Rock of aged

>> Def Leppard's Phil Collen on spiders, camels and fake German

By RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Quick, call mom. Pray she didn't pitch out that old union jack sleeveless T, because the latest resurrection in the dinosaur graveyard, following Sabbath, Maiden and such, is that nine-armed party machine from Sheffield, England called Def Leppard.

 Their latest, Euphoria, marks the return of producer/co-writer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, aka Mr. Shania Twain, whose ear for saucy hooks put tunes like "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" on the charts (back when they could chart). It's no surprise, then, that a lot of the disc sounds like echoes from the heyday of mullets and bandanas. But then, there's a dash o' funk a la Prince, sensitive balladry and a bit of mercurial 21st century raunch. Guitarist Phil Collen fills us in on the blank spaces.

 Mirror: Long stretches between albums and no solo albums--what is it you guys do between records? Does that Spiders From Mars tribute make up a lot of that?

 Phil Collen: Yeah, it was this whole thing at Hammersmith Odeon, with all these bands, Ian Hunter an' all. So we done the Spiders thing--you know, "Ziggy Stardust," "Moonage Daydream," we done all this stuff. Then in '97, we done a British tour with Bowie's original band, and me and Joe [Elliot, singer]. I had the best time. When we were getting into music seriously, at that impressionable age, obviously there was Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. That's why I started playing guitar. But I was so attracted to the glam thing. I mean, a 14-year-old kid, you're watching TV and there's been nothing going on all week, and then suddenly you see Bowie, it's like, "Wow! This is what I've got to do."

 M: Back in '95, you guys pulled this stunt where you played three continents in one day. What was that?! What were you thinking?

 PC: I remember thinking, "Oh, thank you. Some idiot at the record company dreamed up some kind of thing for the release of the greatest hits record. Oh, yeah, great, great, thanks, yeah." We obviously had to do it, but you know what? Looking back, it was great--surreal. The first thing was, we were in north Africa, playing in a cave which had the sea coming in. Before we caught our plane, we were invited to this big tent, with bellydancers, camels, the whole thing. Then we were off to London, saw me mum and dad. We played at about ten or 11 in the morning, and then we were on a plane again, sleeping all the way to Vancouver. The whole thing seemed dreamlike.

 M: That bit at the beginning of "Rock of Ages," the "gleeben globen" bit. What the hell was that all about?

 PC: Nothing. Mutt would count down the song--"1,2,3,4..." He was just being stupid one day and he went "oonten gleeben glauben globen" instead of 1-2-3-4. It meant nothing, it was just fake German or fake Scandinavian or something. :

 

With Joan Jett and the Black hearts at the Molson Center on Monday, February 7, 7:30pm, $27.50--$35.50+taxes