Behind a gate, at the end of a tree-shaded drive, a sprawling Mediterranean ranch-style house is set around a circular driveway with a fountain in the center of it. The garage is open when I drive up, and Rick Allen emerges from behind a pile of boxes. He's in the midst of cleaning out some unwanted junk with stepdad Jim, but pauses to greet me and welcome me into the house, before returning outside to finish his chores.
Meanwhile, I go down a hallway to find Stacy Allen and the newest member of the family, four-month old Lauren, an adorable blue-eyed, strawberry-blonde blend of her parents. I spend a while with mom and daughter, meet Rick's mom Kath, in from Sheffield with her husband for a visit, and get a tour of the house until Rick emerges and escorts me to his studio- a formal living room now fitted with a double-thick door and filled with musical equipment. I pull up a chair and Rick plays me snippets of some demos that he and his bandmates worked on during a material-sharing session this summer including part of a midtempo rocker called "Telephone," and a pretty, acoustic ballad of Phil Collen's called "Spanish Sky."
"This was our first meeting. Some of these will fall by the wayside," Rick says, stressing the preliminary nature of the material, and noting that the band was due to reconvene in Dublin in a few weeks at Joe Elliott's house or at Bow Lane, where some of the Slang rough mixes were done. Whether the new music will be in a similar style to that album or not has yet to be determined. "It's kind of up in the air," the drummer notes, allowing that numerous things have yet to be figured out, including whether or not to hire a producer - or as he puts it, "a referee. I think we need somebody that has a concept of a deadline, which we don't," admits Rick, noting that most producers are usually good songwriters- like Mutt Lange, who "spoiled" them - good engineers but not good musicians, or all-around talents of the likes of Trevor Horn, "but I don't think we could afford him."
Financial considerations loom larger these days, with Slang's gold sales paling in comparison to mega-million sellers like Pyromania, Hysteria, and Adrenalize. The record, though critically well-received, may have been too much of a departure from the kind of big chorus, big harmony, melodic hard rock tunes and ballads that fans expected from Def Leppard. "At a certain point, everybody needs to get away from the same formula and that's what we were trying to do...something that we thought was relevant to us, really exciting for us and at the same time kind of moved on a little bit with the times," Rick explains; that the band's "popularity sort of went down" and Slang didn't live up to past success, "some people are a little disillusioned," himself, "somewhat" so. "We were fortunate that we had a really good run," he notes, but to be facing a sort of sophomore slump at this late stage is discouraging and frustrating. "Now we've got to go into a rehearsal room and come up with and capture some of the same magic, and it's really tough."
So tough that, Rick lets a bombshell slip: "We're not even sure if the band exists anymore." Stunned, I ask him to explain. "Well, I mean, there's been times when we've sat there and said 'What the fuck are we doing?' You know? It's the idea of putting so much effort into a project and then at the end of it kinda getting a lukewarm response, you know?" I'm reassured when he adds that there's no intra-band warfare and that there's "absolutely" a mutual desire to work together, but there is a definite resentment toward being pigeonholed in one genre.
Rick offers U2 as an example of a band that has "always had this knack of being able to play what the enjoy playing, and being able to move forward and re-invent themselves. It's admirable to be able to do that. Maybe we're just not cut out to be able to do that. Or maybe the audience that listens to us wants us to stay the same." He acknowledges that to some fans Slang may have gone too far, but stresses that Def Leppard "wouldn't be being true to ourselves" if they weren't making music that they wanted to make. "And then it's just like you're selling your soul, you know?" While some branded the band as sell-outs because of Slang's style, in reality, not doing what they felt in their hearts would have been the greater betrayal, Rick believes.
But the future may nevertheless incorporate more of the past. Looking back, he analyzes, "Every album is gonna be important in many different ways. I think Slang was important to be independent and to do something that we thought was good. Maybe now that we've got an album like that out of systems, it's kinda good to get back to our roots a little bit. It's really just a huge guessing game anyway, he adds. "It'll just evolve I'm sure."
Might we see a new record in '98 and a tour in time for summer? "That the idyllic sort of situation, but things just don't work that way with us. There is no plan," says Rick, knowing it's wiser not to try to have one.
Meanwhile, "I'm just as excited about staying here and working alone on my own," he notes. He's been experimenting with electronics, and working on some drum and bass stuff with collaborator Frank Gutierrez, and likens some of it to the Chemical Brothers. "It's just a different way of working, less structured. When you're working as a band you're constantly thinking about how it should go for the band, and you have some sort of discipline," he compares, joking that he motivates himself to get to work, he laughs, "when Lauren and Stacy let me."
Becoming a father has had a profound effect on him. "The thing that I've noticed more than anything is the amount I start reflecting on my own life and thinking about being some sort of good example and sometimes it's really harsh. You can be really harsh on yourself because you start thinking about the mistakes you've made and things you should have known better to do," he says. "When we brought her back here, time stood still. It was like whatever happened outside the gate, outside of me sitting in front of her or the three of us as a family together or whatever, it absolutely doesn't matter. She just smiles and it's like wow, that's what it's all about. I think it's the most incredible thing, and really liberating in a way. It's totally a miracle."
Rick has been "knocking around" an idea for a song for Lauren, and sings lullabies to her. "It probably sounds bloody awful but she thinks it sounds good," he laughs. She sat with him when the band worked in his studio, and she was attentive: "She's interested in anything that makes sound. She loves pounding on the piano with her feet." A budding drummer? Perhaps, but dad takes second place in the idol department right now: "I'm being upstaged by Barney at the moment," he says. "I think I'm going to dye my hair purple and have my upper teeth widened," he laughs.
Rick already went through a bit of a physical change, acquiring a "sympathy belly" as a result of eating for two right along with Stacy while she was pregnant. "I've got a few stretch marks now," he laughs, noting that he avoids the equipment-filled exercise room "like the plague." He's found a good excuse for the spare tire, however: "It's like wearing a Velcro suit when I'm holding Lauren. It's like a shelf. All I need is a flat edge so I can stand my coffee on it in the morning," he grins.
And with that, I leave him to his music, his family and his still-messy garage.