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Baker's Dozen

Armageddon Hits! Joe Elliott Of Def Leppard Baker's Dozen
Harry Sword , September 5th, 2018 09:27

Roaring rock titan Joe Elliott of Def Leppard - DEF LEPPARD - talks Harry Sword through his guiding audio lights, from Bowie to glam to punk and back.

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Ian Hunter - Ian Hunter
This was the same year as the Roxy record. Mott has split up by that point. They splintered: Mott the Hoople became simply Mott and Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter went off doing their own thing. You could follow them both. I saw Mott at the Top Rank and I saw Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson at Sheffield City Hall. This still sounds fresh today: it was raw, done in a month. His guitar playing here is as good as it was on any record. There was a solo on a song called 'The Truth The Whole Truth And Nothing But The Truth' - it's one of those things you'd play to a kid whose learning how to play the guitar. The way he winds it up; the sheer pain in the song. Apparently at the time he'd read a scathing review and was fucking furious. He went in and did the whole thing in one take. And I'm thinking 'in a parallel universe, this would have been the next Mott the Hopple record' you know? But my god did the other guys blow it; my god did they blow it. This would have been such a great Mott record. To this day, Phil Collen [Def Leppard guitarist] will say his vibrato is Ronson's vibrato. A lot of people can't do vibrato properly - Phil was definitely influenced by it, also by that beautiful open whammy tone. I'm not sure how it leaks into Leppard as a whole. I think the most logical theft we ever did was the 'Whooaah' section on 'Photograph'. The guys in the band are all great singers; they're arguably better than me. Put the four of us together and it's like Queen round the mike. Well: almost...