What is your favorite thing about England- or Britain for that matter? My answer is simple: DEF LEPPARD.
Def Leppard was founded in 1977, in Sheffield. It consisted of 5 guys who chose to become musicians instead of opting for working in a factory-luckily for both them and us. Today the band still maintains three of the 5 original line-up and keeps on rocking. They’re huge, they are glamorous and well; they rock. How they go to be big, and how they reached their current line-up and most of all how they kept together amaze the fans that know the whole story. Here we go:
The original 5- from left to right: Pete Willis, Steve Clark, Joe Elliot, Rick Allen, Rick Savage
I am really not going to go into specific dates. The point is Willis was the first and last to be kicked out of the band. Phil Collen replaced Willis. With Collen’s arrival, and probably also with the times, glam really showed its presence.
left to right: Rick Savage (Bass-guitar), Joe Elliot (vocals), Rick Allen (drums), Phil Collen (guitars), Steve Clark (guitars)
What were they thinking? Good old 80s...
So you have a bunch of rockers who perform to big audiences, sell a good number of records and have an increasing number of fans.
But then something terrible happened. And terrible is possibly the understatement of the year.
Drummer Rick Allen had a car accident that cost him an arm. An amazing thing is they all coped with together. More amazingly, Rick continued to play in the band-as the drummer, having designed a drum kit that tranfers the function of the lost arm to be used by his foot.
Rick Allen, still rocking.
However, although Rick overcame his struggle, Steve Clark couldn’t manage to handle his own. Having been struggling with alcoholism, the band lost their friend to alcoholism. Later on, the band got a new member: Vivian Campbell.So with Vivian’s arrival the band then had its permanent line-up. second one on the left: Vivian So after kicking one member out and replacing him, supporting their one-armed drummer back to life and overcoming the loss of a close friend and replacing him, one of the oldest members had to deal with a personal trouble. Bass player Rick Savage had facial paralysis. You see, it is never a walk in the park to lose the control of one side of your face completely. And even though, it healed in time, Savage got back the 70% of that side of his face. It can not be easy having to deal with the condition when you were considered to be a sex god. You see, Savage used to be one of the most beautiful men in rock. Although he is in no terms ugly, the difference between “before” and after” is not due to age, but the condition called Bell’s Palsy.R. Savage. The pictures don’t do him justice.
What was I saying? Oh yes- Savage used to be hot, hot and hot. And if you think I’m being superficial, don’t. An actual, stupid interviewer has asked him and I quote: “…I could imagine going from the position that you were in — from ultimate rock sex god to….” Yep. He was asked that.
After. Rick is said to show the leftover symptoms more when he is tired
Rick, after the paralysis
Despite everything, the band didn’t break-up. And boy I am glad they did not. Sure they had some weird turns with their music. From hard-rock (High n’ dry) to glam (Adrenalize), from alternative (Slang) to soft/pop rock (X) to rock roots (cover album Yeah) again…There have been songs that I found a little off and there were many songs I adored. Through my teens, I kept watching their videos and crossed fingers that one day I’d be able to see this amazing band live. And finally, in 2006, I got the chabce to see them at a rock festival in Sweden, during their Yeah tour.
I have the memories and the concert t-shirt.
FOR SOME CLASSIC DEF LEPPARD:
Two Steps Behind (Live)
Pour some sugar on me
CHEERS!
For more rock posts:
COOL…
My favourite Def Leppard’s album was Hysteria. I also must say their long hair was my favourite too
Def Leppard’s Hysteria was their first album after the tragic car accident which left their drummer Rick Allen with one arm.
And i started to listen them more carefully i feel like i must listen to them.And we should know, they made 80′s…