Phil Collen recalls playing 1983 soccer game in Allentown
Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen says the band's new self-titled album is one of the most important of its career.
After a more than seven-year drought since 2008's "Songs from the Sparkle Lounge," Def Leppard released the album in October and, even without doing a tour in the United States to promote it, saw it hit the Top 10.
That was its second-highest chart position in nearly 25 years, since its triple-platinum disc "Adrenalize."
But it was the reason for doing the album that made it special, Collen says.
"It's more important than a lot of the other ones, because why we recorded 'Def Leppard' was … really to do with us," Collen says in a phone call from a Starbucks in Long Beach, Calif., where he lives. "It wasn't a business agenda; we didn't even know what label it was going to come out on.
"We didn't really have to make a record. In this day and age, albums don't really mean anything. … You don't really need to buy physical albums anymore. But we still felt it necessary to write and record our art. You know, we actually wanted to share that. So it was really done for the pure, right artistic reasons."
Def Leppard likely will play songs from the new disc at its show Tuesday, May 17 with Tesla and REO Speedwagon at Allentown's PPL Center.
Collen says Def Leppard's 1983 album "Pyromania" was a breakthrough album, "crossing over big time," and its 1987 disc "Hysteria" did for the band what "Thriller" did for Michael Jackson. "Hysteria" sold 12 million copies, placing it among the Top 60 best-selling albums of all time.
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