JOE ELLIOTT Says DEF LEPPARD Wasn't Responsible For Getting MÖTLEY CRÜE To Reunite For 'The Stadium Tour'

DEF LEPPARD is set to launch "The Stadium Tour" with MÖTLEY CRÜE and guests POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS on June 16 in Atlanta, Georgia. The 36-date trek, which is due to wrap September 9 in Las Vegas, was originally scheduled to take place in the summer of 2020 but ended up being pushed back to 2021, and then to 2022, due to the coronavirus crisis.

Asked in a new interview with the 98.7 The Gater radio station in West Palm Beach, Florida if it's true that DEF LEPPARD was "responsible for giving [MÖTLEY CRÜE] the nudge to get out on this tour," DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "No, I don't think it is. We know those guys. We've met them all. We've toured with the CRÜE before. They opened for us in 1983 at Jack Murphy stadium in San Diego; that was the first time I ever saw 'em. We toured with them in the U.K. in 2011, and over the years we've bumped into 'em at festivals. And if we'd be in L.A., back in the '80s, all you had to do was go to the Rainbow and you would bump into all four of them every night. [Laughs]

"It was nothing to do with DEF LEPPARD specifically, but it was an idea that was put to us, when they decided that if they went out with a band like us, they might [get back] together," Joe added. "So we had been encouraging of it, but we didn't actually suggest it."

Late last month, Elliott told QFM96's "Torg & Elliott" radio show that "both" DEF LEPPARD and MÖTLEY CRÜE will close the show on "The Stadium Tour": "We're taking turns," he explained. "[There are] 36 shows, so it's 18 each. It's all been worked out very scientifically. It's the same way that we did it with JOURNEY in 2018 — exactly the same principle."

CRÜE fans who shelled out for the band's 2014/2015 "farewell" tour were led to believe that the group would never return after playing its final show on December 2015 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The band touted the signing of a pre-tour "cessation of touring" agreement as cementing the fact it truly was the end of CRÜE's life on the road.

On November 18, 2019 — three years and 11 months after the band played its last show — CRÜE posted a video with Machine Gun Kelly, who portrayed Tommy Lee in the band's biopic "The Dirt", explaining that due to the band "becoming more popular than ever" and "gaining an entirely new legion of fans" in the four years they'd been off the road, the band felt the need to blow up their previous contract in order to come out of retirement.

At a press conference in Hollywood announcing the CRÜE's stadium tour, bassist Nikki Sixx explained the band's decision to return, saying: "Honestly, I don't think any of us thought, when we were on 'The Final Tour', we would ever get back together. We weren't really getting along at that point. We had been together 35 years, and it had been a lot of years on the road. I don't think we took a lot of time for ourselves off; we were just constantly touring for all that time. And when it came to the end, we broke the band up and everybody went their own ways."

Sixx continued: "It was during the making of 'The Dirt' movie, we started working on the script, started being on the set, we started hanging out again together. And I think we really started to realize — without even talking about the music — how much we missed each other. And then that got us to go in the recording studio, which is where the whole thing always starts for all of us."

As of January 30, 2020, "The Stadium Tour" had already grossed $130 million from one million tickets sold, plus another $5 million worth of VIP seats, according to Billboard.

Tickets ranged from $150 to $400, not counting some varied pricing that reflected demand as part of "dynamic pricing."

Photo credit: Dustin Jack