PHIL COLLEN Says Fans Might Have To Wait Until 2028 For DEF LEPPARD's Next Album: 'It'll Be Ready When It's Ready'

In a new interview with Chile's Radio Futuro, DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen spoke about the band's upcoming follow-up to the "Diamond Star Halos" album, which came out in 2022. DEF LEPPARD's new LP will include the song "Rejoice", which was released in late January ahead of the band's return to Las Vegas for their "Def Leppard: Live at Caesars Palace The Las Vegas Residency". After the interviewer suggested that the new DEF LEPPARD album would arrive in early 2027, Collen clarified (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, we areDEF LEPPARD, so it may be '28, but we're always recording. We're constantly recording. In fact, when we finished the last album, we didn't really finish it; we just kept carried on recording. So that's how we do it. So, yeah, it'll be ready when it's ready."

Speaking about the 1970s "glam rock" influences which inspired some of the music on "Diamond Star Halos", Collen said: "I think, with all of our glam rock idols, like David Bowie for example, he changed. The songwriting got better, and in his case, a little bit weirder, some of it later on. But there was some amazing stuff. I think you just take on more influences. I think everything I write now, or all of us write, we're very excited about how that goes. We don't worry about what other people think. QUEEN is a great example. Everyone in the band would write very different songs. Freddie Mercury would come up with 'Bohemian Rhapsody'; Brian May [came up with] 'We Will Rock You'. Very different. And we have a similar thing going. Whoever writes songs in the band, they're just drastically different. So it's really diverse, I think, which is what we've always wanted…. That's what [QUEEN has] always done. The songwriting, it evolved. John Deacon wrote 'Another One Bites The Dust', and it was very different to 'Radio Ga Ga', but when QUEEN had done it, it still sounded like QUEEN. And that's what I meant by we wanna be like them. It's, like, you can just do anything you want and it still sounds like QUEEN. But in our case, it still sounds like DEF LEPPARD."

Asked what he thinks about Brian May as a guitarist, Collen said: "I idolize him, his playing. I think he's very underrated. He's a team player. Just incredible tone and vibe and feel and everything, but it all works within the structure of the song and the band. There's a lot of players out there that don't really listen to the band or singers that don't really listen to the music. And QUEEN were very different. It was a collective. It was almost like a collected consciousness. They actually all worked together. And that's beautiful.

"When you play with, say, some jazz bands, you get in there and they're all kind of thinking as one unit," Phil continued. "And so there's a similar thing that goes with that, that I loved about QUEEN. And it's something that we do, and I'm very proud of us. Even when we play live, we harmonize. It locks in so beautifully. And me and Vivian [Campbell, DEF LEPPARD guitarist] play off each other. It's just great. I just love it. It's a joy."

"Def Leppard: Live at Caesars Palace The Las Vegas Residency" ran through February 28, 2026 at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. These new shows followed the band's sold-out residency successes in 2019 and 2013.

In January 2025, DEF LEPPARD released a cover of Ben E. King's 1961 classic "Stand By Me". All proceeds from the song went to FireAid, which raises money for those impacted by the fires that swept through Los Angeles in January 2025.

DEF LEPPARD's version of the song is featured in the Netflix film "Bank Of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger", which was released in January 2025. The band can be seen performing the track before the credits.

DEF LEPPARD's "Just Like 73" single, featuring a guest guitar solo from RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello, was made available in June 2024.

DEF LEPPARD's 12th studio album, "Diamond Star Halos", came out in 2022. A year later, the band followed it up with "Drastic Symphonies", a collection of reimagining of some of DEF LEPPARD's greatest hits with London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road. The album spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Current Classical chart.

DEF LEPPARD was finally inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in March 2019 — 14 years after the British rockers first became eligible.

Photo credit: Ross Halfin (courtesy of Ume)