DEF LEPPARD Frontman Slams MTLEY CRE, POISON; Says Most L.A. 'Glam' Bands Had No Substance

During yesterday's (Friday, June 6) press conference at the Sweden Rock Festival in Slvesborg, Sweden, DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott was asked how his band managed to avoid getting caught up in the whole "glam-rock" scene of the '80s even after citing such image-oriented artists as MICK RONSON, DAVID BOWIE and T.REX as major influences.

"If you actually look at the way that the 'glam' bands, if you want to call it that, from Los Angeles dressed themselves up, they totally missed the point," Elliott replied. "When English glam bands from the '70s came on 'Top of the Pops' [long-running British music chart television program], it was almost an afterthought to what they were actually doing music always came first, and then they'd be like, 'What are we gonna wear?' . . . Bowie was very image-driven, and maybe the music came second, but a lot of the other bands, it was always about the music the image thing was just something that they did to just upstage other bands on 'Top of the Pops'; that's what they used to do. So we were never driven to do the mascara thing or whatever these bands did. They didn't have any substance musically, I don't think, in comparison to us, so we didn't feel we needed to do it. Bands that do that are doing it to cover up the fact that there is no substance in their music. The only band and I'm not saying it because we're here the only band that did pull it off was [Finland's] HANOI ROCKS. I thought HANOI ROCKS were a good band, and they looked Michael Monroe [HANOI frontman] was one of the best I would have shagged him. [Laughs] I like Michael, I think he's sexy, and I'm not gay. And I think Andy McCoy [HANOI guitarist] does the best kind of Keith Richards... so much better than MTLEY CRE or POISON or any of those bands. They [HANOI ROCKS] were real the rest of the guys, it was all a bit fake for me."