Def Leppard's "Pyromania" (1983)

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