Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade - Joe Elliott

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Musical beginnings, rock legends, and Joe Dirt with Joe Elliott of Def Leppard. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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in advance. 90 days in advance. Perfect for all you forward thinkers and planning gurus. Reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. Uber Reserve. See Uber app for details. Dana Jo Elliott is the lead singer of the rock and roll band, Def Leppard. Def Leppard. Everyone knows, pretty much everyone loves.

Pour Some Sugar On Me, two albums that sold over 10 million copies each has only been she by five other bands in history. And they're out there on tour with Journey and sometimes Steve Miller. And we got to talk to Joe Elliott, the lead singer. Of course, yeah. Who's an incredibly nice guy. He's so pretty, and he's so working class, you know, you can't really give him a compliment.

Well, I do the best I can. When did you know you could really sing your ass off? I still don't know if I can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's an incredibly likable chap. Still loves his job. The guys still write together. They tour, they're out with Steve Miller, Journey.

I'm going to see them in LA. That's a really fun one. I'd go in Arizona if it wasn't 193. And I have roughed it in concerts in Arizona, don't get me wrong. Those days are over. He, we for once didn't talk over him because he had a lot of great things to say. He literally in a five minute period, unpacks that evolution from the Beatles all the way through the seventies.

Yes, he did. Ziggy Stardust and then all these other bands, Scorpion. I can't even remember the name of the band. It's comprehensive encyclopedic knowledge. He went on. Into where they took the, uh, the horn with music. Yeah. Where it went from punk to grunge, like all that and how they stayed through it.

And they're still playing stadiums. I mean, it's borderline impossible, but he had a lot to say and we talked about Joe Dirt. We talked for a lot of stuff. So here he is. And one other thing, you'll notice that he refers to British money, which I always find funny. And we had full, I only had full quid. Oh, it was 10p for that.

I just love British money names. We just have a quarter dime. Ours is boring. Yeah, a quid is $100,000. That's what they don't tell you. So it's not that bad. Yeah, they split a pint. They split a pint and so I had four quid.

I had to give three quid to be mother full, the bed, the food, you know, like room and board. Anyway, I thought it was, he's incredibly charming, and it was a very fun interview. So don't click off now and smash that subscribe button. Yeah, smash and like. That's the other podcast. Yeah, that's right.

Oh, you can smash anything you want. Smash some potatoes then. Let me get a good look. You look great. It's scary. Yeah, I should have just had a shower because I was in the gym, So I didn't want to stink all the way over to wherever you guys are. I was in a big sudsy tub. 35 seconds.

Well, wait a minute. You're not working tonight. You're working tomorrow night. Is this your day off? Are you traveling? Yeah. Yeah. This was yesterday was a travel day and today is a, well, we call it a day off.

It's a no show day because obviously I'm talking to you guys and then I've got a nip down to some room somewhere and do some pyromaniac stuff. And then at five 30, we've got a private tour of the rock and roll hall of fame. Cause you know, Cleveland, Cleveland, damn, it's pissing it down out there. It's fucking miserable. It's like, like Sheffield was when I was growing up. That's why. Yeah, you don't want to grow up in California

because I'm Irish, Scottish, Norwegian. So. I couldn't tell. Yeah, we're the two pastiest. But I look, I look a little bit Irish, if you think, if you look at me close. But I like. Absolutely. I see a lot of European in you right there. Yeah. Oh yeah.

So you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. I'm part of your tribe. If we'd have grown up in California, we would have had nothing to aspire to. Because it was, you know, as kids when we used to see on the three channels that we had in the UK, BBC One, BBC Two and ITV, we would get, you know, Starsky and Hutch or whatever programs are on. You know, Dukes of Hazard was more Midwest, but we'd get the roller skating guy in

Venice beach or wherever he was. Yes. And all the palm trees and the bikinis and think, I, uh, really don't see that where I live. Why work? We at one point had a British nanny and the Brits, is that a slang or you can't say Brits? Yeah, no, you can totally say that. The Brits come to LA, they go crazy because the weather is insane.

Mary Poppins and she turned into a bit of a slapper, did she? I'm sorry. I hope she didn't. she was a real slapper. I love all the slang, you know, um, we've interviewed Paul McCartney. We haven't had a lot of musicians, but we're so glad you decided to come on our podcast cause we're huge fans. Spade has already bought tickets for SoFi. So I've given you some, if you'd have asked, no way I want to get in there.

And, uh, I love it. I've seen, you know, where I saw you guys recently was if this is true, possibly the whiskey about two or three years ago. It was a small show day and night got wind of this one, grabbed Theo, another comedian. We went down there and it was so fucking good. And they were so great. I mean, you rarely get to see him that, that up close. It's on YouTube. I saw it. Yes. Is it on YouTube?

It is indeed. Yeah. It was the first show that we did for the diamond star halos tour with, we went out in the stadiums remotely. So we launched the album by playing the first time that we'd ever played there. I think, you know, cause we, as being a British band, we weren't like, you know, we weren't sluts of the Boulevard in the eighties. We didn't do like the Troubadour or the Roxy or the Ray.

Well, the Rainbow we went to a couple of times, but that wasn't a gig, was it? There was the Roxy, there was- The Whiskey and the Troubadour. The Whiskey and the Troubadour. Yeah. And we went there to see a few bands, but never played there. Yeah.

Must be cool though, to go back. I mean, you guys were such a stadium band to play in a little tight place like that was so fun and I'm think I had seen you obviously in the old days. Um, I lived in Arizona. So you guys, that would usually be on the route, you know, we usually get pretty, pretty good bands and, bands in Scottsdale, Phoenix. And yeah, you know, it's funny because if you're out with a crew, I was always thinking like, I call them the crew, Dan, it's lingo for my crew. That's pretty hip. Yeah. And so it's always funny when I see

these bands that tour together, I saw Joan Jett, Heart, and Cheap Trick. And I went thinking it was Joan Jett first and it was Cheap Trick first. And I was like, oh my God, I just missed most of Cheap Trick. How do they figure that out? I guess it's just pure ticket sales or something. It must be, you know, popularity for bands that are still existing since the seven is or whatever. It rides the waves. Sometimes it just takes one song, like you think about Journey and The Sopranos, and it elevates their entire touring situation. They double their sales. Joan Jett may well have had a song that resonated somewhere at that particular time that elevated

their above chiptrick. I mean, I don't know, because everybody you just mentioned there, they're bands that we all grew up listening to. I mean, I saw the Runaways in 76 at the Sheffields University. In fact, I gave Joan Jett a photograph two years ago that was taken from behind the stage. And you can see me, this 16 year old me about four rows, you know, they're all crammed down the front. I was my head popping up between two guys and there it was a 16 year old. Yeah. Throwing my pants on. It's a cherry cherry because she was in the middle, you know, but I'm honored by the way,

to be on the same podcast as a, as Paul McCartney because wow, you know, what a great coattail to ride on, you know? Yeah. Amazing. I don't know. He was big over there. Yes. He was quite popular, wasn't he?

He was big. I mean, you know, for as casual Beale fans at my age group, you know, it's always the, the tease of what did Paul do and John do. There were certain songs, clearly a John song, clearly a Paul song, but when they were collaborating, you always wonder. And I think Paul has a little bit, I wouldn't call it a chip, but he likes to point out that, you know, I played the bass on that, you know, and I wrote the middle eight.

I'm like you, I'm like you. I, you know, we've had these discussions where you're on some long overnight or on the bus and you're listening to The Beatles for whatever reason. And a song comes on and you go, McCartney wrote that bit, that's a Lennon bit. You know, the greatest example for me is Day in the Life because you've got, I heard the news today, oh boy.

And then it gets a little bit, got up, got out of bed, and you go, yeah, that's the vaudeville McCartney that, that gives it, it gives you a break from this kind of surrealism that, that Lennon supplied. Um, cause you think about the Lennon stuff, you know, tomorrow never knows away what it was called in all the kind of weird stuff. It was just brilliant. And, and then McCartney was always very capable of writing a great rock song. I think Helter Skelter was, was one of Paul's, but he could also write when I'm 64, which I doubt Lenin could or would actually want to, but it balances out.

Sometimes you have to have a song like that to kind of showcase the one before and after it and bring them to the light. You know, every name your favorite album of all time. There's a 10th worth, worst track on it. song like that to kind of showcase the one before and after it and bring them to the light. Yeah. You name your favorite album of all time. There's a 10th worth, worst track on it. Or if it's only an eight track album, an eighth worth track. Well, they a worst track, you know, a secret Beatle album, but it was, it's sort of a,

a mashup because I think Starberry Fields and Penny Lane might be the best 45 ever released, A side, B side. But they wasn't really on an album, but then on Magical Mystery Tour, which people don't really mention, they put on I Am A Wall or Strawberry Fields and Penning Lane, and you're kind of like, well, that's a good record. That's three of their great hits of work

in the kind of past 60s. You know, there was the touring Beatles in the black and white Beatles, if you like. And then there was the colored Beatles. And they went multicolor with things like strawberry fields. When they started taking vitamins, their outputs got way more creative and weird, which was great.

Yes. One thing I wanted to ask you, cause you're our guest today, but I love talking about music in general, is that you play the guitar, but then I find that, you know, bands really need a front man, a band like yours or the Rolling Stones, you need someone with a voice. So when did you discover that? Were you singing as a little kid or when did you realize you had this voice, this raspy, perfect hard rock voice?

I'm not sure I ever even got there yet to be quite honest. As a kid, I thought so, you know, when my mom was, when I was about eight, so it'd be 1967, 68, my mother bought an acoustic guitar through one of these catalogs that you pay on the weekly and they post it out to you and you're sending a coupon and you know, it was a 20 quid guitar and she probably paid a pound a week for it. And I used to be sat there fascinated with this woman who had this like Americana of playing a day kind of Burt Weeden book or whatever, teaching herself to play, um, Pete Seeger type songs, Bob Dylan and John Baez and the woman just picked it up real quick and she had a really sweet voice.

She's a really great singer. My mom, um, bless her still alive. 92 years old doesn't sing so much now, but she was great. She was only 36 years old, you know, and I was just sat there thinking, well, I got out one of these and rightfully so my father said, well, if you learn to play your mom's, we'll think about getting you one for Christmas. So I spent the next six months or whatever it was trying to learn what my mom was doing, which is essentially about four chords.

And as this book said, I think if you know three chords, there's 2,500 songs right there. So once I'd learned to play the first thing I ever learned to play was she'll be coming around the mountains because it just started to be the first thing my mom learned. Exactly it was all very... G C D. Yeah, yeah and it's all very dueling banjos in its presentation. So consequently for the for the next six months, all I did was play around those things. Oh, there's another song that I can do. So I never really learnt to play the guitar. I learnt to play the four chords and then that progressed literally as I joined

the band, really it was about 18. I learnt to play better chords and more different chords and stuff. But so consequently, it was never my thing to be able to go dilly dilly dilly do on the guitar. I was happy enough to be the rhythm player. Like, you know, Malcolm young in AC DC or Bob Dylan for his own music or whatever, just to accompany my voice. And I was at a, as a sweet voice as a kid, but then puberty comes along and

then your voice goes down and all of a, I, and then of course I also discovered girls and Wimbledon and the US Open and soccer and stuff like that. So I always came back to music at night. I mean, gone and done whatever's going on during the day. So it was always there in my life, but it was never a consistent, where I would be really crafted at my craft because I came and went to it, but I was always anchored to it, if you know what I mean. But you were like 12, 13, 14, like the formative years.

What was the music you were listening to? Everything British pretty much because the way that the world was set up, my life was set up. We had the one national channel, which is the BBC one, which played the pop music. So it was a top 40 channel. So occasionally some rock music would infiltrate that chart. You know, we had all the British glam bands. So we had T-Rex, we had Bowie, Roxy music, Slade, Sweet, you know,

Queen came along. I mean, some of it. Yeah, absolutely. Mother who was some great bands. And we also had the Top of the P, top of the pops every Thursday night for a half an hour, which would, you know, you would have to sift through the crap because there'd be tire yellow ribbon and this kind of stuff, and then you'd get, come on, feel the noise by Slade and then something else, you know, and then you,

you know, but you actually learned to realize that everything you listen to it, it influences who you are because the stuff you hate makes you not go there anymore and it makes you, it's dementia to John, I'm only dancing or Ziggy Stardust or something like that, you know, so we didn't get a great deal of American music over there. The only bands from the States really infiltrated big time was like Credence. Credence Clearwater Revival had loads of hits in the UK. I don't know why, they just did. They are great though. When I say bands, we've got to forget the 60s when it was the Four Tops, The Temptations,

Dianna Ross and the Supremes, all that stuff was just a no brainer after hit after hit. When it came to like rock bands, we had the who we had the kinks, we had the stones and the Beatles, and then it went on to like zeppelin Sabbath, Uriah Heap, and then it was Bowie. And then there was all the prog rocks of like Uriah Heap came up with. Yes. All these bands were album bands and they'd be on the old gray whistle test, which is the nighttime show once a week.

So that's where you learned, that was grownup music. Everybody on the whistle test had a beard or a mustache and they could play really serious music where it's top of the pops is all platform boots, glittery top hats and come on, feel the noise or ballroom blitz, you know? And that was what we grew up with, you know? And it's always been part of our DNA.

And what the bridge like from glam or, you know, and it's always been part of our DNA. And what the bridge like from glam or, you know, Bowie, who was transcendent, lead different than zeppelin and so forth. And then there was punk. Yeah. And then there was the idea of grunge and maybe grunge was later, but the, that you weren't required to sing on key or play very well. It could, it was just a little mess. Thanks for noticing.

A raw emotion. No, but I mean, you guys were a bridge to it. You influenced and then you took it in another direction, which is always very interesting listening to you and this. Timing is everything, Dana. It really is. Timing is everything. When, when, when glam kicked in, I was 11, 10, 11, 12 years old, T-Rex, the first hit they had was a song called Ride Away Swan and then it was Hot Love and then it was the big one in America, you called it Bang-A-Gong

because there was a song called Get It On in the charts, but it was Get It On to us. And T-Rex, there was just T-Rex for two years, 71, 73. Then Bowie came along mid 72 and he wasn't just Bowie. He was like this almighty Lord shining down from another planet because he released Ziggy Stardust, he produced all the young dudes, he produced transformer for Lou Reed. So he had walk on the wild side and he did raw power for Iggy Pop. And then, you know, you go through the 72, 73 into 74 and a lot of those bands started to wane a little bit, Motts split

in 74. And then we started reading about people like the New York Dolls. And then we get to 75 and there's a stirring going on in London. And then in 76, there's a full like seismic event with the pistols and the clash coming along. And these bands had the integrity supposedly to not do Topper to Pops, but other new wave punk bands said, fuck that we're doing it. So you had Generation X, which was Billy Idol's first band and you had the Damned and you had Eddie and the Hot Rods, who played these three minute fast songs with really short solos and singing that

was more Alice Cooper than Paul Rogers. Let's put it that way, you know, it's like portrayed the vocal brilliant. There was a great band from the UK called the heavy metal kids who were absolutely weren't heavy metal, but they were loved by rockers and punks the same way that very, very early ACDC were. So you had this kind of mixture of those type of bands and then hard rock breaking through at the same time, Thin Lizzy, UFO, the Scorpions were all starting to take off in the kind of mid late 70s, 77, 78.

Deep purple? Deep purple was 70, purple was 68. By the mid seventies, they were already done with David Coverdale, never mind Ian Gillan. You know, I mean, they were split by then and we had rainbow instead and we had white snake instead. There was no deep purple till back in, they reformed in 84. So we had this massive mixture. So I mean, I was always jealous of every single city

in America had two or three radio stations that played rock music 24 hours a day. We had a two hour specialist show on a Saturday afternoon when you're most likely gonna be at a soccer game. So, and you couldn't tape it back then or record it onto some hard drive. You missed it. You missed it. So we really had the mind for everything that, that became part of us. And it sticks with you, which is why I can, I always used to think it was an

age thing that I can't remember last week's chart, but I can remember the chart from 71 and the B-sides and the catalog numbers of those singers. But I do think it's because we were, it was all real. It was analog, it was, you know, you could touch it. The record cover, they had a smell. You walk into a second hand record store now, I get a boner on because the smell of the cardboard, you know?

It's because it's real. Well, the sound of the needle dropping is magic. Yeah, you can't get one of those when you're pushing a button on your laptop. Yeah. You know, it's real. Well, the sound of a needle dropping is magic. Yeah, you can't get one of those when you're pushing a button on your laptop. Yeah. But it benefits both ways. I mean, look, you can't listen to your records on the treadmill or on an airplane. So ride part on your phone is perfect. You know, we better.

That's a discussion that we can have. Well, vinyl, one flashpoint, vinyl, I think last year for the first time, outsold CDs. So that went full circle. But now we're digital and all that. But we have. Which is fantastic, you know. Right. But, you know, all those things, you know, album covers are 12 inches square.

So you could really go to town on the artwork. You know, look at album covers by, say, Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road or even better, Captain Fantastic. King Crimson. Yeah, you could go right in and look at all these little details. album covers by say Elton John, goodbye yellow brick road or even better Captain Fantastic. King Crimson. Yeah, you could go right in and look at all these little details. And then it came to like CDs and we go, what about the album sleeves? They say, well, it's only five inches square.

So somebody's going to spot that from a mile away in a CD shop. It's got to just have a big star in the middle that's beeping at me now. So you had to change your thoughts about presentation, visual presentation. Well, half the fun growing up, Joe, is for me, Pipsqueak in Arizona was, uh, you get the ELO album or you get whatever album and then you just think it's so cool, then you pull it out, then you open it up, then sometimes they have the words. And so you just keep playing it over and over and you look at the words,

cause you didn't know the words. You're like, oh, that wasn't what I thought. And sometimes when I, cause I was, you know, I went into writing later, but that really got me going because I liked the way the songs are written. So when I go back to songs, I go, Ooh, it means more when I figure out what it's about. Then you go, Oh, there's something going on there. I never knew they were little stories. They were this.

I just thought it was noise and fun. And so now that means a lot to me when I go back and hear something or even a simple one like from the old days and you can hear it and understand it. That's why I'm a curmudgeon when I can't hear it. You said something, you say betrayed the vocals. Is that what you said about punk? No, no, no, I thought you said something about the vocals. They stylized them. Yeah, they basically what happened was when punk came along, it was a reaction to prog rock. You had all these people that were singing Siberian Couture or, you know, in the court,

the Crimson King and it was all, you know, look how fast I can play or how high I sing. They wanted to rough it up. There were some kids that knew they didn't have that kind of talent, but they wanted to be it up. There were some kids that knew they didn't have that kind of talent, but they wanted to be on stage. So they sang, I am the Antichrist or they sang White Riot, you know, and, and they just barked it out. There were a few singers like that in the past. There was, you know, MC five, Iggy, Alice Cooper. I, and I'm really not criticism. I love, I've got every record he ever made. I'm a huge Alice Cooper fan, but when it comes to singing,

his voice is not like the guy at Kansas, the son of Carrie on My Wayward Son, or Paul Rogers, or Lou Gramm from Foreign, or Brian Adams, who can sing the phone directory. He have to portray the song. And he was a big influence, was Alice Cooper on the punk movement. And then you had David Johansson,

who was like a kind of an alternative Mick Jagger and Mick Jagger himself wasn't exactly what you'd call a singer in the sense of like hitting every note, but there's no better singer than Mick Jagger because it's not about being able to hit the notes like an opera singer. It's how you portray the lyric that you've written. And when, when you hear Jagger sing, one of my favorite vocals of all time is Street Fighting Man by the Stones. I just think they caught Jagger on a day where everything just worked.

And then when you listen to, when you listen to things like Symbiote for the Devil and you hear him like, please allow me to introduce myself. He's doing like a Bob Dylan, you know, you don't have to hold the note. Long as you hit it somewhere, you've hit the note. You know, I'm a big fan of that. Bails me out every, every time. Well, he's really, his voice is pretty strong at 80. I've seen it clip recently, and maybe part of it is that, you know, Paul

McCartney was singing, it's just these high ranges, he's writing at age 21, 22, you know, and seemed like Springsteen and Jagger have a certain frequency or an area that they sing in and they still can really, but Jagger's voice is really strong. Well, I think that the Diamond's, Hackney Diamond's album,

which came out like nine months ago, whatever it was, yeah, the latest one. Angryonds album, which came out nine months ago, whatever it was. Yeah. The latest one. Angry. Angry. And the one they did with Sweet Sounds of Heaven with Gaga. Yeah. It's that's one of the greatest songs that they've ever written. And I think Jagger is showcased on this record so brilliantly.

It's produced by a guy called Andrew Watt who did the last couple of Ozzy albums. He did, I think he did the new Pearl Jam, but he did the solo album by Eddie Vedder. He's a fantastic producer and he got the best out of those guys. He really did. It was lovely. It was a beautiful song. Like Wild Horses, if you think that was 60s.

And there he is, 20, 21. Yeah, all these years later. Doing something. He defies gravity. He defies logic, you know, and he's something to aspire to. I'm 65 in two days time, so I can get a bus pass, you know, all that kind of stuff. You get two more days to work and then that's it.

Yeah. And then I can retire. Yeah. And I look at Jagger and I think, you know, like he's 16 years older than me. He's 20 years older than certain people in this band, you know, and he's still out there doing two hour shows. It's incredible. It really is. Summer is like a cocktail. It has to be mixed just right. Start with a handful of great

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Rum 40% alcohol by volume. Well, it seems like you guys, part of your brand is, like when I watched you on those YouTube clips at the Whiskey of Gogo, it seems like you guys, part of your brand is like when I watched you on those YouTube clips at the Whiskey of Gogo, it was like, okay, the flag is not touching the ground at all. We are loud. We are, you know, you guys are not, there's not like, oh, remember they used to be Def Leppard.

So I think a lot of it is a mindset or a competitive nature with yourself that you don't want to be, they used to be Def Leppard, they are Def Leppard. I mean, that's what I'm getting from you guys. It's a challenge. It's been a challenge all our lives. Ever since you mentioned Grunge a while back, Grunge didn't really come in until like 92. And even then people were suspicious of, is this just a passing fad?

I remember when all the Rolling Stones and these kind of magazines are going, it's all over for us, thumbs down, because here come Nirvana and Pearl Jam. But during that tour for the Adrenalize albums, 92, 93, we were still doing multiple arenas around America because it hadn't really kicked in. Where it started to pull us down was in the mid-90s, like 96, when basically our own record label were like going, really? And so you had to, you have to look at it, you know, I often use the phrase like, it's just like a plane going through a turbulence in a cloud.

As long as you still got the power to keep going sooner or later, you're going to come out the other side, the nice smooth blue skies, you know? And we never split up. We never stopped believing in ourselves. We just had to reconvince the world who we were. Was that euphoria that got you out of that? Well, that was the start of it. That was the end of the night. Yeah, it was 99. We had this kind of one kind of semi-hit of it called Promises, which was 99. We had this kind of one hit kind of semi hit off it called promises, which was us working with Mutt Lang again for the first time in about eight years. Um, and then it was the touring that did it really. We've really only taken, we took 2004 off in 2010 and it hasn't been a year

except for during the pandemic years. Well, we haven't toured. Um, there's always been somewhere in the world that wanted us at a certain level. And we've built it up and built it up and built it up to the point where in 2018, we were doing a double header with Journey and it was going so well that they added 10 stadiums on the end of it and they all sold out. So this, then all the business people are looking at was going, ah, because a lot of the bands that people

would always pigeonhole us with were playing bowling alleys. And we were like, no, we're not going to go there. You know, you, you look at the success of bands like Bon Jovi or U2 or slightly different music, but you know, still rocked, like Depeche Mode, even Duran Duran, they were, they had audiences that weren't really going anywhere. They'd waned a bit, but there was a, their core audiences and our core audiences were always bigger than everybody else's because when we were

Def Leppard in the eighties, if you like, we were selling 10 million albums or we was just behind Michael Jackson. And then in 1988, we were the biggest selling album of the year. Even if some fans go away, that core audience has bought 10 million records. Other bands that might have been number, you know, in the top five with you, maybe only sold one and a half or two million records. So when their audience shrinks percentage wise, it's a lot smaller than ours would have been.

So there was always, if we could keep them on side by continuously coming out and entertaining them and being as good as we could be and making new music and not relying on the old stuff, because the one thing that this band will never be is a nostalgia act. Of course we'll play the hits. Would you wanna go see the Stones or McCartney? I'm not here.

Satisfaction or you know, Love Me Do or whichever Beatles song. And you have a lot of hits to point at. There's a lot of people these days that don't have hits, hits. There are songs that if we don't play, we wouldn't get out of building a life. And we are aware of that. Yeah. And, you know, we call it the Pete Townsend factor within the band.

We call it, it's like, does he really want to play My Generation? Probably not. Do we want him to? Absolutely. You know, so you you do it for your crowd and it's fun. Yeah. You know, so you, you do it for your crowd and you have to have a respect for the audience and your own self dignity, if you like, to realize that sometimes you just have to get over that hump of like, Oh God, not this song again. I think it's totally legit to say that in rehearsals. I mean, seriously, when we got back together after COVID, we hadn't seen each

other for two and a half years, nevermind played together. And two days into rehearsals, we got to like rock of ages and photograph and I just remember me and Phil looking at each other going, do we have to? Because we know it, you know, we did and it sounded just like when we left off, you know, in 2019. But you do, you know, you have to give it the respect because that's of all songs is the one everybody wants to hear us play well and sing well. So you have to put the effort in and sooner or later you get over that hump and it just becomes part of your day. Like when we become adults, unless you want a big beard, you shave, you know what I mean? I hate it, but you got to do it. And it's like rehearsals. It's the same thing. It's part of what we do.

And a lot of artists get sick of doing the same stuff and they live on that and they thrive off it and certain artists it works for. When Bob Dylan does a song and the audience come out and they go, I didn't even recognize that was Hard Rain's Gonna Fall because he's done it for so long that people expect him to be like that.

This like, curmudgeon is a nice word that you used earlier on. Whereas with us, we're more like the stones. If you're going to play Simpies of the Devil, play it like it sounds on the record. Oh yeah. You know, and because that's why they're coming. They're not coming to a reggae version of Not of Ages. That's the work part. I mean, I was asked once, how do you turn someone on?

And I just spontaneously thought, how do you, how do you turn someone on? And I just spontaneously thought turn yourself on, which, you know, so you have to, you Joe have to get turned on. Pour, pour some sugar. It's not hard when you get up on stage at the side of the stage and there's 35, 38,000 people in the stadium and you can see them cause they haven't put the house lights down yet and you stood behind the screen and you just look at because they haven't put the house lights down yet. They're happy. And you stood behind the screen and you're just looking,

we're all high fiving each other going, can you believe this is amazing? People that work with us, have worked with other bands go, I can't believe you guys get so excited about doing this. And we're like, well, where we came from as kids, you have to understand, one in a billion gets the chance to do that. And there's five of us here doing it.

This is like, we won the lottery twice. We won it once and then we won it again the next week. So I think it's like, it's amazing. So turning ourselves on is not that difficult. It really isn't. You know, because- Comedians all wanna be rock stars, you know that. It's not just a cliche.

And there's some really funny YouTube clips out of you backstage singing Georgia and you're about to go on and then it plugs in and yeah, I get it. That's stadium and then you've got your bandmates, which sound fantastic. Your lead guitar. Yeah, we all want to, you know, you guys want to be rock stars. We want to be comedians. It works out really well, you know, I's like, I think there's the grass is always

greener on the other side. So we think, but once you realize you get over there and you go, this is not as easy as I thought, you know, I think you're like Keanu Reeves. Does you really want to do a tour for nine months in the back of a transit van or do you want to make John Wick five and then 20 million bucks? You know, I mean, it's, it's a tough one. You've got to have such immense willpower to battle through the being lazy, you know, I mean, it's, it's a tough one. You've got to have such immense willpower to battle through the being lazy, you know, with those, it's never been that difficult to be, to, you know, we're never been lazy. We work really hard.

Like I said, this is a day off and we're doing loads of press because there's stuff to be talked about and it's a pleasure because if it wasn't me, it'd be somebody else and then we, we start to sink down the plughole. Everything we do is part of keeping the momentum of the band going. From America we always heard that working class lads like Ozzy Osbourne, are you guys, I mean are you guys considered working class? I don't know what economics. Not anymore. No, no, but when you grew up. It's a ridiculous term because we work harder than we ever worked as working

class kids. I used to work at Factory in Sheffield. When I was, I started when I was 16 and I left when I was 19 and a half. So it was like almost a quarter of my life I worked in this factory where you clock in, clock out. And you're thinking 50 years of this shit and you're watching everybody else going in and they're all like zombies. You know, they're taking the paycheck, they go home to their 3.2 kids and the

mortgage and this kind of thing. And I'm, you know, when, and we also had, you know, the benefit of having all these punk bands, giving it some and thinking, Jesus Christ, I'd rather do that for 18 months than this for 50 years. So, you know, we were absolutely we're working class. You know, when we first started, this is absolutely no lie. When we first got together as a band, we all had day jobs, but it was traditional to give off your wages to your mom because now you're paying board for the

food, for the laundry, for the bed. And it's no, so my first pay pack, it was eight pounds. And I think I gave three of it to me mom. So I had five quid to last me the week. And if I went out to a, bought a ticket for a gig, it'd be a pound 25, a pound 50. Half your money's gone. You're borrowing money by three days before payday. That was working class.

We used to go to the Sheldon pub just around the corner from our rehearsal room and we would buy one pint and get five straws. Okay. Now, if we bought the pint, it meant that we were walking home because that was the bus fare, you know, and we went through that for 18 months, two years before we, you know, got any traction as a band, but the ones that let's left by the wayside were gone. You know, our first drummer, Tony didn't last for more than a year.

Rick came in and then we were the same lineup, um, right up until 1982 when Phil joined and we, we had the park company with Pete Willis, our original guitar player, and that lineup would have stayed the same and Steve died. And this lineup now has been together for 32 years because we have something in common that you can't buy. I mean, I don't like using the phrase X factor because of the show, but that X factor, that hidden gene that we've got, that's kept us all focused and on the same page and willing to try different things and not just shut stuff down at first suggestion of going off the rails a bit.

We've all, we've all grown into finishing each other's sentences. If you know what I mean? That's a true example of a band. I mean, 32 years, same five people. Pretty impressive when you think of the health issues that we've all been through. Vivian's currently dealing with cancer and has been for four, 10 years, you know, Rick's got one arm. How many one-armed drummers are there? Yeah.

Everyone survived. We've survived a hell of a lot of crap that's been thrown at us, whether it be from the media or just life in general. And when people say, why do you do it? We go, well, wouldn't you, I mean, you think about take five random people off the street and say what's happened to you over the last 40 years, I think the downs would be very similar death. Yeah.

Yeah. Life, you know, okay. What's your ups compared to hours? Wouldn't be close. Wouldn't be close because look at what we've been through. We, we went down to come up. So you appreciate a second wave so much more than you do the first time round. We have all the same, all the same feelings in our, our lives too.

Absolutely feel grateful. I got a question for Mr. Joe. Uh, you're, you're on tours, we're plugging with, uh, I think it's Steve Miller and Journey. Yeah. Um, is that right? Okay. Uh, the question about, obviously Journey has a, I'd say new singer, but it's been a long time. Who's great.

I'd seen him, uh, with no offense to him was Steve Perry. Did you know Steve Perry and will he sing again? Or is there something where he's just, he's done. That is actually a question for Neil Sean, but, um, in my world, uh, I wouldn't know any of their internal politics, except for all the infighting that was going off between him and Jonathan Cain before the tour started, which I don't know. On the surface appears to be, you know, sorted, you know, so they're going on stage and doing it.

I don't, I don't think they'd be able to, I certainly wouldn't be able to go on stage with people I didn't like. So I don't, but their dynamics may be different to ours. I did meet Steve Perry once in 1983 in Lexington, Kentucky. Um, uh, I know it's a bizarre thing to remember. We were playing the night after them and we were in the day before. So we got invited down.

Brian Adams was the opening act. It was 1983. I think I saw that. And then we were in the dressing room, just having, you know, just talking to these guys that we'd bought their records and we'd seen them on tour in England. And then Steve Perry roller skated into the dressing room.

So these are the things that you remember. Cause it's like, I've never seen that before. You know, now the breakup makes sense. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe dancing on ice is his next thing. I know.

He's so good and incredible, you know, but Arnell's got almost exactly the same voice, works, you know, what is, You think about say Van Halen, they totally reset themselves after they parted company with David Lee Roth. Sure. And they got Sammy Hagar in. It was almost like a different band or it was like, it was almost like Eddie Van Halen joined the Sammy Hagar band because you, the flagship thing is always the voice. And Sammy didn't sound anything like David Lee Roth, whereas R&L sounds exactly like Steve Perry. Because he used to be in Indonesia, he used to be in a Journey cover band. That's how they found him on YouTube. Yeah. I'd have a question. Just like you guys sit around, like first of all, I just want to observe

that comedians have a likeability quotient. I could point to David or Adam Sandler, friends of mine, the audience really likes them. I say that your band is really likable and you exude joy. And when I've seen stuff about you guys writing or working together, you're kind of giving each other credit. Like you came up with a little guitar lick that became Pour Some Sugar on Me. And then I think it was Phil just said, oh, yeah, that was Joe's. And then I put it here. I don't know. You guys don't seem to compete in that way.

Do you have any, how do you write? You sit around with guitars. How do you make your songs? What's your problem? In those days? Yeah. When we were writing and we'd all be sitting around in a room and it was, you see, the thing is with this band, the boss is the song.

It's not me. It's not Phil. It's not Sav. The song is the boss and we work for the song and we bow down to the song. It's not me, it's not Phil, it's not Sav. The song is the boss and we work for the song and we bow down to the song. And we used to sit around and it was like, literally it would be musically, it would always be coming mostly from a guitar player and say, well, I've got this riff. And then they would play the riff around and we go, okay, can we sing any melodies over that? And then it's like, okay, where do we go from

that riff? That's the verse. Now we need a bridge and a chorus. And so people would just dig out little bits that they've been saving on cassettes or in their head and say, well, what about I glue this bit together? Great example is the song, the song hysteria, the jangle over the verse was Sav. The bridge, I think was Phil and the chorus is Steve and me and Muk came up with the melodies and the lyrics mostly. I think Sav came up with the lyric for the bridge. Um, so it was a total team effort, but we've kind of changed a bit because I think we were a little uncomfortable or not confident enough to walk into a room and go, I've got this song.

We always said, I've got this idea for a song because it's what you did as a band. You put it all in the pot and sturdy round. But then when you spend more time away, because you do a tour and then you get into your thirties and you're married with kids, your tour, maybe a bit less. And you're at home more. You tend to just pick up a guitar or a piano, a pen and paper and you start and you finish, you don't leave it off finished with somebody else to do. So I was songwriting changed.

We still do write as a team. We were doing that as recently as two albums ago. But then during the pandemic, when we were going to get together and see what we had, when we couldn't get together, we wrote literally individually and presented each other with finished songs for the most, for the first nine. And then the following five, Phil did say to me, I've got this half idea and he'd and presented each other with Finnish songs for the first nine. And then the following five, Phil did say to me, I've got this half idea, and he'd sent me an MP3 and I would fill in the gaps. So, you know, there's a couple of songs that are written by three of us,

but most of the songs on Diamonds are Halos were written by one person because we all just got confident over the last 12, 15 years have been able to write songs on our own. So it just depends on the time of your, you know, which part of the kind of feel what works. We're writing jokes and after years, you can just think, I think this one will work just from so much experience of you guys playing, you might go, we need something like this, this is a good one.

You, what you guys need is this one. How do you turn a duck into a soul singer? How? I don't know. You put it in a microwave until it's Bill Withers. Finally one we haven't heard. That's good. Bill Withers.

It's my favorite joke of all time and it's clean. And it's music related. You can have that guys. You can have that guys. You can have that one. I have something for Joe. I know we're going to wrap you up Joe a little bit, but we appreciate the tour and everything and talking about it. But I will tell you, this is not a quickie, but it's a story of when we were doing this

movie Joe Dirt, Dana, I don't think you know this. We, we, um, so the kid rock was the bad guy. So two things, one, we did get a good song for the trailer and, and getting songs in movies is so hard. And especially if we were low budget movie, you know, we, you go out to Ted Nugent, we go out to, you know, Joe Dirt was like a rocker and Joe Dirt loves Def Leppard, right? So we cleared wearing a Def Leppard shirt and Joe may or may not know the ins and outs

of this kind of stuff. But so we have to clear it with somebody. And so I wear as Joe Dirt this Def Leppard shirt and you have to use a shirt in a positive manner. It's kind of part of the deal. You can't be derogatory. You can't say negative things. It's so weird, but it's, I get it. So he's my favorite band.

And now we're doing a scene and Kid Rock and I are in an argument. And when I leave, I said, Hey, yell to me, Def Leppard sucks. Cause that's like the worst dagger you could say to me. So he goes, and Def Leppard sucks. And I go, Oh, you know, it's like the last thing I want to hear. So just to finish me off. So then we're not allowed to use the scene because we're breaking the deal with Def Leppard.

So either me or someone got on with someone from the record company, maybe never got to Joe, but explained the situation and they said, oh, so the good guy likes Def, yeah, that's fine. You can keep it. Or that would have been gone. And that's one of my can keep it or that would have been gone. And that's one of my favorite things in the movie. And so a, he was part of Joe dirt. This the band was, and a B we got that one in.

I think I wore a deaf leopard t-shirt as, as Garth under my plan. Oh, well, yeah, it was a very cool. Yeah. Wow. That's David. You may well have forgotten this, but in 1998, maybe 1999, I met you in the Riot House, and it was just after that film had come out.

Yeah, yes, you don't remember. I don't remember. Because we were both drinking. And I remember, I went up to you, I said, I've got to do this just for fun. I heard what you wrote. And then you, you looked at you and dude, I was on your side. It was just, it was Kid Rock.

It wasn't me. Said the same bullshit story. So cut to about 15 minutes later, we were talking at the bar and then we just looked over and there was Chris Rock, Kid Rock, and Justin Timberlake all at the bar. And we all stood as a five for hours talking about everything. That's a power five, dude. Yeah, and Chris Rock broke into singing Foolin' and then he looked at me like, dude, black man can't like your music. It was hilarious. And then me and Kid Rock went down to a nightclub to watch this band called Kids in America, who did 80s covers.

And he dragged me up on stage to do Pour Some Sugar on me with him. And right in the middle bit, when it goes to this little breakdown guitar, he went into a rap over the drums. And then we seamlessly came straight back out until, and then back into the song, like we'd rehearsed it a hundred times. Love it. And that was the same night. Go figure. I love it. Wow. Yeah. That's so funny because Kid Rock is funny because he's good to jump on stage. He goes,

this guy gave me a 50 grand to sing two songs his birthday. And I go, does he give you another 50 to get off? Was it Ted Nugent? He stays for two hours. Well, that's great, man. That's so fun. I love it. Well, thank you, Joe. Danny, you got anything else for this young man?

Not at all. Just a huge fan. Have fun on the tour. I got, you got another six weeks or something? Yeah, that's right. I'm so glad that you guys actually just did cop on and wear those Def Leppard shirts all those years ago because people are still doing it now. It just occurred to me.

I see babies in them. It was a great shirt. It just had a great design. I don't know where it's from. And we don't care if you take the piss out of us at all because that's life. You know, we take the piss about ourselves more than you ever could. Well, I love it, man. Thank you for talking to us and good luck. And we'll see you there so far. Thanks guys. Be good.

Yeah, absolutely. Come say hi. I probably will. Yeah, absolutely. I'll remember it. All right. Thank you, Joe. Enjoy it.

Thank you, man. Bye-bye. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all the stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts. Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.