Def Leppard Is Working on Its ‘Most Diverse’ Album To Date

Def Leppard continues to make good progress on their next studio album, which they are hoping to have out in early 2027.

Fans have already heard some new music, thanks to the band's single, "Rejoice," which was released earlier this year to coincide with their concert residency in Las Vegas. As frontman Joe Elliott revealed, they'd continued working on the forthcoming album even as they were playing in Vegas, recording in the basement at the casino on their days off.

Guitarist Phil Collen confirms that even in the midst of their busy summer playing a number of festival dates, work is still moving forward. On the day of this conversation with UCR (July 28), he shared that he'd been busy. "I was actually doing some stuff this morning. I've got to do some recording when I get back to the States," he says. "It's nonstop, but it's really fun. It's just wonderful to have all those different styles of music and not be stuck in a thing [we don't enjoy] and [to be doing it] for the reasons [we're] doing it."

"It's not like, hey, we're gonna take the world by storm," he adds. "It's like no, we really enjoy each other's company and we love being around each other."

Watch Def Leppard Perform 'Rejoice' in Las Vegas

That's a general feeling that extends to everything that the guitarist does these days, including his work outside of Def Leppard with bands like Delta Deep and Manraze.

"I saw [Sex Pistols drummer] Paul [Cook] the other day," he shares, regarding his Manraze bandmate [a group which also features his former Girl bandmate Simon Laffy]. "It was going to be his 70th birthday. So I just went around his house. It's walking distance from here, so that's really cool. Then you know, [I] get back, and it's the boys. It's like Joe and and Sav [Rick Savage] and Viv [Vivian Campbell] and Rick [Allen] and we have a blast. It's just amazing,

Collen and Manraze are celebrating the recent release of an extremely comprehensive box set, Lock, Stock & Barrel - The Complete Recordings, which brings together, as the title suggests, everything the band recorded and then some. In addition to the two albums and stray B-sides recorded between 2008 and 2011, the new box set also includes a bevy of live recordings and some things that fans haven't heard -- and even material that some of the band members had forgotten about.

Listen to Manraze's 'I Surrender'

What to Expect From the Next Def Leppard Album

So there's a lot to listen to and Phil says that fans can also really look forward to what Def Leppard is presently cooking up collectively in their musical laboratory. The experience of working on 2015's Def Leppard and especially, 2022's Diamond Star Halos has really strengthened their resolve for what they do as they approach the band's 50th anniversary.

They've learned, as well, a few things that have been crucial to how they are making music now. "We stopped worrying about trying to sound a certain way," he explains. "We used to do albums and we'd give ourselves a brief. Like there was a there was a time [where] this is happening in pop music, you know? You'd have Backstreet Boys with these beautiful vocals and all that stuff, then you'd have Garbage that were kind of pushing the envelope."

"This was obviously in the 90s and we said that would be our brief. We kind of combined those two things and that influenced [what we were doing then]," he continues. "You would have these things and it's not just [us] trying to copy it. It's just getting a vibe for what's out there and just kind of trying to connect to that."

'We Always Wanted to Be Queen'

"What we've been doing now, I mean, the last album [Diamond Star Halos] was amazing. We did it during COVID," he remembers. "Me and Joe had a best time ever, just sending ideas. But we always wanted to be Queen. What Queen would do, you know. John Deacon writes 'Another One Bites the Dust,' but everyone puts everything into it."

"We had this song called 'This Guitar' that I wrote years ago, my friend C.J. Vanston and I. Sav, in his place in Sheffield, all he had was a Martin 12-string acoustic and it's like, 'Well, can you play that?' So if we'd have been together, we would have been doing it different," he says. "It would have ended up differently. He actually played until his fingers bled. He was like playing 12 hours in his little studio and that's something you would never do normally."

"So, what Queen would do, you know, they would let Freddie Mercury take the stage and go, 'Okay, we're gonna put all this stuff in.' You know, Roger Taylor doing all these high vocals and everyone put everything into other people's songs, but it still had that Queen mark to it. But it also had something different. So we've started doing something like that and I think this album's really diverse, the one we're doing right now."

Listen to Def Leppard's 'This Guitar'

'It's the Most Diverse Album We've Ever Done.'

"It's like the most diverse album we've ever done because you've got such extremes on there," Collen notes. "You know, we have the fastest song we've ever done -- that I've ever done in any band. There's some really interesting stuff coming out and everyone has a different kind of take on music and lots of things. Although we tour together and we laugh until we cry, everyone is very different, and that's what you experience [as a result]. Everyone puts everything into into all these songs. It's really cool and that's what Queen did. That was one of our fantasies and it's actually come true."

What's Next for Phil Collen and Manraze?

In addition to the current Manraze box set, Collen says that the process of putting the collection together and talking about it, has actually spurred a lot of fresh activity. He points to "Immaculate," one of the previously unreleased songs that appears on the compilation as an instrumental. As he tells UCR, it's a track which had a very powerful and tragic source of inspiration.

"Some of the stuff was not finished and [with] "Immaculate," I met this lady from Rwanda and her whole family had been slaughtered in the genocide [there]," he remembers. "They were trying to track her down and kill her and she was hiding a toilet with five other women. It's the craziest story ever and her name was Immaculate. So I started writing this song about her and as always, something happened. You know, I had to go on tour, we had to finish something else off. So we'd finished the music to it, but it hadn't quite got finished.

"When we played it back as an instrumental, it was like, well, this is awesome. It just sounds really cool. So at some point, I'll finish the lyrics off because, like I said, I met her, and she was just an amazing person," he continues. "I just wanted to honor her, all the stuff that she went through and everything. There's little stories like that you hear something, you wouldn't even think about the depth of what that was actually about and [there's] some other songs."

"You know, we were getting into some almost EDM stuff. We'd gotten Debbi Blackwell-Cook, she actually [sang] on a few of the Manraze [songs] and on the Delta Deep album, "Black Coffee," [actually features members of] Manraze. It's Paul Cook and Simon [Laffy] on it. Debbi's sung on a Def Leppard song, you know, on an album a few years ago. So it's it's just wonderful to have this extended family and to do all the things that we do."

It's all a good reason to keep your eye on Delta Deep and Manraze in addition to the Def Leppard mothership, he confirms, sharing that the former hopefully has a California concert planned and they're looking to get together to explore the future. The situation with Manraze is similarly fluid. "We've got some ideas, some new songs, and [things like] that," he tells UCR. "But I'm obviously...I'm crazy busy. So we're just promoting [the box set] at the moment and hopefully we [can] do some gigs in England at the end of the year. I know Paul's got the [Sex Pistols tour] right up until December, and you know, my dance card is pretty [full] as well."