THE MUSIC INDUSTRY MAY BE struggling with falling CD sales and illegal downloading but it seems rock never dies. Metallica play a huge gig at London's O2 arena this month, Rage Against the Machine headlined the Reading Festival in August, and Def Leppard are currently touring arenas in Australia. All three bands recently won Kerrang! awards, even though they must now be older than the parents of the heavy metal magazine's average reader.
Perhaps the most deserving winners were Def Leppard, a British institution, who took the "classic songwriter" prize. "It's one of those awards they give to bands that have been around for a while," singer Joe Elliott told me down the phone from a tou
r of the US. Does he think Leppard – who have lasted over 30 years and sold millions of albums – get the respect they deserve? "Humbly, I say no. The Maidens, the Leppards, the Bon Jovis of this world are the redheaded stepsister who's locked under the stairs."
He almost chokes when I ask if Leppard have ever won a Brit award. "We performed there once, but we should have won," the Yorkshireman grumbles (they lost out to Erasure). "But we didn't harbour a grudge. I'd rather have a lot of fans than a lot of awards."
Their current tour is a return to the 1980s. Billy Idol is on the road with the Sheffield band now ("it's great, we had a bit of a pool party the other night"). Leppard's set list includes some vintage headbanging-anthems, including Animal, Rocket and Love Bites. "That's what makes the live thing so exciting," says Elliott. "People come to connect with their youth – you see a lot of our diehards in their thirties and forties bringing their kids."
Elliott, 49, says hedonism on the road is "just long gone, all the energy goes into the show". He adds: "You don't see the Amy Winehouse factor anywhere with what we do. In fact, if I did some of the stuff she does, it wouldn't even make the papers."
Still, Def Leppard have acquired some showbiz fans. US country star Tim McGraw asked if he could sing on their new album and it turns out that the former Mr Angelina Jolie is also an admirer. "We went out bowling with Billy Bob Thornton and his band in Michigan," says Elliott. "He says he's first and foremost a musician who got into acting by accident. We just took the piss out of each other's bowling incapability."
Def Leppard's new album, Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, made the Top 10 in the UK and US, and Elliott says the video game Guitar Hero means they can reach young metal fans even if radio won't play their songs. Leppard must also be one of the few bands who have been together for three decades and "still share a dressing room and a laugh and a joke".
The singer acknowledges that he doesn't ever have to work again, but insists he's earned every penny. "To sell the kind of records we've sold, you can't put it down to fluke," Elliott says. "It's not like we're a one-hit wonder."
The full article contains 529 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
