Ultimate Classic Rock is pleased to present the exclusive premiere of Def Leppard’s new lyric video for “Let’s Go,” the first single from their upcoming self-titled album which will be released on Oct. 30.

“We love the way the lyric video [came out],” guitarist Phil Collen told Ultimate Classic Rock during a recent conversation. “It reminded me of some of the stuff from Hysteria for whatever reason, you know, the ‘Women of Doom’ thing. It’s different from obviously a regular old lyric video, actually going back into almost a new medium of video and stuff.”

“The fact [is that] promo videos aren’t really worth doing in this day and age because there’s no outlet for them, but obviously on YouTube and different things like that, there’s a different way and a different style of things,” he explains. “I find it fascinating the way everything kind of morphs into something. You know, back in the day, people were spending a million dollars on a promo video and then literally six months later, it’s like a kiss of death if you spend all this money and you can’t make it back. It’s a very interesting dynamic, I think, what’s going on with everything.”

The way the Def Leppard album emerged was a surprising series of events for the band, according to Collen. "We went in to record a single and wrote 12 songs. There was no pressure from record executives or anyone. Every song was inspired and it’s something we haven’t done before. It’s the reason that you get into a band in the first place, to make music that you enjoy. It wasn’t for the fans, it wasn’t for a record company and it wasn’t for the industry -- it was for us.”

There were three separate stages of recording for the album, which began in February of last year and wrapped up at the beginning of this year. Along the way, the band continued to tour and play shows, using their idle time on the road to flesh out the developing record. “Some of the stuff was done in hotel rooms and backstage, you know, we’d do backing vocals and guitar or bass or whatever,” Collen says. “I think it’s very easy to put up barriers and go, ‘Well, we can’t do this because of this. We’re not in a studio and we can’t get back into one.’ There was none of that.

“It was a little bit like a Queen album. Different people came in with different ideas. Finding reasons to not try something ... that’s normally our sticking point,” he admits. “We go, ‘Well, it’s a bit slow’ or ‘Well, that doesn’t really work in the style of the album, where we’re kind of going with it.’ Nobody said any of that. It was just like, ‘Well, that’s really cool.’ It didn’t have a negative weight to it. It had a kind of inspirational flow. Everything got a shot and we pretty much used everything. We could have carried on. We actually had 15 songs -- we’ve got 14 on the album.”

Fans can look forward to an album that has all of the signature things that they have come to expect from Def Leppard. Collen says that he and the members of the band are keenly aware what their audience is looking for and equally aware of the pitfalls of going too far outside of that zone. They found a way to serve both sides. “We did the Slang album, which we loved, and it went left field and our fans didn’t accept it on the whole, he says. “They were like, ‘We don’t like this -- where’s the harmonies? Where’s this and that?’ You know, it didn’t go down well. I think we overthought that, even though we thought we were doing something very free and different for us.”

“I love that album,” he continues. “I just listened to it the other day, and it actually sounds great. But with this one, I think we put more into the songwriting, we put more into the production...we’re better songwriters, we’re better musicians. There’s so much growth individually and within the band that it was just nice to put that into practice. It was nice to have that wealth of experience. I think that on this one, we did walk that line, where we’ve done something that pleased us, that was unapologetic ... we didn’t kind of compromise at all. But on the other hand, I think our fans will love it, because it’s got all of those elements that they loved in the first place. You know, the melodies, the counter-melodies, the hooks, whether it’s a guitar hook, a drum hook, a vocal hook, whatever, it’s got all of that stuff in there.”

“I think we’ve got the loudest, biggest, slap-you-in-the-face, guitar album that Def Leppard’s ever done.” And, he adds, “We’ve done more vocals on this album than anything I can remember since Hysteria. You can just crank it up!”

The Def Leppard album is available for pre-order now and advance digital orders will receive an instant download of “Let’s Go.”

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