Def Leppard

Def Leppard is a hard rock band formed in the late 70's from Sheffield, England.  The band began with 3 school buddies forming a band called Atomic Mass.  Pete Willis who happened to meet Joe Elliot gave Elliot an audition for the band on guitar.  He passed the audition, but not on guitar, but as a vocalist.  The foursome decided that they wanted to add an extra guitarist, and the man to share guitar duties was Steve Clark, who joined the band in early 1978.  At this time the band was titled Deaf Leopard, however the drummer at the time, Tony Kenning thought it would be cooler and more "Led Zeppelin like" to change the spelling to Def Leppard.  The band was ready to record a small three track EP and right before it, Tony decided to split, so fill in drummer Frank Noon played the drums.  Noon would leave the group after the recording and his replacement would be 15 year old Rick Allen, who would become the permanent drummer.  The word was out on their self titled EP and the band was able to land a record deal.  Their first album was a hard fast pace rocker that did okay, but most importantly it drew the attention on producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, who would then record their next few albums.  The albums produced by Lange would be their most popular albums of their career.  Their third album, Pyromania was a huge success and then tragedy struck the band.  Drummer Rick Allen was driving his Corvette and flew off the road causing him to lose his arm.  Allen and the band were devastated, but Allen was determined to stay with the band.  Allen worked close with Simmons, an electric drum kit maker, and made a custom set that allowed him to use foot pedals for his snare drum, and other Tom-Toms.  This changed the sound of the band somewhat, but the result would be the bands biggest selling album.  After Hysteria was released guitarist Steve Clark was in and out of rehab.  The band forced him to take an absence because his work in the studio was sub-par.  Steve would never play with the band again as tragedy once again struck when Steve died from a mix of prescription drugs and alcohol over dose in 1991.  The band would never achieve the fame they once had.  They would score with a decent album here and there and change their familiar sound.  A couple of their albums were very poppy and they did an entire album of cover songs.  Surprisingly enough the band is still together with the same lineup they've had since 1992.  Their most recent album was released in April of 2008.

On through the night - 1980     High 'n' dry - 1981     Pyromania - 1983     Hysteria - 1987

Adrenalize - 1992     Retro active - 1993     Slang - 1996     Euphoria - 1999     X - 2002

Yeah! - 2006     Songs from the sparkle lounge - 2008     Ideal compilation - SG

 Scott's Music Library