Def Leppard vocalist Joe Elliott says he's 'jolly' because the band has finished their new album
Def Leppard has completed recording its new album for a late 2015 release. The news was revealed by the band's vocalist, Joe Elliott, during his evening show on Planet Rock Radio. 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 am] looking forward to playing a few tunes from that later on."
At a recent interview Elliott also stated, "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."
The album hasn't been titled yet, because as Elliott said at the same interview there are more important things that have to be done. Precisely, he said "At the moment in time, we do not. We are always one of these bands that say, 'Well, the album's coming out soon. We'd better give it a name.' It always cracks me up when somebody say, 'We're going in to record our new album, and it's gonna be called blah blah blah.' It's, like, 'You know that already? How and why?' Now, at this moment in time, it's all about getting the songs right, picking a good running order for it, and then packaging it up, and then thinking, well, what word's gonna look great on the sleeve?"
Def Leppard will return to the road on April 15 for a Canadian tour, followed by Europe in May and June. When Elliott was asked if Def Leppard will perform any new songs on tour this summer, he responded: "No. Absolutely not. Because the album won't be out until the tour's finished, and we don't want inferior versions up on YouTube etc., that are circulating before the real versions are available."
In anticipation of Def Leppard’s new album we hope that it'll be as good as Elliott describes it: "It's got some stuff that will be instantly recognizable as Def Leppard and it's got some stuff that's just us stretching our wings a little further than normal, and making a record that people of our mature age should be making. But it rocks. It's a real good record."