Q&A: Phil Collen
Friday June 05 2009
On boozing and his Spinal Tap moments
So, let me get this straight. You're a hard rock guitarist -- and a vegetarian. Isn't there a law against that?
I've felt weird about eating meat since I was a kid. I'm a picture of health at 51. I hardly eat any kind of food. I'm a vegan. You don't need meat to survive. It's a pleasure thing.
Speaking of forbidden pleasures, you had a reputation for hitting the bottle pretty hard back in Def Leppard's glory days. What convinced you to pack it in?
I was just getting so, so fucked up. I was having blackouts and I didn't like being completely out of control.
Whereas your band mate, Steve Clark, kept drinking and passed away at age 31. It was the booze that that did for him in the end, wasn't it?
Steve carried on and obviously it killed him. It was a very similar thing. The difference was that I thought, "Oh shit, I shouldn't be doing this. It's not for me."
In the eyes of many, Def Leppard came pretty close to being a real life Spinal Tap. Did it seem that way from the inside?
Yeah, absolutely. You can't escape the Spinal Tap. There were definitely moments like that. You've got to bear in mind we were kids. Rick Allen [Def Leppard drummer] was 19 when we were doing Pyromania.
You have seen Spinal Tap, presumably?
Yeah. Actually we saw it in Dublin in the Eighties. You remember that band Spandau Ballet?
Er, ever so slightly. Didn't they have lovely hair?
Well, they were staying in Dublin. They said, "Shit! You've got to check this movie out." They'd seen it like five times -- they knew all the words and everything. It was hysterical.
And now you're touring with Journey and Whitesnake. Are there lots of rows as to who gets the biggest dressing room?
We're the headliners. Do we feel any sense of competition? No, but playing with a band like Journey keeps you on your toes. I remember when we were on the road with them a few years back and Don't Stop Believing was on The Sopranos. The audiences were going through the roof for that song. And then you have to follow that.
You've had your differences with your record label recently. It's been reported you were mightily miffed about the marketing of your recent albums.
You remember the days when Prince wrote 'Slave' across his face? For us, it's a control issue. You want to own your own music. Also, you pay a publishing company to protect you -- and then everybody's downloading your stuff and they don't do anything about it.
Away from Def Leppard, you've formed a power-rock trio, Man Raze, with Paul Cook from the Sex Pistols.
Man Raze is very different to Def Leppard. We're into that west London Jamaican dub sound. It was nice for me to find a couple of other people the same age who grew up listening to the same stuff.
If you broke into Jamaican dub at a Def Leppard concert, I suspect you'd be glassed by the fans.
We tried to do something different with Def Leppard with a 1996 album called Slang. People simply didn't accept it. We wanted to change a little bit. Unfortunately you have to cater to your fan-base, although, ultimately, you need to be loyal to yourself as an artist.
You say it's a London album but you actually recorded it in [Def Leppard front-man] Joe Elliot's studio in Dublin.
He lives out past Leopardstown, in the middle of nowhere. It's pretty cool. When we recorded the weather was fantastic. We'd finish recording and go down to Sandymount or Dun Laoghaire and enjoy the sunshine.
Man Raze play Academy 2, Wednesday June 10. Def Leppard headline the O2 on Friday June 12
- Ed Power
