DEF LEPPARD
Def Leppard redefined rock guitar in the ’80s with their 10 millionselling classic Pyromania. Lead guitarist Phil Collen reveals how…
Every guitarist has been told that rhythm guitar is the most important skill, because no one gets a gig playing only solos. But when Phil Collen got the call to play on Def Leppard’s third album Pyromania, it was to do exactly that. “The painting was nished, he recalls now. “ just threw an extra layer over it.
The band’s first two albums had been recorded with the guitar team of Pete Willis and Steve Clark, but when Willis was dramatically red late in the Pyromania sessions, Phil was drafted to provide the solos on songs that would become hit singles and deathless rock anthems: Photograph, Rock Of Ages, and Fool in’. It was the gig of a lifetime.
Pete Willis made a huge contribution to Pyromania, co-writing four of the songs and laying down rhythm parts that singer Joe Elliott called “phenomenal”. Producer Mutt Lange had relied on Willis for his Malcolm Young-like ability to play on the beat. But on a personal level, there was a disconnect between Willis and the rest of the band. Phil Collen, of London glam rock band Girl, was the perfect replacement. When Leppard began work on Pyromania in 1982, the sound of the decade was still emerging. There were benchmarks –Van Halen, Boston and AC/DC –but no one had yet made the record to de ne rock in the ’80s. Despite their relatively modest success to date, Leppard fancied their chances. In their corner they had Lange, still hot from AC/DC’s BackInBlack, plus a pile of new technology no rock band had yet exploited, and a sh*tload of confidence.
As it turned out, that confidence was warranted. Released in January 1983, Pyromaniawent platinum in the US within three months, en route to 10 million sales. In its wake, record companies scrambled to sign bands aping the Pyromania formula of AC/DC’s crunch, Journey’s melody and Queen’s harmonies. Leppard and Mutt Lange had cleverly employed synths and drum machines to make Pyromanial arger than-life without softening its attack or masking the guitars. While bands fought to match Leppard’s big ri s and bigger hooks, their producers struggled to replicate Lange’s jaw-dropping sonics.
As a 40th anniversary deluxe edition of Pyromaniais released this month – albeit a year late –Phil Collen looks back on the making of a masterpiece and his role in it…
GETTING THE TONES
To record their orchestrated guitars, Leppard needed a guitar tone that would play nicely alongside the synths and vocal harmonies. Engineer Mike Shipley, who died in 2013, described the nightmare of this process: “Becau
