Def Leppard's Joe Elliott talks ahead of Birmingham show

Though his band has already shifted a cool 100 million records and played to tens of millions of fans across the globe, the future has never been more rosy.

Joe’s band is about to complete a mammoth world tour that ties in with a ‘best of collection’. And they arrive in Birmingham on Monday to wrap up the UK leg at the Second City’s Arena.

“It’s been the best year we’ve ever had. Ticket-wise, we’ve sold more tickets this tour while playing less shows than ever before. On the Hysteria tour, we did 60 shows with Journey and 10 of those were stadiums. They were phenomenal, really emotional and life-affirming. It was hard work and I got the odd sniffle. But we had a week off before we went to Hawaii to rehearse a totally different set. While we were there, we played two nights at the same arena that Elvis played in 73, which was cool. Then we popped to Japan for three shows.”

He says ‘popped to Japan’, like he’s nipping to the shops to fetch the milk. But such is the life of a high-rolling, hard-working, money-earning, bona fide rock ‘n’roll A-Lister.

Joe is one of the smartest men in rock – and one of the most driven. He no longer lets his band stay on the road for too long, preferring two days on and one day off. “It’s all about staying in shape and managing yourself. You have to stay smart if you want to stay relevant in this business. And the older you are the smarter you have to be. You look at David Beckham. He could play better at 22 then 38 – but he’d still got it in the later days of his career.”

Much as he loves the USA, Joe is delighted to be back in the UK. It’s still home, after all, and even though he now lives in Dublin and LA, he relishes the chance of playing to a British crowd. He became a father later in life and enjoys being closer to his family.

“We love the UK. It’s our birth county, it’s where we learned everything. Phil was down in London, Viv was in Belfast and me and Save were on the outskirts of Sheffield. That’s how it all began.

“As kids we all watched the same stuff and generally liked the same stuff. And I think that was born out of the fact that the UK was a hotbed for creativity in the 1970s. 1972 was my Ground Zero for music. I’m the hugest fan of the Stones, The Who and the Beatles – but for me it all started when I saw Marc Bolan on Top of the Pops. After that, I saw David Bowie. Life went from black and white to colour.

“So, yes, it’s always special to come back and play at home. Over the years, we’ve met so many people from various different parts of the UK that every city feels like home. Sheffield is always hectic, obviously, because of friends and family. But it goes much further than that. When me and Phil had the Cybernauts band, we had this fantastic keyboard player from Dudley who also played on a bunch of Def Leppard songs. So you meet people along the way and they come and hang out at the shows, before or after. And that’s cool. It colours your soul back up. You’re out there working and working and working and it’s great fun being on stage in Memphis and LA and Dallas but there’s nothing as special as coming home. It brings it all back.”

Def Leppard started life in 1977 but enjoyed their greatest commercial successes between 1980 and 1990. Pyromania started the ball rolling in January 1983, with Photograph and Rock of Ages enjoying huge success and the record going on to achieve diamond status in the USA, (10-times platinum), making Def Leppard among the most popular music groups at the time.

The follow-up, Hysteria, took three years to record and topped the UK and US album charts. It outsold Pyromania and was certified 12-times platinum for sales of more than 12 million in the USA, while selling around 25 million copies worldwide and spawning seven hit singles, including the US number one Love Bites, alongside Pour Some Sugar on Me, Hysteria, Armageddon It, Animal, Rocket and Women.

And though it’s been impossible to replicate that level of success since, Def Leppard have been no slouches. Adrenalize went platinum around the world while they’ve continued to record and release new music to the present day. That output has earned them a new generation of fans, so live shows now feature up to three generations of the same family. Joe says: “Certain bands get a new audience. As a kid, I get I wasn’t born early enough to be a Rolling Stones fan but I developed into one. We have the same thing. If you’re a survivor like us or Judas Priest or the Rolling Stones, or even a solo artist like Paul McCartney or Sting or Billy Idol, you pick up new fans. I think we’re one of the lucky ones because our music goes beyond our own generation. The songs remain hits and are forever on the radio. The original fans went away, had kids, then came back and once their kids had grown up they brought them along too.”

Joe has seen a similar effect with other bands. He remembers watching the Rolling Stones in Toronto in 1989, standing at the mixing desk as their guest. And there was a 50-something fan with his 30-something son and 10-year-old grandkid. “Good songs last whether that’s for us or Iron Maiden or U2 or Frank Sinatra or Miles Davis or John Coltrane.”

Joe was always destined to be a rock‘n’roll star. He was obsessive about music as a child and wrote his first song at the age of eight. When his mother brought herself a guitar from a catalogue, Joe grew even more interested. He’d watch her play melodies by Joan Baez and other Americana artists and that had a profound effect. He asked his parents for a guitar and his father told him that if he learned to play his mother’s he could have one.

“I got my head round She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain, wrote my first song and I was off. Embarrassing relatives still remember it. Music was something I always wanted to do. But I used to obsess about all sorts of things. When Wimbledon was on I wanted to do tennis, when The Open was on I wanted to be a golfer and I always wanted to be a footballer. But music never went away and I’ve been fortunate that what would have been a hobby became my vocation.

“As a 15-year-old in a factory in Sheffield, I knew I didn’t want to do that for my life. Judas Priest and UFO and Thin Lizzy were all breaking around that time and they were and they had melody and we saw them and wanted to be part of that.

“But punk was also massively important. Anybody can play New Rose, by The Damned, so punk gave us all hope. It gave us the confidence to go out there and do it. We stuck at it, that’s the thing. There were other bands that would fall by the wayside within weeks and we’d wonder why they gave up so easily. But in this game, it’s all about application, not talent. It’s 99 per cent perspiration, one per cent talent.”

That perspiration has seen Def Leppard reach improbable heights. And yet when they reached the dizzy multi-million sales of the mid-1980s they were ready. They’d spent years playing local clubs, gradually building their profile and effectively working an apprenticeship – they were ready for bigger things when bigger things came. It happened to us over 12-14 years so we had time to get used to it. It wasn’t like somebody walking through the door and going from nothing to 12 million overnight. You have to remember that when Pyromania did what it did in America and Canada, we were still in debt to the label. It took seven years of work and we were only just starting to earn a living when Pyromania was selling by the million. “Pyromania was an extremely expensive record to make and Hysteria was even more. The record company was loaning us the money and we had to sell six million copies to break even. Thank God the tour did so well in the States.”

Joe’s Yorkshire roots may be partly responsible for keeping him grounded. He remains a bluff Yorkshireman at heart, unphased by this and that, rooted in the everyday and in not getting to big for his boots. He’s not alone. He went from zero to hero with the band of brothers with whom he takes to the stage every night.

“We just keep doing it and we’re lucky we were able to maintain it.”

He adds: “I think there’s a slight fear that if we stop it will all go away. That comes from the background. It’s not like we couldn’t survive if we didn’t do this, I’ve got enough to keep me happy for the rest of my life. But I’m not a guy with a warehouse full of expensive cars. I live normal, whatever that is for people like us. Most of my mates are the guys I knew from college.”

We wrap up the interview with the traditional thanks and Joe ells us he’s had a good time.

“I enjoyed that. That was good. You gotta come and see us. Say hello.”

We will, Joe. Just like the 10,000-plus rockers who’ll descend on Birmingham on Monday.