VIVIAN CAMPBELL Wants To Make Straightforward Rock Album With DEF LEPPARD

Rob Cavuoto of Guitar International recently conducted an interview with DEF LEPPARD/THIN LIZZY guitarist Vivian Campbell. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Guitar International: [Fellow DEF LEPPARD guitarist] Phil Collen promised Eddie Trunk that the next DEF LEPPARD LP would be hard rock. Are you guys able to deliver on that promise?

Vivian Campbell: It's not this one! [Laughing]. He was talking about the next one! [Laughing] We all agree and know on a certain level that we can make it happen. If we were with a major record label and they paired us with Rick Rubin, I'm sure he would strip us down and have us doing it. It's easier said than done. What DEF LEPPARD did 30 years ago; they were in a different head space then. You played and wrote different then. So it might actually be disingenuous of us to go back and force ourselves to do a record like "High 'N' Dry".

Guitar International: Not necessarily go back and redo "High 'N' Dry", but just a straightforward rock LP?

Vivian Campbell: Back then Rick Allen [drums] had two arms, although we can represent ourselves very well live, it difficult for Rick to jam. If I were to come in the room and show the other guys a riff, Rick would have to sit there and think how he was going to join in. It's not like other bands where you can kick out the jams and see what happens. It does take a little more patience. I'm not saying we're not going to do it; Phil and I are championing and trying to do something like that for the next record.

Guitar International: Things have really changed regarding how people listen to music since the '80s. Gone are many of the hard rock and Top 40 radios stations. Gone are the 24-hour music video channels, now people are file sharing and stealing music. How do these things affect the way guys approach writing, recording, and getting your music heard?

Vivian Campbell: We have been guilty in the past of really conceptualizing the LPs. It's like we need to make this type of LP before a song or note is written. Though "Sparkle Lounge" was not at all like that at all. I'm glad to say it was just a collection of our songs that we wrote individually and decided to record as DEF LEPPARD. I thought it was a better LP for it and easier to make. Because I'm personally not too big on conceptualizing for an LP, I tend to think let's write and see what goes out. Industry wise its very import to know your audience now, to speak directly to your audience vs. being all things to all people. I think in the past that DEF LEPPARD was lucky enough to almost be all things to all people. It was a result of the time with MTV, because of proliferation of radio of Top 40 radio and being able to get a rock band on Top 40 radio. It parlayed into millions and millions of LPs. I don't think that will happen for LEPPARD or anyone any more. That brings us back to what we were talking about earlier and what kind of LP we would make in the future. We realize that our core audience wants us to make a rock LP. So we will attempt to address that on future records. With that said, I don't see us making an entire LP that's like "High 'N' Dry", with songs with 1 through 12 as old rock songs.

Guitar International: How do multiple platinum artists like yourself measure success in this environment?

Vivian Campbell: Certainly not in terms of sales, "Sparkle Lounge", "Yeah!" and "X" didn't sell in massive numbers. Nowhere close to a million. Nowhere close to half a million. But that's OK, because the other side of the equation is that we have been doing better and better on the road. We have been playing to more people starting with the JOURNEY tour in 2006. Our first night was Camden, New Jersey and there was close to 23,000 people. We couldn't believe it. The touring industry has become about packaging bands together to reach more than just the core fans of each act but to try and reach the casual fans. We were amazed; nothing changed for us other than we were on tour with another major catalog act. To be honest, when our management first suggested it to us, every single member of the band had reservations about it. It shows you how wrong we were. Ever since that day no one in DEF LEPPARD ever questions our management on things like that. It's not our area of expertise. [Laughing] We have been very fortunate that we have had a rebirth as a touring act and that we have such a catalogue of hit songs and people still want to hear them after 20 to 30 years. We play them well and put on a high-energy show.

Read the entire interview from Guitar International.