JOE ELLIOTT: TAYLOR SWIFT Is 'Technically Bigger Than THE BEATLES And THE ROLLING STONES Combined'

Sixteen years ago, DEF LEPPARD teamed up with a teenage Taylor Swift for an episode of CMT's "Crossroads". At the time, Taylor was a country music superstar whose songs were just starting to become pop hits. In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, DEF LEPPARD frontman Joe Elliott reminisced about working with the then-18-year-old star. Asked if he could see back in 2008 where Taylor was headed, Joe said: "I don't think anybody could. You look at it now and it kind of makes sense. But if you think back to 2008, there was no such thing as what she's accomplished. I know anybody that was there when THE BEATLES and THE [ROLLING] STONES came over will go, 'Wait a minute…' But for people born this century or in the '90s, this is a phenomenon that's never been seen before — technically bigger than THE BEATLES and THE STONES combined, at least commercially. It's insanity, the amount of tickets she sells. But I always knew she'd be big. And for all the hardships she's gone though — the people who've tried to trip her up over the years at certain parts of her career — she's just dusted herself down. She's a fantastic role model for a generation of kids."

Elliott was wearing a black Taylor Swift T-shirt at the time of the Los Angeles Times interview, a souvenir from the "Eras" tour date in Dublin where he introduced his eight-year-old daughter to the pop megastar. "It was a very magical moment," Elliott said, "and I will be forever be grateful to Taylor for making Daddy look cool for a couple of days."

Elliott previously discussed DEF LEPPARD's collaboration with Swift in April. He told Japanese music critic and radio personality Masa Ito of TVK's "Rock City" at the time: "It's a strange thing. My kids, who are 14, 7 and 4, have never seen me with Taylor Swift. And I've told them. They didn't believe me. [Laughs] Because my kids are Swifties. And they didn't believe that daddy had sung with Taylor Swift. So I had to pull the DVD out and put it on. And they were just like this. [Opens his mouth wide]

"I hadn't seen it since 2009 or whatever — [it had been] 15 years since I saw it — and I watched the whole performance, and it was way better than I remembered it being," he admitted. "I didn't think it was bad [at the time], but sometimes things don't age well. This looks great. She looks amazing, she sounds great, the band was on fire, and we played together with her band. So a lot of interesting arrangements came out of that, different textures. It was great to do it differently. But, yeah, we performed ['Photograph'] — in fact, it was the opening track of the show. And it was good fun doing that show. I really enjoyed it, 'cause she got to sing some of ours and I got to sing some of hers. And it was a really interesting week we had together. It was about four days of rehearsals, and then we shot the show twice. They picked the best bits from the two nights.

"Who knew how big she was gonna be?" Elliott continued. "She was popular then, but now she's in a different stratosphere to what she's ever been in before, or most other artists have ever been in. So, we can always look back on that and go, 'Hey, DEF LEPPARD, little old DEF LEPPARD, once got to play with Taylor Swift.'"

Back in 2018, Joe was asked by Rolling Stone magazine what signs he saw that Swift was going to basically conquer the world, Elliott said: "Well, she was already pretty big, so the conquer the world was something that was either gonna happen or wasn't. In fairness, she really did go out, full bore, and conquer the world. Good luck to her for doing that, you know?

"The whole thing came together because somebody walked into our dressing room with a laptop… He goes, 'It's Taylor Swift, she's doing this interview, and she said there was only band that she would ever do a 'Crossroads' with, and it was DEF LEPPARD.' We went, 'Wow, okay, get in touch with her, see what she thinks.' Lo and behold, couple of months go by and, all of a sudden, we're doing this show.

"We've always been that poke-noses-out-of-joint kind of band. I loved the idea of something that's gonna either piss people off or they go, good for you for doing something different. If you're gonna do collaborations, I don't see the point in us doing a song with BON JOVI. Do you know what I mean? It's like, I'd prefer the idea of Jon doing a song with, like, Tom Waits. Us doing something with Loudon Wainwright III or Leonard Cohen. Somebody completely off the wall. Or Elvis Costello and MOTÖRHEAD. Can you imagine what that would sound like?"

Asked how it all worked, Joe said:"Getting hooked in with Taylor was great. She was 17 years old. We were more than willing to do this. We got a new record just out. It was a bit of fun. It was a four-day project. It was two days of rehearsals. It was two shows and everybody did their homework. We turned up knowing all the chords, knowing all the lyrics. There weren't really any difficulties. There were a couple of moments where we sat down, me and Taylor sat down, and she says, 'I can't sing that line,' 'cause it was a bit too risqué, in ['Pour Some Sugar On Me']. So we'd swap things around. And the fact that I was actually singing from the male point of view in some of her stuff, like in 'Love Story'. As you say, I'm not going to sing something and half-ass it. I'm going to give it my all. Because it doesn't matter. It's a one off project and you've got to sell yourself in the right light. It makes no difference to me whether it's a RAMONES song or a Taylor Swift. I'm gonna do it the best I can."

DEF LEPPARD and JOURNEY have joined forces for a summer 2024 North American tour. The 23-date trek kicked off on July 6 in St. Louis, Missouri and is hitting cities including Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles and more before wrapping in Denver on September 8. Openers include STEVE MILLER BAND and CHEAP TRICK, which will vary by city.

DEF LEPPARD's latest album of all-new material, "Diamond Star Halos", sold 34,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week of release in May 2022 to land at position No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. It marked the band's eighth top 10 LP.

Of "Diamond Star Halos"' 34,000 units earned for the week, album sales comprised 32,000, SEA units comprised 2,000 (equaling 2.7 million on-demand official streams of the album’s songs) and TEA units comprised less than 500 units.

DEF LEPPARD's previous Top 10 albums included "Pyromania" (which peaked at No. 2 in 1983),"Hysteria" (No. 1 for six weeks in 1988),"Adrenalize" (No. 1 for five weeks in 1992),"Retro Active" (No. 9; 1983),"Rock Of Ages: The Definitive Collection" (No. 10; 2005),"Songs From The Sparkle Lounge" (No. 5; 2008) and "Def Leppard" (No. 10; 2015).