The reason why Def Leppard fired Pete Willis: “He had to go”
The story of Def Leppard starts pretty early by usual standards. Compared to the other acts at the time, that were in their mid-20s, Leppard were all still in their teens, crafting some of their first songs on a demo tape that would give rise to their first album, On Through the Night. While everything was gelling at the time, it wasn’t enough for the camaraderie to last for much longer.
As the band started work on the album High N’ Dry, the commitment that came into the studio from producer ‘Mutt’ Lange was enough to make any musician shudder in fear. Having come off of producing albums like Highway to Hell by AC/DC, Lange was used to having a perfect timekeeper and would often go for the absolute perfect track for the final mix. Though the band soldiered on bravely enough through their first experience, things started going downhill for Pete Willis around the time of Pyromania.
Looking to make something even bigger than their predecessor, Lange encouraged the band to play in lockstep time on songs like ‘Rock of Ages’, which required intense focus in the studio. Then again, no amount of focus would get done when Willis decided to drink before the session.
From the rest of the band’s point of view, Willis became a different character when he was drunk, with Joe Elliot telling Behind the Music: “Pete would have readily gone into the ring with Mike Tyson after a few pints of beer.” Although Willis could hold it together for the first few days, one morning in the studio marked the beginning of the end.
As Willis tells it, the spiral started the night before, saying, “I just really got out of my brains one night. Drank a bottle of brandy or something and was very ill. I probably shouldn’t have gone to the studio the next morning.” After initially laughing at his subpar job, Lange eventually told Willis that he needed a break, recalling, “We said, ‘Pete, you need to go back to Sheffield. Just cool out and come back until you’re ready to play.”
Though the initial plan was to give Willis a break, the rest of the band auditioned guitar players, bringing in Phil Collen to play guitar solos on the record. In hindsight, Elliott looked at the situation as the moment they all turned on him, saying, “We gave him what we call ‘The Spanish Archer’. He just had to go.”
Granted, Willis wasn’t the only one struggling with his vices. Between takes, lead guitarist Steve Clark was nursing a dangerous drug habit, with the anxiety of performing live always getting to him until his death from an overdose in 1990. Though Collen got most of the glory for being the new guitarist for Leppard’s ascent to the top of the charts, the band did give Willis a bit of consolation, keeping some of his original rhythm tracks and even giving him writing credits on some of the songs that he wrote.
