DEF LEPPARD
BEST OF ’87/’88: Hysteria (as if you didn’t know), along with the equally overbearing, 18-month “Hysteria” tour, keeping the Leps busy well into 1988. PROFILE: Over the course of four outstanding albums, Def Leppard has put the melody back into metal music.
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DEF LEPPARD
THE HEROES OF HEAVY METAL
BEST OF ’87/’88: Hysteria (as if you didn’t know), along with the equally overbearing, 18-month “Hysteria” tour, keeping the Leps busy well into 1988. PROFILE: Over the course of four outstanding albums, Def Leppard has put the melody back into metal music. The English quintet—consisting of singer Joe Elliott, guitarists Phil Collen and Steve Clark, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen—topped the American charts with a handful of well-crafted singles from Hysteria's predecessor—1983’s Pyromania—and set the stage for the metal resurgence that continues to dominate the United States.
FIRST ACCOMPLISHMENT: Pressing up their own three-song debut EP, thereby starting the chain of events that have since made them kings of all that is metal.
GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT:
With his bandmates’ support, drummer Allen bounced back from a near-fatal auto accident and, despite the loss of his left arm, re-established himself as one of rock’s premier drummers.
THE “MORE METAL FOR YOUR MONEY” AWARD: Goes to the Leps for Hysteria with 12 songs clocking in at over an hour!
QUOTE: “It’s about working and playing live and being musicians in a band. That’s what it’s always been about. The music is what matters.”
Phil Collen
