good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with joe elliott and rick savage, two of the founding members of one of the most successful heavy metal bands, def leppard. 35 years after they came onto the scene, they're still going strong now on tour with kiss. we're glad you joined us for a conversation with rick savage and joe elliott of def leppard coming up right now. ♪ >> and by contributions to your

pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> rick savage and joe elliott, two of the founding members of def leppard met as teenagers forming the band that is still going strong 35 years later. they've sold more than 100 million records worldwide and are currently touring with kiss. let's take a look at leppard performing their hit song "pour some sugar on me." ♪ you've got to squeeze a little tease a little more ♪ ♪ easy operator come knocking on my door ♪ ♪ sometime anytime sugar me sweet ♪ ♪ little miss said sugar me ♪ yeah, yeah

♪ give a little more ♪ take a bottle shake it up ♪ ♪ break the bubble ♪ break it up ♪ pour some sugar on me ♪ ooh in the name of love ♪ pour some sugar on me >> joe and rick, good to have you both here. >> thank you. >> let me start by asking how one -- how a band navigates staying together 35 years. that's a long time to be together, particularly given that there are always ups and downs in that process. your drummer at one point, a drummer loses his arm. you lose one band member to drugs and alcohol overdose. and all the other challenges that come along with staying together. how do you stay together 35 years? >> it's a good question. it's one of those things, your time just seems to fly by. we like each other. we've always had a respect for each other.

we have similar tastes. we're similar people. and it's not hard work. i think that's the essence of it. there's no big secret. it's not a special thing. >> you might like each other, and that's a start, which isn't easy to like somebody for 35 years. you might like each other, but how do you not grow apart over that 35-year period? >> i think it's just that the fact that we had the common goal when we were kids, coming from sheffield, which is a very industrial town in northern england, you've got two choices. you either just got sucked into the whole what your parents did and your grandparents did. or we were just really lucky that in the mid-'70s, there was like kind of a new way of thinking coming along where kids were just going, i don't want to do that, you know. to a lot of people, it's football, soccer, any kind of sport gets them out of a bad situation or

just an ongoing more of the same that their parents went through. i think when you get an opportunity to do something that you dearly love, like for us it was music, you just grasp it and you just don't ever want to let go. i mean, that's what it is. >> how did music for you guys become the way out? >> the minute that you start hearing songs on the radio, a light bulb goes off in your head. and you literally go, i'd love to do that. or i'd love to be in that band. or just be part of something like that. and it's just -- it's when you meet people as we did as teenagers, me and joe, it just fuels the fire. and it just makes it more -- it makes you more determined to want to be something like that. you know, because you can sit on your own and wish and wish all day.b x2m but you need four or five other guys with you. >> it's one thing to make that decision. it's another thing to sort of - how can i put this -- find a way

to get in where you fit in. that is to say that particularly when you guys were coming along, there were so many great rock bands. how did you find your own way in? put another way, how do you create your own style and your own sound? how do you end up being an original and not a copycat of the stuff that's already out there? >> well, i think if everybody -- especially if you've been around as long as us where it doesn't matter anymore what you say -- i think the truth is that when you start as kids as 16 or 17-year-olds, you are going to sound like somebody else. you just are because the reason that you get into music, if that's your thing, is because you've heard other people, and what you do is, i want a bit of that and a bit of that, and you put it in your bucket and stir it around. you're still going to sound a little bit like all your heroes or whatever, but eventually it starts to take on kind of a life of its own. and it does become your identity. you listen to our first record "on through the night," you can hear little chunks of other bands that we grew up listening to.

but it still had a lot of our own identity. and that's one of the reasons that we got to make the record because other people like record companies and the general public saw that we did have our own thing in addition to what obviously was influencing us. that's one of those things that you're just born lucky. that you've got a certain amount of talent inside you that just needs nurtured and it needs to come out. lots of people could start the same way as we did and not get as far because they maybe didn't have that -- what used to be called the "x" factor. >> it's one thing to read what the critics who have loved you guys for years have said about your music, but how would you define your sound? if there were a creature from other planet coming here, how would you describe this def leppard sound? >> to me, what i always -- this is just me -- what i always wanted the band to be was some sort of a cross between queen

and ac/dc, you know. you know, just the melodic and the melodies and the songwriting of queen, but with the attitude of ac/dc, the solidness of ac/dc. and i don't think we're far from somewhere in that little mix. now, the great thing about our band is, obviously we feed off each other. we all have different influences anyway. so it's all a combination of our own influences that kind of end up where we are. >> i was looking at -- i just want to remind myself. i'm part of that mtv generation. so i grew up watching you guys, listening to you guys all the time in school. middle school and high school. but it was fascinating for me to go back and just do a little research. and you guys have done nine studio albums. and that number seemed really,

really small to me. >> it is. >> over 35 years. so i was telling our producer, i was trying to juxtapose, as i was reading the research, how a band could sell 100 million records, become this iconic the world over and have only done nine studio records. obviously, you guys did the right ones, but -- >> sometimes we'd actually complete the records. >> it just seems the impact that you had just seems almost bigger than nine studio records. >> i think a lot of that was just out of good fortune, you know. we certainly didn't flood the market. >> yeah. >> you know, we started off wanting to do what everybody else did. you know, when we grew up, all the bands that we listened to put them out every year. that's what they did. when we started, so did we. we had an album in 1980 and 1981. then things started to change. some of the bands we grew up

were starting to put them out every couple of years. and that was down to the world expanding and you were touring more. so you couldn't get back into the studio as early. people maybe used to do a three-month tour and then back in the studio. then all of a sudden, you can go to australia and you can go to south africa and south america. and there's all these other areas that you end up touring. that happens with bands. with us, it wasn't that at all. we started working with a producer called mutt lange. we wanted to do what was to become the "pyromania" album. he said to us in pre-production, i don't know about you, but i don't want to make a replica of your first album. the first album we did with him was our second album called "high and dry" which took three months to make. which is kind of standard, really, for that kind of a record. with the next one, he said i think we should try and make a record that nobody else has ever made. and that intrigued us. and we were young enough to go, well, that sounds -- yeah, yeah. i can go for that.

all the new technology that was coming in that was being used a lot and not in rock, in michael jackson was using drum machines and synthesizers and so were the human league. it was almost like taking craft work kind of music and shoving it into rock 'n' roll. and we were starting to use the studio and all the new technology that came along to make the next record. and it just made it take a lot longer to make. because we went down a lot of dead end -- i mean, we were going, we can't do that. it doesn't work. then we'd say well, this bit does. when you listen to the record, in 1983 when it finally came out because it took about, what, nine, ten months to make which is stupid, stupid time. it was so different to everything else that was out at the time that it actually just -- it took off. in america -- >> sonically, it was groundbreaking. >> that third and fourth album. >> it was michael jackson's "thriller" that stopped

"pyroman "pyromania" getting to the top of the charts. >> you're forgiven for that. it was "thriller." >> yeah. but, you know, that record took off so well that we were on tour for an entire year promoting that record. so that, again, but then when it came to the next one, that's when everything started to kind of -- life started interfering with the music like rick lost his arm. we also -- if we're honest -- we all knew that -- i mean, the album at the time it sold 6 million copies in america. the next one better be damn good because everybody's going to have their knives out if it's not. and that was -- >> everybody was in the same situation. how are you going to follow -- there's no way you can follow a 6 million at the time selling records, you know. and we actually thought, you know what? of course there is. you know, you're not going to do it overnight. and you've got to be very careful about how you go about doing it. you know, we were -- we always

viewed our competition, if that's the right phrase, as people like whitney houston and george michael and michael jackson. it wasn't the hard rock bands of the era. you know, we wanted to be with, you know, the big selling artists that went across the board, not just hard rock or pop or whatever. it was everybody. >> that's a fascinating take to put yourself in that stat os feao osphere. it would be r&b and pop and then us. what the hell are they doing in there? in a band, it might seem weird for rock to go, i don't get it. seriously, you know, once you've established yourself as a great rock band, it's kind of taken for granted or even easy to just be pile of the top of rock bands. to say okay, we've done that,

what's the next mountain? it's like infiltrate the other stuff, you know. get people that normally buy michael jackson or george michael or even just other types of music like country. it doesn't matter what it is, to go i like that def leppard record and i'm going to buy it. >> i take both of your points about this, but how do you go about achieving that musically when what you're putting out is so dramatically different in sound from a michael or a whitney or a george michael? how do you achieve that musically? it's a great goal to have, but how do you do it musically, artistically? >> you stick to your goals. you've got to format of your idea of what rock music sounds like. at the same time, you take other influences. and in the '80s, a lot of that was the sonics. it was the sound. you wouldn't be scared to try a drum sound that was more suitable or supposedly only ever used by, say, r&b or something like that. if it worked on a rock song, why

not? then people would hear it as a sound that they're familiar with from another form of music. we were never -- we just got the john bonham or ringo starr a typical rock drum sound. we were always prepared to go a stage further and bring in other influences sonically, musically, even just the arrangements of it. they were very structured for the fan. you know, we were very, very commercially orientated as a band. we wanted our songs to be heard by as many people as possible. so we weren't alienating the songs and putting them purely into a category that's just going to appeal to, you know, heavy metal fans or something. we wanted it to be a much broader picture. >> how much of the success do you think had to do with the time? that question -- the time that you came along. that seems like a silly question because everything is about timing. but what occurs to me now, as we are in this part of the conversation, is who you were up against. who else was putting records out

in that era, how you were able to break through in that era to go on and sell 100 million records? what was happening as you look back on that era that made def leppard break through? >> three letters, mtv. >> mtv. >> that helped, yeah. again, there's so many little components that go into just being successful. one, there's got to be a certain amount of talent, a certain amount of ability to write songs and to recognize great melodies. but you need a hell of a lot of luck as well. and timing is everything. you know, to go along with that. you need good guidance, good management. there's so many little things that encompass the big picture. and it's one of those things, it kind of just happens. and all of a sudden, you're selling half a million records a week. and you're going, i don't really know how this is happening, but it is. it's something you've always

strived for and worked towards. but it's hard to actually analyze and go, well, it's because of this and because of that. you know. mtv absolutely helped at the time because that was new. >> right. >> and it was, you know, our music was kind of just almost growing in step with the success of mtv. that was a big factor for sure. >> when was -- just between the three of us, nobody's watching, just the three of us, when was -- when, where was that darkest moment when the band was closest to disbanding? 35 years later, you're still together. >> after 35 years, there's been a few occasions. >> i figured as much. >> it's like anything else. the obvious points where, you know, you just wonder -- first of all, when rick had had his accident. once it became clear that his life was actually not in danger,

you then start thinking, well, okay. how -- a drummer cannot play with one arm. that's your immediate thought. so it's things like that that you really focus on, whether you want to continue doing this or what are we going to do? i mean, you know, there has been occasions like that. you know, when steve passed away. it was like, you know, we need to take stock. we need to evaluate what is important, where we do go if we go anywhere. >> so it seems to me one thing to continue when your drummer loses his arm, because you're right. all your fans were thinking the same thing. how does a band go on with a drummer -- a drummer can't play with one arm. it's one thing to decide to go on, to keep moving forward after that happened. it's a little different, though, when you lose one of your friends and one of your bandmates. so then the flip side of the question i just asked is what,

then, becomes the motivation to continue when you've lost your bandmates? >> well, with rick, it was pretty simple, really. because it was almost cowardly on our part. we're, like, well, i'm not firing him, you know. he's lost his arm. he can't possibly carry on. so he's going to want to leave. but when he kind of regained consciousness and it all started to soak in, he just turned around and said i've figured out a way of doing this. and we were, like, okay. and the first thing -- the first thing you're not going to do is say don't be silly. you know, come on. nice try, but we're going to get somebody. you say all right, look. we just happened to be -- again, it's all part of the big picture by accident in a situation where we had drum tracks down on tape that he had done before he lost his arm. so we could keep working on his songs and he didn't need to be there because we had gotten his contribution to the song so far on tape already. so he could just recuperate and

go and figure out how to do this. and then the realization kicked in that he couldn't. then at least he gave it a go. but he wasn't like that. he kept going, and he's still going, you know. he figured it out, you know. by using electronics, which he wouldn't have had five years earlier. again, that's the timing thing. the mid-'80s -- this is going to sound ridiculous, but if there was ever a time to lose your arm, it was 1984 because by then, there was technology that could help you out. >> the drum machine. >> yeah, yeah. no, it wasn't a drum machine. he literally, instead of hitting things with the arm that had gone, he was pushing pedals which you do anyway as a drummer. you've got the high hat and the bass drum. but rock 'n' roll doesn't really do very much. so that was pretty much redundant. moves the foot over to a trigger that hits the snare. in theory, it works. and it just took a lot of practice, but he got it.

that is so inspiring that you think, well, anything else that comes along, we've passed the test. there's nothing that could kill this band. and that was pretty early in our career. that was only seven years in or so. >> right. >> eight years in. cut to '91 when steve passed away, the horrible truth is, it was not a shock. it was a shock in somebody telling you that your 99-year-old granny pass add way. t passed away. the guy had serious problems. he didn't die of a drug overdose. he died of a prescription drug overdose washing it down with alcohol because he liked to drink. that was the big problem. so when we found out he died, we were extremely upset, of course, but it wasn't a major shock. the truth is the record we were making at the time, we had been making it for six months without steve. >> how do you navigate all of those years with a friend and a bandmate who you love and care

for who you see killing himself? >> that's the hard thing, you know. we believe and we honestly did believe at the time that we had done as much as we possibly could to help steve. >> so no guilt on your part? >> absolutely not. absolutely not. it's a natural thing to question yourself and analyze yourself after the event and say, did we do enough? could we have done this? could we have done that? you know, honestly, we're clean on that. we really couldn't have done any more for the guy. >> he was on a six-month sabbatical when he died. we gave him six months away from the band so he could take his clothes out of a wardrobe instead of a suitcase. all the things that might have been bugging him. and eehe's an adult. he's an adult. he's got lifestyle choices to make here. he wasn't like a kid. he was in his 30s or just. 29, 30 years old. he had been in a successful band. he knew how to buy a house. he knew how to drive a car.

he knew how to write a check. he wasn't an idiot. but he had -- he had really bad problems with addiction, with alcohol. he tried -- we made him go into rehab, and it doesn't work when you make somebody go. they've got to want to go. so he failed three or four times. we really don't have any guilt. we tried, said steve, you need help. yeah, i know i do. and he'd go, and for a month, it would be fine, and then it would all go wrong. like okay, look, the best thing that we can do here, you don't seem to be in a happy place. it's not really very good for the band either. but more importantly, for you, go home. just go home. and he went to london and four months into that six-month break, he passed away. but all the time he was over there, we'd be on the phone once a week. how you doing, all this kind of stuff. and he'd be either pretending he's fine or he really was, i don't know. when people fall off, they can literally fall off just for one second. that's all it takes. so we were already making this record.

yes, when he died and he was buried and we were all together there at the funeral and then we all got together, it's like what do we do now, you know? you say all the usual things like well, he'd want us to finish this. you have to justify it for yourself more than anything else. but the fact of the matter is that we wanted to finish it anyway because this is our job. and why should the four of us have to quit because one of us didn't run the race the same way that we did. it wasn't that difficult. there was a certain emotional heart tug going on. of course there always will be. but at the same time, this is our life. and it's our career. and the four remaining members of the band decided out of respect to steve, we would finish the album as a four-piece. we wouldn't get anybody else in. so filled in all the guitars. we made the record. we dedicated it to steve, and we did what everybody else in life does. we moved on. >> obviously years later, 100 million records sold.

you're still moving on. and before i let you go, we've got to say a word about this tour. i've been so fascinated about your life, legacy and happening kiss, traveling everywhere. >> literally. the corridors between them going off and us going out. >> are we having on the tour? >> it's great. they're easy guys to work with. there's a lot of respect between the two bands. and there's a lot of hits between the two bands. so the classic cliche of one and one making three. that's what this is. we're not very good at math, but that's actually -- >> that's what it feels like. lovely guys. some of the nicest guys we've ever worked with. really nice people. >> the tag line for this tour is "too many hits, too little time." >> yeah, it's pretty much true. you shouldn't cram in as many songs in as you can. you can't get them all in. you just have to do what you can. >> i'm glad you guys came to see us in the midst of a busy tour.

and i'm sure a lot of late nights. >> sure. >> on this tour. >> we're used to it. last night was a late night. >> every night's a late night with you guys on the tour. if you can get in to see def leppard, they're on tour for a little while this summer with kiss. i think you'll have a good time, as i said, so many hits, so little time. enjoy yourselves checking out def leppard. good to have you guys here, man. >> thank you. >> what a great conversation. >> thank you. >> glad to have you. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time with a conversation with joan rivers about her new book, "diary of a mad diva." that's next time. we'll see you then.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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