Ricky Allen is 23 years old, he’s the most mild-mannered person on planet earth, and he looks like a cherub. "I joined Def Leppard on my 15th birthday!" chirrups Rick breezily. "My Mum and Dad told me to leave school because I was never going to get another opportunity like this. So I did. I didn’t care if I couldn’t count!" Indeed he did not. He only cared to be the drummer in Def Leppard which is probably why he wasn’t about to fling it all away when he lost his left arm two and a half years ago.
"There was never really any doubt that I wouldn’t be in the band again - and the guys said ‘If there’s a way you can do it, you’ll still do it’ but all they were really concerned about was that I was still alive. Within three and a half weeks I was out of hospital and within two weeks of that I was back working with them - just singing at first. But at least I was there. Obviously there was a time when I felt really sorry for myself, but there was no point, you know?"
"I got nearly half a million letters from all over the world - letters, cuddly toys...unbelievable. I mean, I always just thought of myself as the drummer with the band. I got all these bizarre letters from all these one-armed drummers! So I just thought, well, if they can do it I certainly can!"
And so he can - with his electronic spook-kit.
"I never thought about still using an acoustic drum-kit for one second. People have tried it using two sticks in the one hand...oh no, can you imagine it? So what I have is a combination of electronic pads which I play with my right arm and foot-pedals which play pretty much what I played with my left arm. There are some things I can do which, to a normal drummer, would be physically impossible - so it has it’s advantages believe it or not! The band think I play even better now. I don’t think so really - but it’s nice of them to say so. I know it sounds so corny but we really are just like a family. I think, for all of us, that things are better now than they’ve ever been. We take it all a lot more light-heartedly now, too. But we still want to be legendary! We want to get on the cover of the rock history book! How’s that for a cliché?"
"It’s strange. I sometimes think of when I used to go up and see my career officer. And I’d be sitting there twiddling my thumbs...I had a couple of thumbs then, heh heh, and he’d say ‘Well. What are you going to do then?’ ‘I’m going to play drums in a rock band!’ ‘Oh right, Ricky...’ and he’d pat me on the top of my head. But now I know that playing drums for Def Leppard has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m not about to forget that."
