Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott revealed to London's Daily Express that the band is currently combing through its studio vaults. Elliott, along with the rest of the band, has been sidelined by the ongoing pandemic, which forced Leppard, Motley Crue, Poison, and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, to push its massive group stadium tour to 2021.
Elliott explained that although not on the road, Def Leppard is still plenty active: “The one thing about this band is it never stops working, even when we’re not visible. We are always doing something, we’re always writing, we keep in touch with each other regarding putting new ideas together. It is very possible that something may occur during this lockdown. We’ve got nothing concrete, we’ll just have to see how it goes.”
Joe Elliot went on to say, “”We’ve got a lot of historical stuff that’s kinda been sat on the shelf gathering dust that we’re starting to dust down now and say, 'Now’s the time to start tiding this lot up.' So there’s a lot of current work going on right now, whether writing new stuff or tiding up old stuff. One day we will make another record and it will be a furthering of our story.”
Joe Elliott told us that unlike Def Leppard, new bands starting out today aren't allowed to make money touring and growing their audience over the course of four or five albums, because record companies are too demanding in the deals they offer new acts: “Contracts nowadays, record labels, what's left of 'em, are trying to actually get parts of a band's merchandise when they tour. It's like, how dare you! It's two separate things! Y'know, I just can't see Roger Waters willingly giving up 20 percent of his T-shirts. Luckily we aren't in that kind of bag. I just feel bad for the new bands. I mean, there's the odd artist that can sell records these days. But most people, if they don't have a second record make profit, they don't make a third record.”
Def Leppard's 16-date fall arena tour with ZZ Top is still set to run. The North American trek will kick off on September 21st at Albany's Times Union Center.
