can rest assured it is a perfect guitar solo.
<v Speaker 3>By the time we get to the point that Pete
<v Speaker 3>Willis gets fired, Rick Allen hadn't been playing the drum
<v Speaker 3>for months because m Lang said, I don't want to
<v Speaker 3>use a drummer, I want to use a drum machine.
<v Speaker 3>That's insane. I mean, in nineteen eighties two to say
<v Speaker 3>I want to use a drum machine for a rock
<v Speaker 3>album was crazy. So they would take samples of particular
<v Speaker 3>drum sounds to find the perfect pitch, and then of
<v Speaker 3>course the timing was mechanical, it was precise, it was
<v Speaker 3>uninfluenced by human error. So Rick Allen hasn't played in
<v Speaker 3>several months. They get rid of Pete Willis, they bring
<v Speaker 3>in Phil Colin. They finally say, okay, Rick, come back in.
<v Speaker 3>We're going to record some of your drums.
<v Speaker 4>Now.
<v Speaker 3>He's like okay, and so he plays for a few minutes.
<v Speaker 3>They're like, okay, hold on, okay, yeah, just hold on, man, Okay,
<v Speaker 3>just listening, still listening, Yeah, just a minute more, Rick,
<v Speaker 3>hold on, And finally he just says, hey, guys, you know,
<v Speaker 3>why don't you have me listen to it and maybe
<v Speaker 3>I can give you my opinion on it. And Mutt
<v Speaker 3>Lang says Rick, when I want your opinion, I'll ask
<v Speaker 3>for it, at which point Rick lost his mind and
<v Speaker 3>took an entire set of drumsticks and chunked it at
<v Speaker 3>the recording studio window. Yes, yeah, he was not happy.
<v Speaker 3>Rick Allen got a little bit of a temper. I
<v Speaker 3>think he does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I won't say any
<v Speaker 3>more about that, but I could. I mean, I could
<v Speaker 3>see myself losing it in that scenario as well. Yes,
<v Speaker 3>I haven't played for months, you bring me back in
<v Speaker 3>then I'm sitting here waiting on you to do something
<v Speaker 3>that I'm the expert at, and when I offer my help,
<v Speaker 3>you say, essentially, why don't you go outside and play
<v Speaker 3>hide and go screw yourselfing.
<v Speaker 4>Go screeze?
<v Speaker 3>All right?
<v Speaker 4>So Pyramania is released January twentieth, nineteen eighty three. So
<v Speaker 4>the opening track of Pyramania is a song called Rock
<v Speaker 4>Rock Till You Drop.
<v Speaker 3>To Me.
<v Speaker 4>This is a great entry song, kickoff song, kind of
<v Speaker 4>like lay your Hands on.
<v Speaker 3>Me for a bunch of his new jersey.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's it's the song they played the beginning of
<v Speaker 4>the concert that's like, all right, everybody, let's go high energy,
<v Speaker 4>get fire, army.
<v Speaker 3>Well, you know, when I first started looking at these guys,
<v Speaker 3>I had heard some people say that back then, when
<v Speaker 3>they're first becoming famous, that they were just an ac
<v Speaker 3>DC knockoff fan, to which I thought, these guys don't
<v Speaker 3>sound anything like ACDC to me. Yeah, but that first
<v Speaker 3>song is definitely very ac DC esque in my opinion.
<v Speaker 4>So it is a little screechy like ACDC. Right, he's
<v Speaker 4>really leaning on his voice right there. So it's a
<v Speaker 4>great kickoff song to the album one all right, After
<v Speaker 4>Rock rocks. Here you drop, you get the first single,
<v Speaker 4>Photograph down Photograph Picture right.
<v Speaker 3>So that song that before listening to this album, like
<v Speaker 3>really for the first time, that I was definitely familiar with.
<v Speaker 4>Oh yeah, this is a song kind of about Marilyn
<v Speaker 4>Monroe if you ever watched the video.
<v Speaker 3>Well, let's just say that all of the songs on
<v Speaker 3>both of these albums are about sex, guns, and rock
<v Speaker 3>and roll, and the band's life is about sex, drugs,
<v Speaker 3>and rock and roll. So it's it's more sex, more drugs,
<v Speaker 3>more guns.
<v Speaker 4>Honestly, I think that's being generous because there's a lot
<v Speaker 4>of songs that are about nothing. They're literally about nothing.
<v Speaker 3>They were not looking to write deep and meaningful songs.
<v Speaker 3>What they wanted. Their goal was to write songs that
<v Speaker 3>were accessible to the general public. So they're not going
<v Speaker 3>to be quoting some j R. Or Tolkien novel in
<v Speaker 3>one of their songs like led Zeppelin. They're not going
<v Speaker 3>to be telling a story about the Bronx like Billy Joel.
<v Speaker 3>This is just what words fit with the melody that
<v Speaker 3>we have and will people be able to sing along
<v Speaker 3>with the song?
<v Speaker 4>So Photograph is very radio friendly. This is a song
<v Speaker 4>that I could listen to with my parents that first
<v Speaker 4>little I don't know, I don't know what you would call.
<v Speaker 4>What do you think about this? D you need to
<v Speaker 4>come in on this. This is their first little chirp
<v Speaker 4>at the beginning of this.
<v Speaker 3>Song, So I can't say for sure what that is.
<v Speaker 3>It almost sounds like the guitar being plugged into the amp.
<v Speaker 3>It has that kind of click on where the electricity
<v Speaker 3>hits and it's ging. But no, what I know about
<v Speaker 3>this album, it probably was something that was specifically designed
<v Speaker 3>by Mutt Lag. Yeah, I think you're right about it.
<v Speaker 3>And it sounded like it may even have been a
<v Speaker 3>backwards recording. I'm not entirely sure. I'm speculating completely on that.
<v Speaker 4>So this is the video. A lot of this is
<v Speaker 4>We're going to talk about the song, but the video
<v Speaker 4>is kind of wrapped up with it. This is the
<v Speaker 4>video Joe Elliott. They were still a little bit poor.
<v Speaker 4>This album hadn't broken yet. He was walking by a
<v Speaker 4>store window and he saw the Union Jack T shirt
<v Speaker 4>say it was six ninety nine, so he bod it
<v Speaker 4>was sleeveless Ward in this video. Yeah, and that has
<v Speaker 4>become like the Frankenstrat for Eddie van Halen.
<v Speaker 3>In America, everybody started buying the Union Jack's sleeveless T
<v Speaker 3>shirts in homage to def Leppard. So in eighty three
<v Speaker 3>and eighty four, this was number one on the US
<v Speaker 3>album Rock Tracks by Billboard. It was number twelve on
<v Speaker 3>the US Billboard Hot one hundred. It was number sixty
<v Speaker 3>eight on the UK Singles Chart and number thirty two
<v Speaker 3>on Canada fifty Singles.
<v Speaker 4>Photograph was a huge song and still a staple when
<v Speaker 4>they play it live. Pete Willis's guitars are still on Photograph,
<v Speaker 4>although Phil Collin actually plays the guitar Solough. It's kind
<v Speaker 4>of interesting this guy who is fired and the guy
<v Speaker 4>who replaced him both play on the same song.
<v Speaker 3>Right, and just as a credit to the band. Even
<v Speaker 3>though Pete Willis was, you know, fired midway through the
<v Speaker 3>production of this album, they still listed him on the album.
<v Speaker 3>He still got still gets royalties from the album. So
<v Speaker 3>I think that's the stand up thing to do, the
<v Speaker 3>right thing to do for him.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah for sure. Okay, before we move on from Photograph,
<v Speaker 4>I just want to say, as much as I love
<v Speaker 4>both of these albums, Photograph might be the best song
<v Speaker 4>on either album.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, I wouldn't agree with that statement. I mean, that's
<v Speaker 3>an obviously perspective statement. I like Photograph, all right, but
<v Speaker 3>there are even songs on this album just from listening
<v Speaker 3>to it for this podcast that I'm going to say
<v Speaker 3>I like better than Photograph.
<v Speaker 4>Wow. Okay, cool, let's get into it.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, all right.
<v Speaker 4>Next track, it's called Stage Cracks.
<v Speaker 3>Bill Prede is good. I really enjoyed listening to it.
<v Speaker 3>It wasn't one I think I had ever heard before,
<v Speaker 3>but it's got that kind of pumping guitar and then
<v Speaker 3>it when you go into the chorus of the song,
<v Speaker 3>get that the pop feeling. You know that it's not
<v Speaker 3>certainly it's still rock and roll, but it is more
<v Speaker 3>melodic and less hard hitting than your typical rock and
<v Speaker 3>roll song is going to be. At the time.
<v Speaker 4>You get a little bit of this age live feel.
<v Speaker 4>At the beginning of the show, even though it was
<v Speaker 4>recording studio.
<v Speaker 3>You get Joe Elliott hitting those high pitches that he
<v Speaker 3>was afraid to hit during his audition. He's letting them down.
<v Speaker 3>He really is still a good song.
<v Speaker 4>Not a skipper, but not one of the stronger tracks
<v Speaker 4>in the A Somewhere Distance. The track number four too
<v Speaker 4>late for love.
<v Speaker 3>Love It, Love It. When I was listening to this
<v Speaker 3>one front to back, when this song came on and
<v Speaker 3>they hit that chorus just a little bit into the
<v Speaker 3>song where they're all harmonizing together, answer, I was like,
<v Speaker 3>holy crap, this is good and this is what kind
<v Speaker 3>of defines def Leppard for me. Is this the harmonizing
<v Speaker 3>chorus that they do. It's spot on a million And
<v Speaker 3>obviously I've realized later on this because Lang has built
<v Speaker 3>it brick by brick, and I'm sure he had each
<v Speaker 3>guy singing about one hundred thousand times before he found
<v Speaker 3>the perfect one and then he stacked all those perfects
<v Speaker 3>together and it's it's breathtaking.
<v Speaker 4>This really is a great song. Yeah, it is a
<v Speaker 4>great song. It's so good.
<v Speaker 3>Yes.
<v Speaker 4>This was their fourth release. This was their fourth single.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah made it up to number nine on the mainstream
<v Speaker 4>rock charts.
<v Speaker 3>I can say that this one and Rock of Ages
<v Speaker 3>are neck and neck for me for being best song
<v Speaker 3>on the album.
<v Speaker 4>It's hard to argue with this song. I mean, it's
<v Speaker 4>it's so good. I would say that it builds in
<v Speaker 4>strength all the way through the guitar solo.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, so that introduction with the wind creates this atmosphere,
<v Speaker 3>and then you have this fantastic combination of just a
<v Speaker 3>guitar and Joe Elliott singing, and it's so good and
<v Speaker 3>it brings you in just before that awesome chorus. And
<v Speaker 3>I can remember listening to various songs as I grew
<v Speaker 3>up where they had little whispers that happened behind the scenes.
<v Speaker 3>You know that when you're listening in the rate on
<v Speaker 3>the radio. You don't hear it, but you get headphones
<v Speaker 3>locked in and there's there's this little part. I think
<v Speaker 3>it's in Babe, I'm Gonna leave you, but there's this little.
<v Speaker 4>Whisper of the lyric right before the lyric.
<v Speaker 3>And every time I heard it, it'd be like, what
<v Speaker 3>the crowd was that? Yeah, oh gosh, that's on my headphones. Okay,
<v Speaker 3>but you were saying that you listen to this.
<v Speaker 4>There's a I mean, you have to listen so carefully.
<v Speaker 4>But anytime I'm listening to this, especially when I've got
<v Speaker 4>turned up in my car, yeah, there's a little bitty
<v Speaker 4>baby that happens right before the second chorus. And it said,
<v Speaker 4>I keep there are lots of times I'll be in
<v Speaker 4>the car. I'm like, did my phone just ring this video.
<v Speaker 4>I read that Joe Elliott they filmed this after hanging
<v Speaker 4>out with meat Loaf and Nelton John having champagne. Nice
<v Speaker 4>kind of the benefits of being a rockstar.
<v Speaker 3>I think I recorded a video after having pain with
<v Speaker 3>meet Loaf and Elton John wants.
<v Speaker 4>Oh, so the nice Well we both love two Leyfelow. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>definitely one of the strangest tracks in the album for sure.
<v Speaker 4>All Right, So the next one after that, Diehard the Hunter.
<v Speaker 3>So Diehard the Hunter is very Pink Floyd to me
<v Speaker 3>when I hear it, you know, the you've got and
<v Speaker 3>it's it's very pre one by Metallica. Yeah, you know,
<v Speaker 3>because you've got the helicopter sounds and the sounds of
<v Speaker 3>war going on, you know, on the wall you've got
<v Speaker 3>helicopter and that one as well. And even but even
<v Speaker 3>the guitar as it comes in, you've got an acoustic
<v Speaker 3>I believe, I'm not sure. I believe it's a twelve
<v Speaker 3>string guitar playing and the melody that's played is very
<v Speaker 3>reminiscent of Pink Floyd. And you've get the gunshots, You've
<v Speaker 3>got this idea of war, and then you hear these
<v Speaker 3>kind of like laser shots, which you're like, well, is
<v Speaker 3>this helicopter or spaceship? What am I hearing here? But
<v Speaker 3>it's another solid track.
<v Speaker 4>Very very good. In fact, what you're describing, the exact
<v Speaker 4>thing that you're describing could describe God's of War on hysteria.
<v Speaker 4>You have sound effects. Now, Gods of War took it
<v Speaker 4>to the next level where you got Ronald Reagan talking
<v Speaker 4>to Margaret Thatcher and some other stuff. We'll talk about
<v Speaker 4>that one here in a little bit, but it's very similar.
<v Speaker 3>Right, I can say for sure, and I've even heard
<v Speaker 3>the band members say it. We're picking things that we
<v Speaker 3>like from other bands and we're taking those and making
<v Speaker 3>them our own.
<v Speaker 4>Oh for sure.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, if Edi van Halen can do it, anybody
<v Speaker 3>can do it, right. But I think that they've definitely
<v Speaker 3>taken some stuff. Pink Floyd, for example, made it their own,
<v Speaker 3>and I think that possibly Metallica took some of this
<v Speaker 3>one and made it some of their own well.
<v Speaker 4>As we have discussed, and we'll discuss further, the album
<v Speaker 4>Pyromania set in motion pop metal for the rest of
<v Speaker 4>the eighties into the nineties. I would argue that this
<v Speaker 4>is one of the most influential. This gave us hair metal.
<v Speaker 3>It really did. Yeah, it really brought a different type
<v Speaker 3>of rock in And you know, we talked about the
<v Speaker 3>fact that rock was disappearing, it was dying. So luckily
<v Speaker 3>we have in America, we have Van Halen. In Britain,
<v Speaker 3>we have def Leppard, who's coming to America where we
<v Speaker 3>also have MTV. It's perfect little pieces coming together. And
<v Speaker 3>to throw back to our original episode again, you have
<v Speaker 3>record producers that are an integral part of the sound
<v Speaker 3>of the band. You know, we talked about thriller than
<v Speaker 3>looking for the sonic sound. There's no question that Mutt
<v Speaker 3>Lang was trying to do the same thing for rock music.
<v Speaker 3>And what a perfect time to do it. When MTV
<v Speaker 3>is like, we want rock, we're tied at disco. We
<v Speaker 3>don't want to hear punk. We want some rock music
<v Speaker 3>and we want some cute boys and videos to go
<v Speaker 3>along with it. Enter def Leppard.
<v Speaker 4>You just say cute boys.
<v Speaker 3>And cute boys and videos. All right, everybody listen, I've
<v Speaker 3>got five kids. I am secure and saying there was
<v Speaker 3>a draw that this band had that not many others.
<v Speaker 3>That we're playing hard rock music hat and that's that's documentable,
<v Speaker 3>sixty percent of the audience in any given Death Leoppard
<v Speaker 3>concert is going to be women, and frequently hot women.
<v Speaker 4>That's right, and that was something new for rock music.
<v Speaker 4>While we're talking about.
<v Speaker 3>It as far as hard rock goes, Yeah, the predominant
<v Speaker 3>audience for hard rock at that time is going to
<v Speaker 3>be pimply faced guys with dark hair and torn up shirts.
<v Speaker 3>Right enter Death Leopard and suddenly the girls are like, Oh,
<v Speaker 3>I think I like hard rock too.
<v Speaker 4>It was such a great time for rock and roll
<v Speaker 4>there really.
<v Speaker 3>Was, yeah, especially for the guy.
<v Speaker 4>All Right, everybody hit stop on your tape player, kick
<v Speaker 4>it out, flip it over side to.
<v Speaker 3>Side too, or flip over the LP if you will.
<v Speaker 4>That's flip the LP there. All right. So now we're
<v Speaker 4>on to the third single released, which is called Foolin'
<v Speaker 4>love It. Let's listen to it, the stuttering song.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the foolin is a hook. Okay. So this is,
<v Speaker 3>as Jason would describe it, a summer drive in, top down,
<v Speaker 3>windows down, radio turned up. This song comes on the radio.
<v Speaker 3>You are cranking this thing up and letting the wind
<v Speaker 3>blow in your hair, absolutely and you're singing along folen
<v Speaker 3>So as cool as this song is, and I mean you,
<v Speaker 3>this is such as you would describe it a radio
<v Speaker 3>friendly song. This is a song that you're gonna latch onto.
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't matter whether you're into rock and roll or
<v Speaker 3>disco or punk. You hear this and you're like, this
<v Speaker 3>is a good freaking song. And then the miid the
<v Speaker 3>video and I don't know, this is like the perfect
<v Speaker 3>example of the nonsense videos that we would see on
<v Speaker 3>MTV from time to time. Somebody, some at some point said,
<v Speaker 3>why don't we start the video with a girl in
<v Speaker 3>a mask playing the harp who's on fire?
<v Speaker 4>What a great idea. What I love it?
<v Speaker 1>I love it.
<v Speaker 4>Tell me what.
<v Speaker 3>Let's chain Joe Elliott down like he's Frankenstein and we'll
<v Speaker 3>angle him backwards so we're getting a full view of
<v Speaker 3>his crotch as the camera.
<v Speaker 4>Comes in, and his massive white pants.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, his pants that are way too high. He's got
<v Speaker 3>mom jeans on her. And then just in the middle,
<v Speaker 3>we're going to have this really creepy lady look at
<v Speaker 3>the moon as if it is a crystal ball. That
<v Speaker 3>sounds fantastic. We are willing to spend our money on
<v Speaker 3>that video. Yeah, for sure.
<v Speaker 4>The videos at this time were a little bit strange.
<v Speaker 4>I mean even photograph. You have all those girls that
<v Speaker 4>are in the cages. You know, Oh my gosh, Joe
<v Speaker 4>does that giant split jump and right into the camera.
<v Speaker 4>But it was cool at the time, and we ate
<v Speaker 4>it up and I don't know, and reached number nine
<v Speaker 4>on the mainstream Rock chart and number twenty eight on
<v Speaker 4>the Hot one. So it was a It was a
<v Speaker 4>big hit from Yeah and rightly so next is Waving
<v Speaker 4>Lapping Glow.
<v Speaker 3>All Rock of Ages. Yeah, again, brilliant, brilliant photograph and
<v Speaker 3>Rock of Ages brought this album into the public eye
<v Speaker 3>for sure. And just to you know, a little history
<v Speaker 3>on this song. You know, we talked about they had
<v Speaker 3>no songs written when they started recording Pyromania, and they
<v Speaker 3>had this one they had all melodied out, but still
<v Speaker 3>didn't have the chorus to it. They were just like
<v Speaker 3>da da du, I mean, that was it. They just had.
<v Speaker 3>They were just scatting whatever they did. They're in Mutlang's
<v Speaker 3>recording studio one day they come in the day before
<v Speaker 3>another band has been in there, and maybe they were
<v Speaker 3>recording some hymns, because there happens to be a hymnal
<v Speaker 3>and it's propped open to the song Rock of Ages,
<v Speaker 3>the hymn Rock of Ages, the Rock of Ages, the
<v Speaker 3>one you sing in church. Yes, And so Joe Elliott
<v Speaker 3>sees this book lying there and just sings it.
<v Speaker 4>Lane says, that's it. That's it, that's what we've been
<v Speaker 4>looking for.
<v Speaker 3>My golly, that was right. I mean, what a perfect chorus.
<v Speaker 4>Oh, it's so good. I don't know if you know
<v Speaker 4>this or not. I mean, we can talk about this later.
<v Speaker 4>But it is better to burn out than fade away?
<v Speaker 3>Oh my gosh, how many people.
<v Speaker 4>Have said that really Highlander? Right, that scene in Highlander
<v Speaker 4>when he's like, ra better than burnout than to fade away?
<v Speaker 3>Right, And I'm pretty sure that he got it from
<v Speaker 3>Neil Young as opposed to def Leppard. But you know whatever,
<v Speaker 3>And okay, Pearl Jam does it too. You know, hey,
<v Speaker 3>it's it is timeless.
<v Speaker 4>Okay. So Rock of Ages did really well. It reached
<v Speaker 4>number sixteen on the Hot one hundred and number one
<v Speaker 4>on the Top Rocks chart.
<v Speaker 3>Okay. So Phil Collen is a phenomenal guitar player, there's
<v Speaker 3>just no question about. He is technically proficient, really good.
<v Speaker 3>But def Leppard doesn't have a lot of those timeless
<v Speaker 3>guitar solos. It really doesn't have any except for the
<v Speaker 3>song Rock of Ages has a really great and it's
<v Speaker 3>not long, but it's very memorable little guitar solo by
<v Speaker 3>Phil Collin in there. But he's brilliant. He does what
<v Speaker 3>needs to be done. I mean, all of the rock
<v Speaker 3>music that was coming out had these big solos in it,
<v Speaker 3>and everybody was trying to be Eddie van Halen or
<v Speaker 3>you know, trying to recreate the Leonard Skinner and Field.
<v Speaker 3>But this is the one song that you can go, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I know that, I know that guitar solo. That's a
<v Speaker 3>deaf lever guitar solo.
<v Speaker 4>One of the things that we need to talk about.
<v Speaker 4>We really haven't covered this, the very very famous intro
<v Speaker 4>the unto gleban glopin Glowman. Right, what does that mean?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it doesn't mean anything.
<v Speaker 4>It doesn't mean anything, right, And so in the studio
<v Speaker 4>there would you know, Mutt Lane would just beat him
<v Speaker 4>to death and there's this grind.
<v Speaker 3>But occasionally he would do some levity. Yes, he'd break
<v Speaker 3>it up and be funny from time to time.
<v Speaker 4>That's how he would sort of crack him up before
<v Speaker 4>the song started.
<v Speaker 3>Instead of saying one, two, three, four, he said un leader.
<v Speaker 4>Glob and globin and the rest is the rest is history.
<v Speaker 4>I mean it's rock music, you know.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, absolutely so we can't let this one go without
<v Speaker 3>talking about the video once again, early eighties videos. Before
<v Speaker 3>he even starts singing, you've got monks, You've got an owl,
<v Speaker 3>You've got a woman playing chess with a wizard. You
<v Speaker 3>have a tree on fire, and you have Phil Cullens butt.
<v Speaker 3>And let's not forget the smashing goblet and the giant
<v Speaker 3>lightsaber that somehow turns into an electric guitar.
<v Speaker 4>Joe Elliott is swinging a nine foot lightsaber.
<v Speaker 3>I wonder if there's some sort of analogy that they're
<v Speaker 3>trying to do euphemism, maybe.
<v Speaker 4>Very phallic sword in this Oh. I love this song
<v Speaker 4>from the minute I heard it for the first time
<v Speaker 4>off Pyramania. I love the burning sound effects and the
<v Speaker 4>idea of setting fire to stuff that was really cool.
<v Speaker 4>All right, we're done with Rock of Ages.
<v Speaker 3>I think we're done with Rock of Ages. That leaves
<v Speaker 3>just a couple of songs left on the album.
<v Speaker 4>And they're not bad songs, No, I think they're all good.
<v Speaker 4>I think Coming under Fire is the next one. It
<v Speaker 4>gets radio play now. It wasn't released as a single,
<v Speaker 4>but I've heard it on radio a lot. The chorus
<v Speaker 4>is really good. Yeah, that's a good song.
<v Speaker 3>Solid, it's absolutely solid. Just not one of their biggest hits.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so Coming under Fire not a big hit, but
<v Speaker 4>a good song. Next one, next to last track is
<v Speaker 4>Action not Work.
<v Speaker 3>I wonder what that song about.
<v Speaker 4>If you listen to the words, it's about making a movie.
<v Speaker 3>Right, except it's what kind of movie are we talking
<v Speaker 3>about here? Action? Yeah? I actually need any dialogue.
<v Speaker 4>You be the hero. I'll be the star.
<v Speaker 3>Again. I go back to all of this is sex,
<v Speaker 3>guns and rock and roll. Baby.
<v Speaker 4>Let me tell you a quick story about this song.
<v Speaker 4>Actually not worse.
<v Speaker 3>Okay.
<v Speaker 4>I'm gonna give a quick shout out to my good
<v Speaker 4>buddy Scott Foster.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, hey Scott, he.
<v Speaker 4>Stayed up late with me. I had a project in
<v Speaker 4>college where we had to make a short film about
<v Speaker 4>anything we wanted. It was basically a get to know
<v Speaker 4>your camera, get to know the editing equipment, and so
<v Speaker 4>I went around town filming my girlfriend, my friends, the
<v Speaker 4>football stadium, ducks, what cars, whatever I could find, and
<v Speaker 4>I pieced it together to this song, and it basically
<v Speaker 4>the song. You know, it's about making a movie. So
<v Speaker 4>I made a movie to a song about making a movie,
<v Speaker 4>and we stayed up all night, and I think it's
<v Speaker 4>it turned out. Okay. I got an a on the project,
<v Speaker 4>got a Yeah, that's all right, that's awesome, that's good.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. The euphemism here is about as subtle as Pearl
<v Speaker 3>Necklace by Zeezy Top.
<v Speaker 4>In Black and Blue by Dan Haley. Yeah, yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 4>Well I like the song. I listened to it when
<v Speaker 4>it comes on, I turn it upright.
<v Speaker 3>And then we round out finish up the album with
<v Speaker 3>Billy's got a Gun Again. It's a solid song. It's
<v Speaker 3>not good. Yeah, a guy coming home from war guns again.
<v Speaker 3>It's a bit long for my taste. This was nearly
<v Speaker 3>six minutes long, and I think they could probably tidy
<v Speaker 3>that up a bit. But that's probably my my sole
<v Speaker 3>criticism of the songs on this album.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's on the lower end of the album. I think, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it's good, it's solid, but it's not a not one
<v Speaker 4>I'm gonna crank upright right.
<v Speaker 3>So, after months and months of recording, they finally piece
<v Speaker 3>it all together brick by brick under Mutt Lang's onerous
<v Speaker 3>tutelage and what comes out is a fantastic album, and
<v Speaker 3>it proceeds to do exceptionally well.
<v Speaker 4>Six million copies in the US and sold one hundred
<v Speaker 4>thousand copies every week from its release through nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 3>So this album as a whole is so good. It
<v Speaker 3>was only topped by Thriller, the best selling album of
<v Speaker 3>all time. This Pyromania album spent six months in the
<v Speaker 3>number two position while Thriller retained its title. It's truly,
<v Speaker 3>it's an amazing thing.
<v Speaker 4>Number two when Thriller is dominating the charts is no
<v Speaker 4>laughing matter.
<v Speaker 3>No, I mean, just short of Thriller, this is the
<v Speaker 3>number one album of the early to mid eighties.
<v Speaker 4>This album ramps up pop metal for the rest of
<v Speaker 4>the decade.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, you talk about a band that defines the
<v Speaker 3>sound of rock music in the eighties. Right. We've talked
<v Speaker 3>about Van Halen and how influential they were. This band
<v Speaker 3>is in that same category. They are as much an
<v Speaker 3>influence on all of the other bands. And when I
<v Speaker 3>say influence, I mean other bands are coming along and
<v Speaker 3>stealing their stuff. You listen to Rat and you go, oh, hey,
<v Speaker 3>there's an American version of def Leppard, except they only
<v Speaker 3>have one good song instead of a whole album.
<v Speaker 4>Work right, Hey listen. I don't really know, but nineteen
<v Speaker 4>eighty four came out after Pyromania. I mean maybe Eddie
<v Speaker 4>saw their success and thought, hey, I could do that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Well, I mean we know that that album was
<v Speaker 3>more produced, I mean rock albums until this album came out,
<v Speaker 3>where bands getting together and playing some songs and just
<v Speaker 3>another side note while they're recording this album, and Joe
<v Speaker 3>Elliott broke down several times, lost his voice severely for
<v Speaker 3>a time in this one, which would in tears say
<v Speaker 3>to Mutt Lang, I can't do it again. He goes,
<v Speaker 3>it's not good enough. Yet you have to do it again,
<v Speaker 3>he said, I can't do it any better. He says,
<v Speaker 3>you have to. So Joe Elliott leaves the studio, walks
<v Speaker 3>to the next door studio where who happens to be
<v Speaker 3>recording right, and David Coverdale, who has perfect pitch, comes
<v Speaker 3>in records a song in one take, four minutes. Poor
<v Speaker 3>Joe Elliott has been reduced to tears because he's been
<v Speaker 3>spending months trying to get the perfect sound for this
<v Speaker 3>task Master, and David Coverdale comes in and probably smoked
<v Speaker 3>a cigarette before it started singing. Right, it's all worth
<v Speaker 3>the Joe wasn't It was all worth it?
<v Speaker 4>And I do think that. I mean, David Coverdale has
<v Speaker 4>a better, stronger rock voice, but I think Mutt Lange
<v Speaker 4>gets the most out of joy life.
<v Speaker 3>Oh absolutely, yeah.
<v Speaker 4>So and I could listen to Joe sing all day long. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>all right, So that takes care of pyramaning.
<v Speaker 3>Right. The album becomes a huge success. They ultimately sell
<v Speaker 3>ten million copies of the album. They're writing high, they're
<v Speaker 3>doing well, and their videos are doing well. They're getting
<v Speaker 3>lots of play on MTV, and they say, okay, let's
<v Speaker 3>now get together. We're going to make another album, and
<v Speaker 3>of course they enlist Muttlang to help them out again.
<v Speaker 4>All right. So this is where it gets really interesting.
<v Speaker 3>So the band is at the peak of a success,
<v Speaker 3>it says we got to do another album, and then
<v Speaker 3>Mutt Lang can't do it.
<v Speaker 4>Anymore, and then some real tragedy.
<v Speaker 3>Real tragedy. Yeah, it's really questionable how this album truly
<v Speaker 3>got made. But you're gonna have to wait to find
<v Speaker 3>out about those stories on our next episode, where we'll
<v Speaker 3>talk about Hysteria.
<v Speaker 4>True Hysteria.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, true hysteria. That's that's solid. It's interesting that both
<v Speaker 3>of these, both of these albums have a psychological component
<v Speaker 3>to the title, because having to go with this band
<v Speaker 3>went through I could I could see being a little
<v Speaker 3>bit off.
<v Speaker 4>I can't wait to get into the next when we
<v Speaker 4>talk about Hysteria, one of the defining albums in the
<v Speaker 4>nineteen eighties. Yeah, it's gonna be incredible. Hope you come
<v Speaker 4>back and join us next week.
<v Speaker 3>Come back and join us next week. As is not
<v Speaker 3>a choice. You are hereby ordered by us to come
<v Speaker 3>back and listen in as we talk about Hysteria and
<v Speaker 3>then give you our final judgment on which of these
<v Speaker 3>two albums is the best def flippard album.
<v Speaker 4>Thing.
<v Speaker 3>All music images and movie clips are used for the
<v Speaker 3>purposes of commentary and education in conjunction with the Fair
<v Speaker 3>Use agreement under the US copyright law.