DEF LEPPARD (Guitarist Vivian Campbell )

DEF LEPPARD Guitarist Vivian Campbell On New Record - "If You Have A Nice Ballad, Keep It For Yourself - Use It For Something Else"





DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell (ex-DIO) spoke with BW&BK recently about a number of topics including their upcoming album, Sparkle Lounge, which should see a worldwide release next April. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

"It’s definitely a bit more rock," Campbell reveals about the status of the follow-up to their 2006 covers album, Yeah! "We also approached it from the point of view that we didn’t want to do ballads. Because we told each other, if you have a nice ballad, keep it for yourself (laughs). Use it for something else. Don’t bring it to the Def Leppard record. That was the tactic we took. But there is one song… we did stipulate no ballads, but kind of at the 11th hour, Sav (Rick Savage - bass) came in with a song, that wasn’t really a ballad, but it certainly starts soft. It starts as a soft song, but it’s a very unusual song and it’s also a great great song and a song he’s been working on for over a decade, 14 years or something. He’s always had the nucleus of the idea but it never quite formed. So what happened to coincide with him finishing it. And he said ‘Guys, I know you said we weren’t going to do ballads, but I finished this, and he played us this demo, and it doesn’t really fall under the banner of ballad. Such an unusual song and great song that we thought was more than worthy of going on the record. Other than that, it’s a pretty straightforward kind of record. Phil has been saying in various interviews, and I think it’s a good way of putting it, it’s sort of like Hysteria type songs recorded with more of a High ‘n’ Dry vibe. Definitely less production on it. And in the past, we’ve always been a victim of this. We’ve always felt compelled to put on massive banks on vocals and overdubbing everything and putting everything under the fucking microscope. And for certain tracks and for certain albums, that worked. It certainly worked for Hysteria. When you have someone of the caliber of Mutt Lange (AC/DC) overseeing the project with a vision, you can do that, but when you are just following that formula for the sake of it, that’s always a good results. It sounds homogenized. So the Yeah! record was refreshing to make and listen to, so we thought we would just apply those same tenets and those same principles, and we did that. And we went to Dublin to record it, and I know I’ve personally said, ‘Look guys, I’m here from this time to this date, and on this date I’m leaving.’ There’s no like, ‘Can you say stay for another three months?’ And that worked. You’re sort of forced, like being on the road and writing stuff, you’re working within a timeframe, and sometimes you’re a lot better for it.

Any interesting new guitar things on it?
"There’s a lot more split solos before between Phil (Collen) and I. Which we don’t normally do. Normally someone would take the main solo and somebody would take the ride of solo. And in this case he would say to me, ‘Would you fancy playing the solo on this?’ And I would say, ‘Well, let’s both do it! You know, I’ll do the first four bars you do the second four bars and we will trade-off.’ And what is particularly interesting to us, and keeping in what I was saying about getting it done quick. Is that we actually did it together. Not just in my parts and then him doing his. Real-time playing off of each other. And there’s a little more of that push and pull thing, which we also found on doing the rhythm tracks for the Yeah! record, where we did a lot of the rhythm tracks that way where we are playing at the same time. And there’s more of the human factor when you’re playing in real-time and sitting there with someone and looking at them, it just moves a little bit more within the framework of the track. And we applied that principle this time, not only to a lot of the rhythm guitars, but a lot of the solos too."

And you really think this one quasi-ballad plan will hold? All the way through?
"Yes, absolutely, yeah. You know, the only reason that hard rock bands got suckered into doing ballads in the first place was to get on the radio in the ‘80s. It was always a record company thing. Guys, you’re album is great, but if you want to get it on the radio, you got to give them a power ballad. And that was true for a while. That was the only way you could break an album. Get it on there and then it would get on MTV, and then after awhile you could go with a more up-tempo track. But it was always the record company approach of breaking a rock band was put on the ballad. But other than that, I don’t think the whole power ballad thing would have gained the foothold that it did. So it’s kind of… as individual songwriters, it is easier to write a ballad. When you sit down and write with a piano or guitar, you have a tendency to do that when you are working alone. But when you are working with other people, the tendency is not to do that. Especially a group of people. If you write on electric guitar, there are different ways to train yourself not to do that. And we deliberately told ourselves on this record not to do that. And we developed the song ideas together when we were on the road. And with electric guitars. So that tends to make more of a rock record."