Adrenalized

by Phil Collen

  Looking back, I think we totally over-rehearsed in Ibiza, because my playing was really stiff, and I didn’t enjoy it as much. This had an effect on me when it came to our next tour, for the album Slang. I would actually stop practicing scales and everything I had done pre–Adrenalize tour. When I just loosened up and closed my eyes, the playing didn’t sound so uptight. As important as the technical side of things is, “feeling it” is far more important. The club tour went great, all sold out. It was amazing. We used it as a part of the rehearsal process before arenas, and it was fucking expensive! We were operating on an ’80s-style hedonistic budget. Looking back, it was completely unnecessary and out of context.

  After the club tour, we embarked on a huge production, back to playing in the round with state-of-the-art lasers and moving parts—the stage looked like a spaceship. We started with this show in Australia and, in keeping the same set and themes, then went over to America, where we would play from autumn all the way through to the following spring of 1993.

  Then it was back to Europe, to Japan, and back once more to the United States for another several months. Overall, because the musical landscape had changed worldwide, the reception we got for this wonderful show was not what we expected. All of a sudden it was lame to be an “entertainer.” All the time that we had spent becoming this great live band that still functioned just like that soccer team, filling in all the gaps and making sure people got more than their money’s worth, seemed like a big waste. Fans were shunning that sort of concert. Now they wanted “anti-concerts,” it seemed, and that’s just not what we did. It wasn’t in our blood to be sullen and not play to our audiences.

  What did we do? Simply soldiered on. That’s the English way. Like the Monty Python bit when the guy loses his arms: “No worries, it’s just a flesh wound.” So we just rolled on, hoping for the best but taking what we got and always working our asses off up there for whoever showed up. It was really expensive to cart all of our stage, lighting, and props around—about twelve trucks’ worth, not to mention our private plane. It seemed obvious that there was a lack of appreciation for our live set, so we dropped all of the hullabaloo and concentrated on being the kick-ass live band that we always were. Something else happened on this tour that forced us to reconsider the scale of our production: we had a midair scare that made us realize that, in addition to being really expensive, a private plane could also be scary as hell.

  Two storm fronts hit in St. Louis one night while we were flying through the area in our ten-seat prop plane. We got hit by both of them and dropped two thousand feet in just seconds. It was pretty scary. Drinks and guitar cases just seemed to float in midair before crashing through the toilet door. Thank God everyone was buckled in. Everybody on board was completely silent. We thought this might actually be it—the end of the road. The final curtain. On the hundreds of flights we’d been on together, there had never been anything like this. Everything went deadly quiet. Not a sound from any of us. All of our minds raced to thoughts of Buddy Holly and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

  After some very tense moments, thankfully we landed safely. But we were all shaken up enough to say collectively, “No more planes. Let’s just get a bus.” Sav would only really travel on planes from that point on when it was really necessary. The rest of us agreed with Sav, albeit for different reasons. We didn’t need a plane anymore. If we were stripping down the show, we were also going to strip down our travel.

  In addition to the turmoil that we were all feeling with the massive tour, the changing music industry, and a changing audience, my marriage was also unfurling. Jacki and I had been drifting apart for a while. She was working more as an actress in New York and Los Angeles while I was traveling the world. That distance just made it harder and harder to maintain a strong relationship. I’d started seeing a woman named Alex, who worked at our record label in Belgium. We spent time together while the band was on tour. Once the tour ended, however, I ended up breaking up with Alex and trying to make it work at home one more time. But by then Jacki and I had just grown too far apart. Around this time, I started hanging out with Anita, a girl I had met while playing in Michigan and who had recently moved to San Diego. That was the final straw in my relationship with Jacki. We divorced.

  I was really good at the music. Juggling relationships, not so much. But I really enjoyed being a dad. Even though I was on the road most of the time, I loved getting to show little Rory the world. I remember him being with us on an American tour when we played in Fargo, North Dakota. One day we had some free time and we found a little coffee shop that had a chess set on one of the tables. We sat in there for literally hours and played chess. He loved it. He had a blast discovering. Normally you wouldn’t think of doing something like that, but it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Something as simple as learning chess was such a big deal to him. Here I was in a position to be able to give my son stuff—anything he desired. But right at that moment, he and I were both simply satisfied with having time together.

  The Adrenalize tour ended in September 1993 after hundreds of shows around the world. In the end, Adrenalize, the album, did pretty well. In some countries it actually did better than Hysteria, if you can believe that. And it eventually went five times platinum, which is nothing to sneeze at. But on the heels of Hysteria, it appeared to have underperformed. It was the glass half-full/half-empty scenario. Five million was amazing, but in the context of our last two albums selling ten million units each, it was viewed as a failure. One thing that it did do was allow us to remain commercially viable, which was important, because the rest of the ’90s would get even more challenging for Def Leppard.

  Mick Ronson died on April 29, 1993. He was just forty-six years old. A year after Mick died, Joe and I took part in a memorial concert held for him at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. It was an amazing show featuring Roger Taylor from Queen, Roger Daltrey, Bill Nelson from Be-Bop Deluxe, and many others. Ian Hunter was there. I got to play right alongside him. I also played with Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey, the other two original Spiders from Mars. I mean, these were the guys I had seen playing with Bowie in 1973, as a kid watching television, then at Earls Court. They had been the backbone of the Ziggy sound, and they were just as distinctive as they were back when they had on the platform boots and glitter makeup. And they were funny as hell, very droll and comedic and wonderful storytellers. I remember Woody describing to us how Bowie first approached them about getting all glammed up, these big, tough, burly guys from North Yorkshire. “Guys,” Bowie told them, “I want you to wear this.” He had apparently had satin jumpsuits made for the guys, to which Woody replied in his broad Yorkshire accent, “I’m not fuckin’ wearin’ that!” They were appalled at the idea. But ultimately they really got into it once they saw how the girls responded.

  Joe and I would be getting to know Trevor and Woody on a whole different level. Including Dick Decent on keyboards, we eventually formed a group of our own with them called the Cybernauts. The Cybernauts toured Japan and actually audio recorded the shows, which we would release on CD several years later. Since Joe and I had both been such huge Bowie freaks since the early ’70s, it was really fun getting to know these guys on the road and hearing all of their great stories. We had a few more songs in the can that we recorded in a studio in Dublin. Sadly, Dick Decent, our amazing keyboard player and singer, died in 2011 due to a severe reaction to the antibiotic drug ciprofloxacin, and Trevor Bolder lost his battle with cancer in 2013. Still, we are planning on releasing the songs at some point.

  It was time for us to make a new record. The shit we’d got for doing Adrenalize actually stung, and given that our previous record had failed to live up to expectations, we wanted to do something very different. We had to do something different. So we decided to change our recording style—from one that screamed “big production” to something simpler, just as we did with our tour. We also decided to switch up our studio. Instead of renting an expensive recording studio with the latest technology, we re
nted a quiet villa in southern Spain. It was situated inland from Puerto Banús, a fancy port near Marbella. The weather was amazing and warm—much like that of Southern California—and you could see North Africa and Gibraltar from outside the living room, which we’d turned into a temporary studio. Even though we were recording in this villa up in the hills, we were staying in the area of Puerto Banús, where there were upmarket shops and $75 million yachts docked everywhere. Our apartments opened up onto the beach and I had two extra rooms so I could invite my mum and my auntie Grace—my dad’s sister—to stay for a visit. They stayed for months. Being that my mum and Grace had spent most of their lives in rainy London, this was like a dream come true for them. They walked around and enjoyed how laid-back everything was. Grace and my mum had never really experienced anything like that. I loved it all and felt really good that they were so at peace. For me, that was everything.

  This time Pete Woodroffe was going to produce the album. Pete had been Mike Shipley’s assistant on Adrenalize. We’d all grown to love his witticisms, tireless work ethic, and open-minded approach to everything, really. Plus he had a very posh British accent.

  We were able to incorporate elements of bhangra, Latin percussion, R & B, and soul along with rawer guitars and classical East Indian string arrangements on the track “Turn to Dust” (courtesy of Craig Pruess). We recorded some of the tracks all together, as a pared-down live band in the studio. We had been listening to the recording styles of bands like the Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and we wanted to bring that rawness to our sound. This grew into the Slang album.

  As an artist you’re supposed to grow. A lot of our fans want us to write, sing, record, and perform the “same old, same old” and fit into their nostalgic fantasy, but any band should be in a constant state of development or else it will stagnate. Viv was actually very surprised, because he thought that he was in for a classic Def Leppard recording, and we did a complete 180 to what we usually did. People often ask me, “How have you guys managed to stay together for so long?” Well, first, none of us has let the band or a moment define him. Everyone is much more than that. We didn’t want to be defined by what people regarded as our “sound.” Our goal really was to show people that we made great music that bore our unique brand even if that meant sonically shifting the goal posts to achieve our objective. Listening back to the Slang album that was finally released on iTunes, although not our most commercially successful album, I thought it was an extremely creative and essential album for us to do.

  For instance, not to get too deep here, but take the track “Breathe a Sigh.” One day, while I was visiting a close friend, I noticed how she looked overwhelmed as she tried to cater to the needs and multiple requests of her husband and her children. Instead of throwing her hands up or even reacting, I briefly saw her breathe a sigh at her predicament. It made me really sad. This story is a theme I’ve seen many times since, and it’s beautifully portrayed by Kazuo Ishiguro in his book The Remains of the Day, which tells the story of a duty-bound butler letting the love of his life slip between his fingers because of his dedication to the task. As I wrote “Breathe a Sigh,” I didn’t want to make it melancholy, so I switched the theme a little and made it about me and Jacki—which actually made it even more melancholy.

  It was 1994, and it was turning out to be a year of change for all of us. Sav’s dad, Ken Savage, passed away. Sav was the first of us to lose a parent, so we all felt his pain like a bullet, since we were all close not just to our own parents but each other’s as well. It was around this time that I began spending time with a gorgeous girl named Anita, whom I had previously met in Michigan. Anita was of mixed race. Her mum was black and her biological dad was white. We eventually moved in together. Anita had a bubbly personality and was a lot of fun. She knew all the words to old Motown songs I’d play in the car, which was very impressive, mostly because she hadn’t been born when they were released. She actually had a great voice, too.

  It took about a year to record Slang. But before its release our record label wanted to release a greatest-hits album. They said they’d prefer it if we had a bonus track as well as the hits. Howard Berman, the head of our British label, Mercury, heard a bunch of demos and loved the song “When Love and Hate Collide.” So with Slang in a slight holding pattern, we recorded the song with Pete Woodroffe in about two weeks, and the Vault album was released in 1995, with that single becoming a massive hit in Europe. The album went five times platinum in the U.S. Due to its content, the album became a huge hit all around the world.

  The record label also had the bright idea of having us play three continents in one day, thereby breaking the Guinness World Record. On October 23, 1995, starting at midnight in Tangier, Morocco, we played the first of three acoustic sets that we would play that day. From Africa we flew to London, and then to Vancouver to complete the cycle. And from what I hear, that world record still stands today. It was surreal. It felt like a week because we were in such drastically different environments in such a short space of time. After our gig in a sea cave in Tangier, we were invited to a massive party with belly dancers, camels, soldiers on horses, and wonderful Middle Eastern food. We left this party and jumped on a plane to London, where we played at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, located just a few blocks from where my mom lived. We got a chance to see a variety of family and friends, but it was still only ten in the morning. Then we were off to Vancouver to conclude, have a day off, and then leave for a Far East acoustic tour that included Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, and Japan.

  Slang came out in May 1996, and we embarked on a tour that would last the better part of the year. This time out we took a much smaller stage on the road. No more concerts in the round for us. This stage show was far more stripped down, to match the feel of the new album. We started off in Bangkok, worked our way through Korea, Singapore, and Japan, and then wound through Europe and the States with things wrapping up in April 1997. We covered some new ground this time, going to South America and Africa.

  Touring South America was a trip. We’d played Mexico before and always maintained that Latin audiences were probably the best on earth (however, the loudest audience we ever experienced was in Montreal). It was more than just touring somewhere where people spoke a different language—the colors and textures of South America seemed different from anywhere else I’d ever been. Rick and I decided to go hang-gliding in Rio on a day off, which we’d never done before. We leapt off a mountain there, glided down, and landed on Copacabana Beach. I remember seeing giant butterflies that looked like cartoons. I remember the lush plant life being really green, which is a big deal to me, being color-blind. I’d never seen colors that vivid before. It was also great for Def Leppard to finally get down anywhere south of the border. I believe we neglected our huge fan bases in Latin America by spending too much time in the studio. The payoff is that we have made these iconic classic albums. But still, we never seemed to get the time to play in these amazing places. Case in point: when Steve and I went to Australia to do the Hysteria album promo, it shot to number one and went double platinum. The album had initially done poorly there. There just wasn’t enough time to do everything and promote our music to our fans the way we really wanted to.

  We finished the entire tour, and I went back to California, where I was now living with my wife-to-be, Anita. By now, Rory was coming to visit me on the weekends, so I’d endure Friday afternoon Los Angeles traffic and pick him up from school, then sit for another few hours in traffic on our way back to Orange County. Still, we found a solution to combat the gridlock. We’d go to a movie, and usually by the time we got out the ride home was a bit more bearable. But I never complained, considering at one point I thought I’d never see my son again. Rory came out on tours, attended recording sessions, and traveled with me to Paris, Sweden, Italy, and Japan, among other places in the world. Needless to say, my paranoia dissipated. With everything he experienced, world travel and all, I don’t t
hink it did for Rory. Children are really fragile, without the thick skin that some of us adults eventually develop. The ones who experience a family breakup are perhaps even more fragile.

  I remember going into deep discussions about the subject of children and family within the structure of a touring rock band with one of my closest friends, Scott Smith. Scott was the bass player in the Canadian rock band Loverboy. I’d met him when we toured Europe together in 1987. We’d remained good friends through the years. Sometimes I’d go and stay with Scott and his family in Maple Ridge, Vancouver. Scott was a couple of years older than me and was a reliable source of great advice on business, band life, and personal experiences. I’d known Scott and his ex-wife, Donna, before their breakup. Scott remained in the same house afterward in order to help raise their two boys, Spencer and Brandon, and he and Donna remained the best of friends. I thought it was admirable that Scott would sacrifice his personal life in order to be there for his children. Scott had a talk radio show and sailed a boat. Me and a one-year-old Rory went with Scott and the boys looking for whales one year in the Vancouver islands. We would always end up having these deep philosophical discussions about wives, girlfriends, band idiosyncrasies, and band management. It always amazed me how bang on the money he was. Scott was a great help for me in dealing with all of those issues. He had also known me through my relationships with Liz, Jacki, and Anita. Each one of them had visited him with me during various stages of my life. Scott’s sons loved Anita because she had been in a few hip-hop videos and looked like the trendy girls in the videos they were going gaga over. Scott and I would get a kick out of watching their reaction to her.