"I'm in the hills of Malibu. My closest neighbor is a coyote (laughs). It's pretty remote but it's nice. I like being up here. I'm far enough from so-called civilization to feel like I get some privacy, but not too far away where I can't go into town, just check out what's going on, for shows or concerts or whatever."
Ah yes, to be a rock star. That is the fate of Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen, who is getting set to tour the band's shockingly poppy new album X, a record that has tongues wagging as to the lack of teeth this time 'round.
The burning question went something like this (although the answer didn't burn quite as much as I would have liked): Looking at this new album, are there closet metalheads in the camp that wanted it to be heavier, or did you all agree to this direction immediately?
"I think songs like Cry and Scar hearken back to almost things like Pyromania or some of the heavier songs on Hysteria," deftly side-steps Rick. "So, I think there are always going to be people in the camp that want to go that way because some of our roots are firmly in rock. But I guess a lot of us spent a lot of time listening to Queen, so that as a vocal element, always kind of smooth things out somewhat."
"I think X sounds more like sort of a classic Def Leppard record, with somewhat of a contemporary sort of sound to it," answers Rick, when asked to contrast the album with Euphoria, which went gold in the U.S. "It's really the record we've been wanting to make for a long time. And I think the only way we really knew how was to do what we know how to do best. And just all the different producers that we brought in, it gave it more of a commercial sort of appeal. I loved working with Marti Frederiksen. He really set the tone for the whole record. Fortunately and unfortunately he's a great drummer, so he really kind of put me through my paces. He really wanted to do all the drums, for the three songs we did with him, using acoustics, which was great for me, because I never really put my acoustic drums down. That's where I first learned and it's really in my DNA. So just the idea that we went in there and put down all the drum parts and then we went back and did all the cymbal parts and then welded the two things together which was very interesting for me. It was a challenge, but ultimately, just the energy that you feel and hear with the rhythm section was a really good thing. I love the song Now, just because of its energy. It conjures up a lot of what Def Leppard is about. It's not necessarily the most commercial song on the album, but I think in terms of the sound of it, it really conjures up what we're all about. And the other song that I just love, and I think most people would probably agree with me, is a song called Long Long Way To Go, which is just a beautifully written love song."
On the subject of his drumming, I asked Rick that, given the loss of his left arm in a car accident in the mid-'80s, if that has resulted in greater than normal independence in his legs.
"Yeah, I can do that to a certain degree," answers Rick. "Obviously, it's a constant learning curve. I'm learning new things about what I can do, sort of, every time I sit behind the drum kit. But things kind of developed on their own, whether that's sort of a natural progression whenever you lose the use of a limb, or in my case, you actually lose a limb. I think there's sort of a natural element that allows you to do that. Your brain kind of rewires you in a certain way. So there are things that I couldn't necessarily do before. Maybe I didn't even think about doing them before. But somehow my brain sort of rewired to the degree where I have enough independence from each limb, where I could really play things that I couldn't play before."
Have you done anything technology-wise to pump up your kit in the last five years?
"Other than new samplers... actually there are a couple of things. Jerry, the guy who works with me, he developed some pedals, because we could never really find pedals that were reliable enough. So he went out to the hardware store one day, came back one day with a bunch of angle iron, and put these things together, and they work better than anything I've used. So I guess he just had a sense of what I needed and how I play and made them right. And then Randy Hargis at Akai, he's been great. Every time there's new equipment that's available, he's really forthcoming, 'Try this out, try that out,' so now I'm using the new Z8 samplers by Akai. I think really it's more of a sound quality thing. If anything, we've tried to simplify the electronics as much as we can. I mean, really, it's as basic as we can get it."
"Originally the plan was North America first," explains Allen on the band's tour plans. "Things have changed somewhat. I know we're going to be in Japan in November and I would like to think that January would be a good bet for America. For now, it's really just promotional things; we've got a show in Pennsylvania and a show in Boston and another show in New York. I leave here on the 17th of this month and then we rehearse 18th, 19th, and then we have the shows just after that."
Any one-off recordings or perhaps placement of any the X songs on soundtracks?
"Actually, it just so happens that myself, Phil and Viv, we're going in to meet with the film and TV department today, at our label. We were very fortunate to meet up with some really good people when we had the release party here, and they said any time you guys want to come in and discuss other places we can put the songs, then please do. So I took the opportunity to call up and we're going to go in and meet them today. That'll be fun."
It's surprising that still, after 22 years, there has not been a Def Leppard live album. If Allen's comments are a true indication of the band's machinations, don't hold your breath. "There are so many recordings out there, so many bootlegs," muses Rick. "There are 500 or more downloads you can get online these days. We never... I don't know, we were never really big live album fans. There's something that's kind of lost a little bit in the translation. I think if somebody is there at the concert, and they really want a live tape of that particular show, then, to them, it's probably different because they can take in the whole spectacle. But to listen to a live album cold, I don't know, there's an X factor; it misses something. No, nobody really ever made major noises about a live album. And like I say, we did the Don Valley thing, which was in our hometown, and I guess if you get that, you can turn the TV off and leave the sound on kind of thing (laughs). And that's pretty much as we sound live; that was pretty much as it is."
And in terms of gathering up the wealth of cool unreleased material still out there, will we perhaps see another Retroactive-type release some day? "I'm sure we're due for one, and Joe, he's always... you know, he collects everything. So I'm sure there's stuff that I don't even know about, or that I've forgotten about, that will surface at some point. But like I say, I think we're probably due for a Retroactive now just to clear out the vault."
Box set perhaps? "I think for 25 years, 25 years of Def Leppard, we'll probably end up doing something of that nature; that would be really cool."
