DEF LEPPARD has completed recording its new album for a late 2015 release. On his Planet Rock radio show, lead singer, Joe Elliott said: “Yes, I do sound very jolly, don’t I? I’m jolly because we have finished the new album. Yes, well, apart from the mixing of it. We have sung our last word, played our last solo, hit our last drum. It’s done! And it will be out later this year.”
“I keep wanting to say [it’s] probably one of the most honest records we’ve ever made, but that makes everything sound like everything else we’ve done has been dishonest or something, [which] it’s not. But it’s one of the most refreshingly, kind of, easy albums that we’ve made. There was no big fights or [that] it took forever to do. It was done over a period of about… by the time it’s finished, over about 14 months. But that’s only because we did a month’s work last February [2014]. We did about another two weeks in May. We just did another month this February just gone — last month. And little bits in between where I’d be on the mic while the rest of the guys were back home, you know. So we’ve not spent a massive amount of time on it. It came very naturally.”
Guitarist Phil Collen confirmed an October release date. Collen talked with Boston’s WAAF on Friday, telling them”There wasn’t any industry ‘ no record company executive or anyone saying, ‘You’ve got to do an album.’ It was purely because we wanted to write songs, and we felt the need to do that.”
‘[It’s] probably the most diverse thing we’ve done. I think it’s the best thing we’ve done since Hysteria ‘ I really do. I’ve said that, and I’ve heard that come back as a quote, and I sincerely believe it. It’s the loudest rock guitars we’ve ever had on some tracks.”
