DEF LEPPARD's PHIL COLLEN Prefers Playing 'Harder Stuff' Live Over Ballads

June 8, 2011

Reed Fischer of Broward Palm Beach New Times recently conducted an interview with DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Broward Palm Beach New Times: It's great that you guys actually give credit to all of the Florida strippers for making "Pour Some Sugar On Me" such a big hit.

Phil Collen: It's funny how the stripper thing spreads that wealth by us, but yeah, absolutely. That is actually where it came from. The album came out and kind of tanked initially, and then they started playing it for their routines, and because of that, we started getting played on local radio stations. It's one of the things that you want to watch happen to every song and say, "Yeah, that was great."

Broward Palm Beach New Times: By the way, why do you hate playing ballads so much?

Phil Collen: My problem with it is that I want to get amped up, and when we're playing kind of DEF LEPPARD stuff or rock stuff, it's an adrenaline buzz. You kind of slow down for when you do ballads. You know, it's cool, everyone singing along and everything, but I just prefer playing harder stuff, really.

Broward Palm Beach New Times: And yet you've recorded a "Dreaming With Def Leppard" album, and the whole point of that is not to get amped up.

Phil Collen: Absolutely. I wouldn't be playing that stuff live. It's actually quite bluesy and jazzy, but yeah, I wouldn't dream of playing that stuff live. It's supposed to be to put kids asleep. It's actually so their parents can groove on it, I guess. I only played on three tracks. Yeah, they're pretty cool.

Broward Palm Beach New Times: So the band's 35th anniversary is coming up pretty quick here. Have you guys thought about that or talked about that at all?

Phil Collen: No, not at all. Someone told me it's their 25th anniversary next year and you know, it's birthdays or whatever. I'm not really a big birthday person, so it's not really a big deal. Everyone in the band is the same with stuff like that, commemorating things. It may be cool to do some kind of special version of "Hysteria". I think we should do something like that. We do miss a lot of that stuff.

Read the entire interview from Broward Palm Beach New Times.

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).