Ear Sucker

[Image Credit: CrumJ via Flickr]

Joe Elliott has apologized to hockey fans after placing the Stanley Cup upside down on a podium on the 10th. We said it then that the world isn’t going to end.

In a statement, he says, “I will, as always, take full responsibility for what happened because I have big pucks. However, someone at the NHL should have known better and informed me first instead of keeping the Stanley Cup under lock and key until the last minute. The practice runs the day before with a coffeemaker went swimmingly because it, like every other sporting cup I’ve ever seen, was wider at the top than the base. Like most of my fellow Brits, I’d never seen it before until it was handed to me sideways, by which time I had a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Whoops.”

Like I’ve said, it’s all good. Eff hockey, make another record!

There’s a big “epic fail” fuss over the way that Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott handled the Stanley Cup at the launch of the new hockey season last night. Oh noes! I guess the world is going to end now, isn’t it?

When the cup was brought out, Joe picked it up and placed it on the podium upside down. Yes, that was the flub.

Of the incident, Joe says, “We’re soccer boys, what do we know?”

It’s all good Joe, your music still rocks.

Joe Elliott of Def Leppard picks on Poison and other glam bands for not concentrating on the music as opposed to putting on mascara. He said that the bands are doing it because they’re covering for the fact that they have no substance to their music. He said that Hanoi Rocks was the only exception to the rule.

Bret Michaels responds, saying that music comes first, and they haven’t sold out every arena because they care only about their appearance. He goes on to rag on Def Leppard for lip-syncing on Dancing With The Stars.

Shut up Bret! Go back to making your retarded DUMB reality show!!!!

Team Def Leppard!

Rawr. Joe Elliott turns 49 today! Happy Birthday to Joe!

Dude, I’m totally your biggest fan. Rawk on!

[Photo Credit: Newscom]

Def Leppard’s previous albums X and Yeah! never enjoyed the type of success that they are receiving with Songs From The Sparkle Lounge and it’s got the Leppard boys a little curious:

Phil Collen says, “I am pleased but mildly irritated by the fact that we haven’t done anything different (to the most recent album) but simplified it. I am irked that people didn’t pay this much attention to the other albums which I felt were just as good. This one is stripped down and people seem to be going nuts for it.”

[Photo Credit: Newscom]

This is a great interview that was conducted by Billboard with Def Leppard’s frontman Joe Elliott. Enjoy!

The title of Def Leppard’s latest album, “Songs From the Sparkle Lounge,” spurs an obvious question: What’s a Sparkle Lounge?

According to band frontman Joe Elliott, it was a special room with recording equipment set up backstage at each of the group’s 2007 shows. He says as time went on, “the crew started having a bit of fun with it, putting in sparkly lights, candles, incense — you name it. It turned into this very atmospheric little work space.”

The Sparkle Lounge was the incubator for the songs on the group’s new album — its 14th studio effort and first of all-new material since 2002’s “X.” Final recording was done at Elliott’s Joe’s Garage studio in Dublin.

Most of the 11 tracks — including first single “Nine Lives,” a collaboration with Tim McGraw that is being played on National Basketball Association telecasts — recall a vintage Def Leppard sound, which Elliott says was not an accident.

Q: “Sparkle Lounge” sounds like a kind of default Def Leppard album, something that’s almost “easy” for the band to make.

Joe Elliott: Well, yeah, I suppose that’s one way of putting it. There was a thought process behind it that we wanted to deliver a specific kind of record, but that specific kind of record was, if you like, a nonspecific kind of record. We weren’t going to try to theme it to the point of “Pyromania,” where it’s got a drum sound that was definitive in 1983 … (or) “Hysteria,” when we had a definite, like, overall ’80s sound.

With this one it was a case of, “Let’s just hone in on the songwriting and we’ll use 2008 production techniques, if you like, to make it sound more like a ’70s record.” It sounds very complicated, but it actually wasn’t.

Q: Did doing a covers album (2005’s “Yeah”) before this have any impact on “Sparkle Lounge?”

Elliott: I think a lot of it is overspill from the “Yeah” album. When we went in to do the covers record we didn’t have to worry at all about one word or one note from a writing point of view; all we did was … record these songs that made us all, (at) the age of 10 or 11 or 12, plead for our first guitar.

So then when it came to this one, it was a case of, “Alright, let’s try to sit down and write some songs that, if we were out buying records, they would be the kinds of songs we (would) want to buy.” So we all just sat down and wrote what we thought were meaningful songs.

Q: Was the Sparkle Lounge on the road a place where songs were written or did you already have the ideas?

Elliott: Well, we’re notoriously terrible at writing on the road. We just can’t do it. You can’t write a song like you can build a cabinet; the best idea is you lock yourself away in a room and you just do it, and it might take three or four days until it comes to a natural ending. What we did with (the Sparkle Lounge) was we took a lot of songs that were already half-written, and it was a lot easier. We’d go in and really work on these songs, and by the time we started recording them we knew them really well, and there was not that much of a learning process … So it was probably the best recording situation for new music we’ve ever had.

Q: How did the Tim McGraw collaboration happen on “Nine Lives?”

Elliott: I’ll try to make a long story short. (laughs) Sav’s (bassist Rick Savage’s) brother Robert is Tim’s tour manager. We’ve kind of known Tim and Faith Hill are huge Leppard fans and have been for many years. When we played the Hollywood Bowl in 2006, Tim happened to be in L.A., so we invited him down; it was one of those, “Hey, man, you want to get up and do something?” So we did “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” which went down really well.

We had a good laugh that night, and lo and behold, when we came through Nashville just a short while later, he came down to soundcheck and we ended up in the Sparkle Lounge, and that’s where the song was conceived.

Q: And now everybody thinks Def Leppard is going country!

Elliott: (laughs) People have been bringing that question up: “You guys have gone country?” “No! Tim went rock!” And truth be known, that’s really what he did. If you listen to the record, he goes off on his own kind of twangy tangent for the beginning part, but after that, even me and him could barely distinguish one from another…. So he really stepped up to the plate in the rock sense.

Q: What kind of commercial pressure do you feel when you put out a new Def Leppard album now?

Elliott: The commercial pressure actually comes after we’ve delivered a record. The fact of the matter is we don’t allow anybody anywhere near us when we’re making records — it’s what I call the Roger Waters syndrome; nobody’s going to tell Roger Waters how to make a Pink Floyd album, and rightfully so. Same thing with us…. I know some people might think that someone shoved Tim McGraw in our face, but it wasn’t like that at all. That was something we chose to do, and it caused a certain ripple in the media.

Q: Who is the Def Leppard audience these days?

Elliott: I think logic would say it’s a continuation of the audience we’ve always had. But having said that, and without wanting to extend a cliche, ’cause I’m sure you hear from every band our age that “our audience seems to be getting younger” — it really is in our case! (laughs) At the last few shows, even the casino gig we did, there were, like, 10-year-old kids, albeit with their parents.

I just think anybody that likes a great commercial pop-rock song, or a rock song, is potentially a Leppard fan.

Image details: VH1 Big In ‘05 Awards – Show served by picapp.com

Joe Elliott of Def Leppard has been told to rest by a doctor because he’s been diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection.

The group was forced to cancel a string of shows, but is set to resume Friday.

Get well soon, Joe!!!

Via Blabbermouth comes this interview with Def Leppard frontman, Joe Elliott.

Here, I announced the 50 cities that this 80’s rock sensation will be playing this year.

From Def Leppard Satellite of Love, we’ve found this nifty video clip of Joe Elliott and Phil Collen in Atlanta, talking about the upcoming tour.

Def Leppard rocks!