DEF LEPPARD's JOE ELLIOTT Talks KISS Tour, Receiving 'Diamond Award'

The Vinyl District recently conducted an interview with DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Vinyl District: In regard to the upcoming tour with KISS, have you crossed paths with Gene [Simmons] and Paul [Stanley] in the past?

Joe: Socially, yeah, loads of times. I went to see THE [ROLLING] STONES with Paul at the Wiltern Theatre in L.A. about 10-12 years ago. I toured with Gene Simmons about three years ago in a side project called the ROCK 'N' ROLL ALLSTARS. It was myself and him, three guys from GUNS N' ROSES, Steve Stevens from Billy Idol's band, Billy Duffy from THE CULT, Sebastian Bach, and Mike Inez from ALICE IN CHAINS. We just jumped in and out of each other's songs, you know, three or four songs each, two-hour set, had fun, traveled together on the plane. Did a lot of talking — me and Gene did a LOT of talking — and did a lot of, "Have you ever heard this?", playing each other obscure English songs. The conversation just gets around to — why have we never toured before?

The Vinyl District: I'm assuming you guys weren't flying commercial. Does Gene have his own KISS plane?

Joe: No, we actually had a ROCK 'N' ROLL ALLSTARS private plane, yes, and we had — I mean he was hilarious. The stories were the best thing about that tour. To get up on stage and have Duff McKagan playing bass on "Sugar" was surreal and just a lot of fun. I mean, you are talking about — the people on that tour probably sold a billion records between us, and being around for such a long time. The stories were just hilarious, all the experiences that had a common thread, their stories, our stories, you know — all that been-there-done-that kind of thing, and the humor was just phenomenal.

The Vinyl District: With the massive success of "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" selling 10 million copies and receiving the diamond award, what does the RIAA actually present to you?

Joe: Yeah, It's the Diamond Award and it's about a 12-inch high, it looks like a monument with a kind of supposed diamond — well, it's supposed to represent a diamond, it's just cut glass. Then there's the monument part which is around three inches wide at the base and gets slightly more narrow until it's about an inch at the top. The diamond sits on the top — well, it does until your kid knocks it off and smashes it, and it comes with a huge plaque on the bottom of it saying, you know, congratulations for selling 10 million records.

The Vinyl District: Do you think that, in this day and age, any artist will ever achieve that again?

Joe: I think Lady Gaga may have done it or is about to — one of her records will go past 10 million. I think Taylor Swift might as well, but the fact is that when they celebrated the Diamond Award, when they gave it for the first time back in 1999-2000, they had one big ceremony in New York. There were I think maybe 100, I am not sure, but that's how few people have sold 10 million records in the history of the music industry. We all know that record sales fell off in the millions. Now it's not going to happen at the same rate. If they have another one of these for 10 million sales in 20 years time for whoever has done it since we received ours, they'll be able to do it in a café.

Read the entire interview at The Vinyl District.