PHIL COLLEN On New DEF LEPPARD Music: 'I Love The Direction Of It'

DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen has told Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF 101.1 FM radio station that the band has begun compiling ideas for the follow-up to 2015's self-titled album. "[We're] always working on stuff," he said (hear audio below). "We've got three [songs] on the go already. Joe's [Elliott, vocals] got one, Sav's [Rick Savage, bass] got one, I've got another one. We've actually started recording 'em. You can do this stuff all the time; you can do it on your laptop now — you don't have to be in a studio, per se. So, yeah, you can actually get it moving and started already. So, yeah, we've actually started the next thing and I love the direction of it. When you do it over a period of time, you can actually get a bit more in it. When you cram it all in, it gets sometimes a little limited."

Collen spoke in more detail about the songwriting process, saying: "Yesterday, I got this idea; I was sitting around with it. Actually, I'd [come up with the basic idea] last year when we were in South America. I just played it and I just pretty much finished the song off yesterday. So it just speaks to you. So it's different every single time. It can be a vocal, it can be a lyric, it can be a melody or a guitar or a drum pattern — it can be anything that kind of spurs you off, and that's what's exciting about songwriting. Unless you're a hack songwriter and you do it exactly the same every day. But I like that thing where you have a muse and it kind of inspires you and you just follow the inspiration. It's just a lovely way to do it."

Asked what inspires him to write music at this point in his life, Collen said: "Everything. It could be a movie, it could be a book, it could be… you meet someone or you hear other music — any kind of music; it could be some Indian classical thing, it could be just jamming with Joe Satriani and John Petrucci. Things like that would definitely get some inspiration flowing. So it's always something different, and I think that's the beauty of it — your receptors are open, and all this other stuff comes in at different times. It's really cool."

"Def Leppard" was the group's first studio effort since "Songs From the Sparkle Lounge" in 2008.

The disc entered The Billboard 200 chart at position No. 10 with first-week sales of just over 30,000 units — nearly all from pure album sales.

DEF LEPPARD's 58-city tour with JOURNEY kicked off on May 21 in Hartford, Connecticut and will run through October 6 in Los Angeles.

Interview (audio):