DEF LEPPARD To Reunite With MUTT LANGE On New Album - June 21, 2007
According to The Def Leppard Satellite Of Love, DEF LEPPARD will reunite with producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange after the tour is over to write a few songs for the new album, "Songs from the Sparkle Lounge", it was revealed on the June 20 edition of "Rockline".

"He's very enthusiastic actually," bassist Rick Savage told the listeners of "Rockline". "He's just heard a few ideas that we had knocking around and he really wants to do a couple things with us, which is great after all this time that we've known him for him to still dig what we're doing and there still that chemistry there for future songs."

The collaboration would be the first between the band and Mutt Lange since 1999's "Euphoria" album.

According to Billboard.com, DEF LEPPARD is "about 85, 90 percent finished" with its next CD, which frontman Joe Elliott describes as "a very rock album."

"I'm not gonna say it's radically different to anything we've ever done," Elliott told Billboard.com. "There's classic DEF LEPPARD. There's stuff that sounds like it's going back to the middle, late-'70s AC/DC and new wave-type sounding stuff. There's definitely some moments on it where anybody that's familiar with our music will go, 'Whoa! I wasn't expecting that!' We've just been very adventurous, musically, on certain numbers."

Elliott said the "Sparkle Lounge" album title refers to a room the group maintained backstage during its 2006 tour dates, where the musicians would congregate with co-producer and live sound technician Ronan McHugh to work up and record ideas.

Si Def Lepp pouvait revenir au son d'antan (Pyromania ou Hysteria... voire pourquoi pas High'n'Dry!) ce serait vraiment trop cool!

Oui, mais pourtant je suis sur que ça sonnerait pas!
Le groupe a trop changé en matiere d'aborder la musique.

Ca aurais pas plutôt sa place dans autre musique ça? Ca fait bien longtemp que DEF LEP a trahis.

Ils veulent revenir à ce qui a fait leur succès apparemment. En tout cas Collen parle de ce nouvel opus en faisant référence à l'âge du groupe...

The Riverfront Times recently conducted an interview with DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen. A couple of excerpts follow:

The Riverfront Times: What are the new songs sounding like?

Collen: We started when we were on the last tour. We've never written songs or recorded [that way before]. We were backstage at some of these gigs, in a trailer. We'd start getting these songs together. It was really good, 'cause you're still in tour mode. There's an energy — and verve, if you like. There's something happening while you're on tour that's very different [from] when you get off tour and sit around for three months and all of a sudden go, "Oh, what do we do again?" You haven't got direction. To put it in a nutshell, it sounds like "Hysteria" songs done in the style of "High 'N' Dry", with no ballads. If that makes any sense.

The Riverfront Times: That makes total sense.

Collen: We've got one slow song, but it's definitely not a ballad. It's really kind of weird. When I listen back to the stuff, that's what hit me. We've gone minimalist on the production — it's not all glossy big vocals and like, humongous [makes roaring sound] drums. It's more like a real band. But the songs are more in the vein of "Hysteria".

The Riverfront Times: Are there any songs that you never want to play — ever again?

Collen: "Pour Some Sugar On Me", "Photograph" or "Rock Of Ages", we always try to not play these at rehearsals. 'Cause it's like pulling teeth. But the minute you play them in front of people, it's a totally different vibe, there's a different reaction. All of a sudden, it's fine, it's great. But rehearsing them it's a different story. You go, "Oh my God, it's like watching paint dry."