English rock legend Def Leppard has been around for a long time — just over 40 years, in fact. With over 100 million records sold around the world, the band that started out within the New Wave of British Heavy Metal genre has grown to be considered one of the most important rock bands in history.
And their next album is going to be a live concert… from 1980.
Frontman Joe Elliott described the upcoming record as a “celebratory release” on the show Trunk Nation and said it has been planned for “about a year and a half.
“I don’t know how much of this I can say right now,” Elliott continued. “I might be breaking protocol. But I will say this much: there’s a companion piece to ‘On Through The Night’, there’s a brand-new, just-mixed live performance from the Oxford Theatre from 1980, which has never been heard ever.”
The decision to release a live show that dates so far back is a bit peculiar. After all, at the time Def Leppard was only together for three years and has yet to develop its distinct sound or garner massive mainstream success. In addition, the band decided to leave the original recording as is, with no touchups.
“It is what it is,” explained Elliott. “It’s us live in 1980. We were discussing off-mic about lip-syncing or overdubbing … You can’t expect a 59-year-old me to go in and clean up a 20-year-old vocal. You know what I mean? So, it is what it is.”
But ultimately, Elliott and the rest of the band feel that there’s value in releasing this live show from just before the band made it big. “When you peer through the curtain of uncertainty that my voice was back in those days, there is a fantastic band onstage,” Elliott assured.
Watch an excerpt from the interview below:
