How Def Leppard drank their way to a classic: “400 bottles of whiskey”
I have a poster on my wall for one of the most surreal gigs I’ve ever been to. Def Leppard, live at Leadmill, 2023.
For those of you who might not know, Leadmill was one of the most cherished music venues in England. I say “was” because it closed its doors recently after being bought out by its Landlords. It’s a complicated issue; I won’t go into it here. However, before the venue shut, it put up a good legal fight, and a number of big artists rallied to try and keep it open.
A lot of the artists you would expect. Richard Hawley did a run of shows there and brought on stage fellow Sheffield musicians such as Jarvis Cocker, Matt Helders and Self Esteem. These were all great surprises for the people of the city, but also somewhat predictable. What came as a surprise to people was when Def Leppard agreed to take to the stage and play a first and final gig at the Steel City Staple.
I was lucky enough to go and cover the gig, and it was an incredibly surreal experience for a couple of reasons. The first was because you were up close and personal with a band that had made a plethora of hits and subsequently changed the lives of many. However, it was also strange because, despite them being huge and their origin well documented, it’s hard to believe that this is a band that started in Sheffield.
Plenty of bands from this city wear it on their sleeve. Early Arctic Monkeys tunes, for example, paint a pretty vivid picture of the place. And Jarvis Cocker? He pulled loads of inspiration for Pulp’s best work straight from the people and streets around him. But Def Leppard’s sound doesn’t really reflect the city at all. Not that it’s a bad thing, it just doesn’t carry much of that Yorkshire flavour.
That didn’t stop people from listening, though. Sheffield-centric or not, there was no escaping that the band were churning out hit after hit. They had set the bar high for themselves with the record Pyromania, and in the mid-1980s, when they started writing Hysteria, they were more ambitious than ever, as they set out to rival one of the biggest albums of all time.
“When we started doing Hysteria, our producer ‘Mutt’ Lange – who’d done High ’N’ Dry and Pyromania – told us we should set out to make a hard rock version of Thriller,” said band member Joe Elliott. “He really did believe that this band were capable of making a record with seven potential hit singles on it – and he was right.”
A pretty big ask for any band. Def Leppard decided that if they were going to do it, they needed a new space where they could focus on just being creative. They went to Ireland and found a small house on the outskirts of the city where they could start writing what they wanted to be the Thriller of rock. This happened, to an extent, but it came at a price, namely a massive alcohol bill, as the band focused more on partying than they did writing.
“You’ve gotta remember that we were all in our early 20s, single, and had been on the road for a year,” recalled Elliott. “So not only did we write for the new album, but also partied really hard! In about six months, we got through about 300 bottles of vodka, 400 bottles of whiskey and cases of beer. It was insane.”
No surprise really – when you’re out partying that much, you’re not exactly going to be at your most productive. That’s what happened with Def Leppard. They didn’t manage to finish the album while they were in Dublin, but the tracks they did come up with ended up being classics. It was the spark that got them on the way to making what’s now seen as one of the best rock albums ever. Whether it came together in Sheffield or Dublin, the band had a sound that just worked for everyone.
“What we came out with during those early days in Dublin were songs like Animal – although that got re-written countless times – Hysteria, Gods Of War,” said Elliot, “We felt that things were going in the right direction.”
