Def Leppard talk wild tours, guitar playing style and coping with Hysteria
A candid conversation with Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell.
Last year, Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Black Star Riders set out on an arena-filling joint tour. Guitarist joins Phil Collen and Viv Campbell backstage to hear about the band’s comeback album, the rules of Leppard riffing and the wild old days.
Def Leppard don’t do things by halves. It’s 16 December, and Guitarist is stood in the cavernous expanses of the Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, waiting for soundcheck, drinking in the scene. Speaker stacks dangle like forest fruits.
An army of roadies scurry between the spotlights like escapees from Colditz. A mile-wide plasma screen beyond the stage plays a slideshow of the band at their all-conquering 80s peak: young, topless, straw-haired rockers who can’t quite believe their luck.
Suddenly, the Leppard line-up is on stage, ripping into comeback single, Let’s Go, with a rabble-rousing abandon that belies the fact the venue is almost entirely empty. As Phil Collen and Viv Campbell strut out onto the stage’s ego-ramp to trade white-hot solos, it’s clear that almost four decades after their formation in Sheffield, they can still command a stadium like few others.
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