DEF LEPPARD Guitarist Talks About Summer Tour, Upcoming CD

Ginny McCabe of Journal-News.com recently conducted an interview with DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell. A couple of excerpts follow:

On the band's current summer tour:

"We modified and added to the big production we did on the last tour. There is a lot of new video content for our background screens, and a whole new bigger better lighting system. This is the first time in our career we've toured without a new record so, we are going to be playing from the catalog, which is what most people want to hear. For those die-hard fans who see us every time we play, as well as, for our own piece of mind, we are going to be pulling out a couple of more obscure album cuts, including one song we've never played before."

"Last summer, with JOURNEY, we performed with the biggest production we had since the 'Adrenalize' tour. It was a lot of fun. It is so much more fun as a musician and a performer to go out there and play on a big stage with a lot of lights, video screens and pyrotechnics, and all sorts of parts. It's much more of an event and more fun as a performer, and I'm sure it's more fun for the audience. And, we are coming out this year with an even bigger production than last year, it's fun for us."

On DEF LEPPARD's new album:

"We just finished a record. Well, almost finished it. We finished our part and now they are going to start mixing it. But we won't get it released this year. It will be released early next year. It is exciting. It was inspired a lot by our covers record that we toured on last year, the 'Yeah!' album. That was so much fun for me because we took the lessons learned from that and applied them the making of our new studio record."