DEF LEPPARD members Joe Elliott (vocals), Vivian Campbell (guitar) and Phil Collen (guitar) took part in a press conference earlier today (Monday, November 23) in Singapore ahead of the band’s concert Tuesday night at the Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre. You can now watch the question-and-answer session below.
Speaking about how things would have been different had social media existed when DEF LEPPARD first started out, Vivian said: “It’s definitely a whole brave new world now with social media. You can interact directly with your fan base, which is a good thing and a bad thing. But it’s broken down some of the walls, some of the barriers that… It’s taken a little bit of the mystique out of it. You have to balance between interacting with your fans and genuinely engaging with them and yet not giving away too much of yourself, because in this world sometimes the more you give, the more people take. It’s a work in progress, and everyone handles it differently. Some people are very ‘hands on’ with their social media, and some people have other people do it for them and speak through them. I guess we all handle it differently.”
Added Joe: “I’m glad it wasn’t around when we started, purely because it gave us more opportunity to concentrate on what we really wanted to be. It wasn’t, like, ‘Oh, we can’t rehearse today, ‘cause we’ve gotta answer all these questions.’ I think that actually is one of the reasons there aren’t so many bands coming through the way that we did — because they have other tasks that they have to perform that we didn’t. We were just literally… We learned to play our instruments, we learned to sing, we learned to write songs together, and that was our only focus. And once we got that down, and then if other stuff comes in, you can probably split your time and manage to do both. For me, I’m not sure I would have been as good, or whatever I am, if I was starting off the way it is now. It would have been too much of an interference.”
Phil said: “I think also when people form bands now, the motivation is a lot different to what we had. I ask a lot of young people, ‘What do you wanna do?’ And they wanna be recognized or noticed… Social media being one of the things. They wanna be on YouTube, they want people to take notice of them. We wanted to make music, we wanted to be artists first, and there’s a big difference. And I always stress that we’re happy about creating and making music, and that’s our fulfillment. But, like I said, a lot of the people in this social media world, they wanna be recognized . It’s more of an ego-driven kind of thing, which is a little bit of a shame. We still have the thing where we wanna create and make music, and that’s still really fulfilling to us.”
DEF LEPPARD released its new, self-titled studio album on October 30. The effort was made available through earMUSIC worldwide (excluding North America, Japan) in the following formats: CD, 2LP gatefold, digital download and on all streaming services.
“Def Leppard” entered The Billboard 200 chart at position No. 10 with first-week sales of just over 30,000 units — nearly all from pure album sales.
Source: Blabbermouth
