002 – Joe Elliott’s Voice

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As the singer, front man, frequent songwriter, and occasional guitarist of Def Leppard, Joe Elliott’s versatile voice plays a key role in the sound of the band.

Elliott draws from many influences, especially music of the 60s and 70s – T. Rex, David Bowie, Mott The Hoople, among others.

In this episode of the Adrenalize Def Leppard Fan Podcast, we discuss the powerhouse that is Joe Elliott.

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Notes:

• “City Lights” by David Andrew Wiebe
• “Foolin’” by Def Leppard
• “80’s Mateys” by Tie Dye Knights

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• Get the WHITE Adrenalize Def Leppard Fan Podcast unisex T-shirt NOW! Available in S, M, L, and XL.
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Transcript:

David: What’s up, Pyromaniacs? It’s David here. This is the Adrenalized Def Leppard Fan podcast. Welcome. Today, I am joined, as always, by…

Brennan: Brennan.

David: How you doing, Brennan?

Brennan: Pretty good.

David: Awesome. What are you up to?

Brennan: Well, today I’ve just been out, soaking in the fabulous sun, like it’s mid-March, but it’s January.

David: Yeah. Feels like March out there, even though it’s January in Calgary. And Calgary is known to be pretty cold this time of year, generally.

Brennan: Just hoping this’ll last another two months and then we’ll be, right into Spring.

David: Yeah. You’ll pretty much be scot-free of winter, which almost never happens. Although there were some colder stretches in December.

Brennan: Right. But my prediction did materialize that we were going to have a very mild spring-like winter.

David: We did. And we’ll see what happens from here. But so far very, very mild.

Brennan: Cool. Well, what have you been up to in the last few days, Dave?

David: Yeah. I’ve just been checking the news on CNN. Posting on Reddit all the really cool vintage Def Leppard merch I’ve been finding on Amazon and eBay.

Brennan: Wow. That sounds like it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

David: Yeah. What could be more fun than that exact set of activities?

Brennan: I envy you.

David: Yeah. I think most people do. We hope everyone else is enjoying themselves out there. There’s something that you wanted to share about concerts and some of the things that we’re up to?

Brennan: Yeah. Well, we just want to let everybody know as always, that this is a very unique fan-based podcast. And everybody who’s listening, we want you to come out of the woodwork so we can build an intimate connection with you.

And the way to do that is to go to adrenalize.ca and just put yourself on our VIP fan page. And then we can keep up all kinds of correspondence with you and give you advanced tips as to when and where we’re planning our concert dates, and even give you special deals on tickets ahead of time.

Definitely let us know you’re out there. Join the VIP page. The more, the merrier.

David: Yeah. Can’t wait to have you over there. And of course, we’ll be sharing all the new podcast episodes with you as they emerge and the new merch items as they become available.

Brennan: Right on.

David: So today’s theme for the show is none other, the voice, the master, the man, Joe Elliott.

Brennan: That’s right.

David: That’s an exciting topic. The singer of Def Leppard, the front man. Obviously, the attention always goes straight to the front man, and there is a reason for that. He’s the one relaying the messages and singing the lyrics and singing the melodies and all that kind of stuff.

We’ll have to get into, going behind the scenes a little bit too into all the other band members. But I think this is a great topic for today.

Brennan: Yeah, absolutely. They are certainly incredible as musicians, but Joe Elliott’s voice is absolutely distinctive in its own right.

David: Yeah, it’s really stellar. So when do you think the voice of Def Leppard first started to become distinctly recognizable?

Brennan: Well, I would have to say that was around 1981. The signature sound of Joe Elliott’s voice became distinctly recognizable with the album High ‘n’ Dry, and definitely with the single “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak.”

Now, again, coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, that was right around the time when they started to work with Mutt Lange in the studio, and probably I would guess that Joe began to take some voice lessons behind the scenes just to polish up his technique a bit.

David: As I recall, the band kind of started operating under different names in 1976. So that means it actually took roughly five years for Joe to really come into his own. Is that what I’m hearing?

Brennan: That’s about right.

David: What are some of the songs from the early years that showcase his strength as a singer?

Brennan: Well, My editorial opinion is, I would say that there’s three that really jump out from the Pyromania album.

And that’s where their profile and their recognition really started to explode. Yeah, definitely “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop),” the opening track of Pyromania comes out with a bang. And you can hear on that one that he really sounds a lot like, Brian Johnson from AC/DC.

Now, the other two tracks I would say that showcase a strength as a singer with maybe different techniques than “Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)” are probably “Photograph” and “Rock Of Ages.”

David: So, one of the things that you’re really hinting at there is he’s a very versatile singer overall.

Brennan: Yes. Now the funny thing is, I think in the early days of the formation of the band, being a singer was actually the last thing on his mind. He just sort of, to some degree, fell into it by accident.

David: Some band roles are like that. I’ve played in enough bands to know that even if you’re the guitarist or you come in thinking that you’re going to be doing one thing, you could end up on the drums for some reason. That stuff does happen.

How about in the peak of their heyday?

Brennan: Probably if I was going to boil it down to one or two songs, definitely “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

That’s their quintessential anthem of all time. And then another track, which was not a radio hit, but once again kind of revisits the Brian Johnson AC/DC technique was “Run Riot” also from the album Hysteria.

David: Yeah. Joe Elliott obviously took something from the “AC/DC School of Singing.” I can definitely hear it.

But it’s cool that he is sort of able to imitate different styles depending on what’s needed for the song. I think that’s one of his strengths.

And in later years after Hysteria?

Brennan: Later years after Hysteria. Well, the interesting thing is, in the 90s, that was kind of the grunge phase.

They put out an album in 1996, which by commercial standards was kind of a flop. However, they still to this day, regard it as one of their favorites in terms of, just being able to cut loose and stray from their standard sound and just go completely experimental.

David: Which was what album?

Brennan: Which was Slang.

David: Slang, of course. I figured it was, and I think one of the reasons Def Leppard has managed to stay relevant is because they were sort of willing to adapt to try things that were now in the moment.

Brennan: Right. I mean, they took a gamble with Slang. But you know what? That didn’t derail them because only three years later they came out with Euphoria, which came back to their roots and revisited their classical sound.

The classical sound from both Pyromania and Hysteria, and again, I would say both, that album, the entirety of that album, and especially the single “Promises.” Again, really showcases the strength of Joe Elliott’s voice.

Another interesting thing about that single is that if you really listen to it carefully, you’ll notice an amazing degree of similarity in terms of the sound and the structure of the song to “Photograph.”

You know, it’s almost like they took the same musical blueprint, but they turned it into another masterpiece, which resulted in a radio hit that got play for months on end.

David: It’s crazy, sort of the trajectory they followed. But I do like the Slang and Euphoria era very much. I wouldn’t say that I loved every song on Slang, and I think that’s kind of how most people felt that bits of it were underwhelming.

And yet it still has three or four pretty solid songs, which is more than a lot of albums could say in the 90s.

Brennan: Right. Well, I remember actually the first time I ever saw them live was the year that Slang came out. They performed some of the tracks from Slang live at the concert. Up until then, I’d never even knew the album existed.

I just knew Def Leppard was going to be at the Saddledome in Calgary, sometime in September. It was like close to my birthday, and I thought, oh cool. I’d love to see them live because that’s something I’ve never done in my life. But because I heard the singles, I liked them enough that it made me want to buy the album.

David: Right. And so, it was basically one of your best birthday parties ever.

Well, something else that I wanted to touch on briefly, and I think our fans would be interested to know as well, is how did you end up becoming the lead singer and learning how to copy Joe’s voice in our band Adrenalize?

Brennan: Well, there’s a very interesting and entertaining story behind that. In the early years of the project, I guess I was kind of practically putting everything together from scratch. I had the idea to build a Def Lepper tribute band. But no experience under my belt as to how to do it. So, I had to go through a few false starts before I finally had a cohesive working lineup.

And one of the things I noticed in the early phase was that I kind of ended up going through a string of flaky singers. They all seemed to be afflicted with something called LSD, which is in musical lingo short for lead singer disease. Now, some of the symptoms of these disease I noticed that were persistent characteristics were…

They wouldn’t remember the lyrics. They were always bringing cheat sheets to practices or even bringing cheat sheets to performances. So, they’d have to have the words in front of them and flip the pages. When we were actually doing the song in front of an audience.

Or even more entertainingly, they were just making up their own words on the fly at practices while they were hammered out of their mind. And sometimes, yeah, they wouldn’t even show up. They’d actually bail out on live appearances and leave us stranded in front of an audience.

And so, one day I had an epiphany, the lights came on, and although it was a bit of an intimidating prospect, I just decided to bite the bullet, spend several hundred dollars on voice lessons and then proceeded to undertake a process of hours and months on end to learn to meticulously reproduce Joe’s unique voice. Technique and inflections in all the songs that we were performing on our set list.

David: Wow. And that way you’d never have to rely on another singer again. You could be the one leading the band because you ‘d just always be there.

Brennan: Well, that’s right. And I can truthfully say that since I learned how to do it myself, in the last 14 years, I’ve never had to fire another singer.

David: I’ve definitely experienced my share of LSD as well. Lead singer disease, not me personally. I don’t have that disease. But working with singers who weren’t totally together, or they were just total divas and they probably, actually, some of them even had bipolar, which is nothing to make fun of, but they just weren’t stable enough to be able to play and cooperate with a band.

Brennan: Well, do you remember one or two of your funniest stories that you might be able to tell the audience?

David: Great question. There were multiple gigs, honestly, where the lead singer was really fired up to be there. So, he was really pumped and excited. And when the show was over, we’d always do this weird post-mortem where he would suddenly get angry and frustrated and depressed and sad and difficult.

And after a while it was just like, wow, I don’t think we can really manage this or stomach it. It’s like it’s a pattern. And he would point fingers too. It wasn’t just like, well, “it was my fault and sorry guys, I let you down.” No, it was more like, ” you played guitar when I told you not to,” and it was like, okay, well this is a song and I’m supposed to play instruments on it.

So, I guess that’s something we should have worked out in advance. I don’t know if that’s funny. It’s just the way things were.

So, anything else you want to cover in this episode?

Brennan: Well, you know what I thought might be kind of fun, maybe we could just do a short excerpt on the fly of one of the songs on our set list. So, you could get to hear my fabulous impersonation of Joe’s voice.

David: That would be really cool.

Brennan: Okay.