DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott recently spoke to Guitar International about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's next studio effort. "Well, the new DEF LEPPARD album is, at this moment in time, just a writing session that lasted the entire month of February," he said. "We were hoping, at best, for three or four songs, maybe five. We ended up walking out of there with 12. They're all in various stages of undress, if you like. There are three songs that I think we could actually release tomorrow. The other nine are anywhere from having 'la-la melodies' to 'we need to record it properly.' But we've filled them up with songs that will be in the album. We'll probably pick 12 from 16 or something like that. But we've got 12, and I'm going to be working on one of them this evening."We're all coming back to my place the last two weeks of May to do a bit more. It will probably be more writing than recording, because we don't believe we've finished writing yet, even though we've got all those songs on the go. And then there's the tour with KISS this summer, which will take us through to September. In October, I'll be producing BLACK STAR RIDERS' second album until the end of November and then go back and finish recording and mixing the LEPPARD record. The vocals get done last, so I'll be singing up to and beyond Christmas. I'm hoping, fingers crossed, but I am making this up as I go along, so bear that in mind that we can actually deliver the CD by February 2015."Asked about the vibe of the 12 songs that have been written thus far, Elliott said: "It's exactly what DEF LEPPARD has come to be known for. Say, from 'Hysteria' onwards, there's a lot more variety to what we did. 'Pyromania' was a solid record, but other than a couple of slow ones, all the songs was pretty much a similar feel. 'High 'N' Dry' was very much that way too. Maybe the first album was a bit more, say adventurous but a bit more unfocused, if you like. With 'Hysteria', we realized that we could go in any direction we wanted to. We had big, glorious ballads like 'Love Bites'; strip-around songs like 'Sugar'; massive, epic pieces like 'Gods Of War'; pop songs like 'Animal' and 'Love And Affection'; straight-forward rockers like 'Run Riot'. We were covering all bases, and that's because everybody in the band was starting to contribute more and more to the writing and everybody in the band is different."In the mid-'90s we had 'Slang', where we had the title track which was a full-on romp through us doing Bowie meets Prince. Some of the stuff sounded like ZEPPELIN while others sounded like an R&B band. We were just letting our musical individuality ooze out."On these new recordings, they're all very much guitar-based, rock and roll songs almost punk. Some of the stuff is BEATLES-esque with mellotron. We're all over the place. It's not unfocused; it's not a collection of songs that all sound the same. It's very, very wide cinemascope when it comes to the kind of tunes that we've written. There really is a bit of everything."
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