DEF LEPPARD's COLLEN Says Wearing A Shirt On Stage Inhibits His Ability To Play Guitar

Keith Spera of The Times-Picayune recently conducted an interview with DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Times-Picayune: Does a shirt inhibit your ability to play guitar?

Collen: I think it does. I do sweat a lot, and it starts getting all clingy. I always feel uncomfortable jumping around playing guitar and wearing a shirt. So I'd rather not.

The Times-Picayune: You're not just showing off the result of healthy living?

Collen: I'm sure there's a huge amount of showing off as well. (laughs)

The Times-Picayune: Is there any lingering effect from DEF LEPPARD's Taylor Swift collaboration?

Collen: No, absolutely not, although I've seen a couple of Stetsons floating around. And we had the whole Tim McGraw thing. ... For a little while, (vocalist) Joe (Elliott) said on stage, "A friend of ours we wrote a song with couldn't be here tonight, but he left us his hat," and there was a little Stetson that we put into the show. It's a recurring theme.

The Times-Picayune: Were you ever a country music fan?

Collen: Not really. Mutt Lange was always a huge country fan, even when he was doing AC/DC albums and our records. You'd go in his car — it was cassettes back then — and it would be George Jones and Travis Tritt, old country from back in the day. My introduction to country was through Mutt. Mutt's like an older brother who goes, "OK, check this out." My cousin used to do this with me. He actually got me into music. He took me to my first show, DEEP PURPLE, when I was 14, and taught me the finer things about music. Mutt's the same way: This is good, this is bad, this is why.

The Times-Picayune: Looking back at your catalog, is there a quintessential Phil Collen riff?

Collen: The solos on "Photograph", "Rock of Ages", "Foolin'", "Animal" — all those guys, really. They sound like me. The "Pour Some Sugar on Me" riff — that's probably one of them. The lick at the beginning, the da-da da-da-da-DA, that countrified lick, which is a Mutt Lange riff that I couldn't play. Because he done it with his fingers and I done it with a guitar pick, and it just sounded different.

The Times-Picayune: So who made more money from "Hysteria", you or Mutt?

Collen: I guess Mutt did, at the end of the day. His production credits and writing credits, it all adds up. We did the tour, so that's where we did well.

The Times-Picayune: You joined DEF LEPPARD in 1982 during the making of "Pyromania". Wasn't the guitar solo on "Photograph" your audition?

Collen: Pretty much. I knew the guys; I was just playing the solos initially. For "Stagefright", I played something and it was a first take. They were like, "Wow, that's cool." Then we did the "Photograph" one, and double-tracked it. So I guess they were auditioning me and I didn't even realize it. We were an opening act back then, so it wasn't really that big a deal — we were still playing clubs. It wasn't until "Pyromania" come out that it kind of blew the doors off a little bit. We had an idea that it sounded a bit different, but we didn't realize to what extent it was actually going to change everything.

The Times-Picayune: You've been doing this for more than 25 years now.

Collen: The trick is to not think about it. And the raising-the-bar thing is fun. We have this huge screen and lighting rig and this thing that sticks out the front (of the stage),this thruster we call an "ego ramp." All these fun things that you'd love as a teenager, we actually get to enjoy, and we're really into it.

Read the entire interview from The Times-Picayune.