Def Leppard – Pyromania

This past month, my family decided to all meet in our childhood hometown of North Platte Nebraska. For me, this trip was somewhat therapeutic. I had graduated from NP in the spring of 1985 and moved the day after graduation. My parents had moved to Hastings in the Fall of 1984. But, I had remained in town to finish my senior year. I stayed in the family house while my older sister and her husband moved in until it sold. As the years passed, my sister and her family moved out of NP and I had no ties back to my boyhood community. I never went to any of my class reunions.  In the past year or so, my 8 year old son had been asking me about where I grew up and went to school and other boyhood memories. For a long time, I had harbored negative feelings about this town where I had spent the first 18 years of my life. But, this time was different. We had decided that the locale would be great for an 80th birthday celebration for my Mom. It was and I learned to look back fondly at my past. I was able to drive around all the old neighborhoods and personal landmarks that had helped shape the memories of my first 18 years of life.  One of the places I wanted to visit was Cody Elementary School.  I had never attended this school. But, I did design a sign and planter for the school as part of my Eagle Scout project.  In recent years, my brother had looked up the school (and sign) on Google Earth (Street view)and he said it was still there. So, I drove by to have a look at my project only to find it had recently been replaced by a newer metal, electric sign with a message board marquis.

The reason I tell this back story is because the album (or cassette tape) I associate with the day that I (and Scout Troop 81) built this sign is none other than Def Leppard’s 1983 breakthrough album Pyromania.   I have always been one to have music playing while I’m driving, sleeping or (in this case) working on a project and this day was no different. On May 21st 1983 (a Saturday morning), we assembled at Cody Elementary school to work on this project. My scout friends and I were always notorious about coming up with new music to listen to and making mix tapes to listen to on trips and campouts and all kinds of events. So, I knew that someone would bring a portable tape player of some kind.  I had recently bought a copy of Def Leppard’s Pyromania on cassette. I had read about this new album through my obsessive monthly purchases of Hit Parader magazine. It had been released in January of 1983. So, it was a relatively new release at the time. I think that the first single for Photograph had been getting some airplay on the local FM radio station and the new cable music network MTV. I least I think it was. I wouldn’t know. North Platte cable subscribers didn’t get MTV added to the basic cable package until Fall 1984. My parents didn’t get cable until they had moved out of North Platte and into Hastings.  So, the only way to see music videos(at the time) was on HBO’s Video Jukebox, WTBS’s Night Tracks and (premiering in July 1983)NBC’s Friday Night Videos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That morning, I was definitely in the mood to hear my new Def Lep tape and to share it with my buddies in the Scout troop. But, there was some objections from some of the younger boys in the troop that wanted to hear the cassette that they had brought that day….Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  Of course, MJ’s Thriller was ubiquitous that year. But, I persisted in my listening choice that day. It was my project after all. I should be able to choose what we would listen to.  Once we finished assembling the sign, a few of us went back to my house just in time to catch Def Leppard on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. This sticks out in my mind because I remember watching and noticing(probably for the first time) that the band was lip-synching on the show. As a drummer, I immediately noticed that Rick Allen wasn’t playing his own drums either. At the time, he was a Ludwig drums endorser and the kit he was “playing” wasn’t his usual Ludwig kit. But, it was still kind of awesome to see a Hard Rock act on the very pop themed American Bandstand.


Soon, I went from being a casual Def Lep fan to an overboard fanatic. In 1983, my 3 favorite bands were Van Halen, The Police and Def Leppard. I remember I had bought some "Rock" calendars to decorate my room (along with many posters) and two of them were of the Police and Def Lep. I was living the drums 24/7 at the time. I had bought a five piece Ludwig drumkit in the Spring of 1982 and that was all I thought about. Drums, Drumming and all the different drummers for all my favorite bands. In 1983, Rick Allen was an endorser for Ludwig drums. I even sent in the $1 for a poster version of Rick Allen’s Ludwig endorsement ad.  He was definitely one of my favorites at the time.

For many teenagers in the early (and late 80’s) Def Leppard was a big deal. Since my new fascination with bands like Van Halen in 1982, I had become obsessed with every band that was categorized in that Hard Rock genre. I found out about a lot of these bands through the magazine Hit Parader. 

In a short year, I had lost all interest in the comic book titles I had been reading from 1977-1982 and now I was all about ROCK, HARD ROCK and Heavy Metal! The first single off the album was Photograph and soon gained some airplay on the various video outlets I stated before.  After Photograph had faded from the charts, it was time for yet another single. By this time, I remember the video for the song Foolin’  being on NBC’s Friday Night Videos on a weekly basis. Since I didn’t have cable, I didn’t get to see the videos unless I was at a friend’s house to see them. MTV didn’t come to North Platte until the Fall of 1984. So, I was always home for Friday Night Videos on Friday night at 11:30pm. That’s also when my curfew was too.  Of course, I was more than happy to be home to watch music videos. FNV(Friday Night Videos) soon began to have a segment called “Video Vote” which would pit a certain video by one group against another group’s video.  I seem to remember the Police’s Every Breath You Take against Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf or some other Duran Duran video against Def Leppard’s Foolin’.  In fact, the video I remember running week after week after week in the video vote was Def Leppard’s Foolin’

This was important stuff (to me) at the time. Now, it seems so trivial. In my mind, Def Leppard had to be voted for over Duran Duran. I was all for the Hard Rock acts at the time. I remember having all kinds of conversations about this stuff with my friends on our walks (or drives) to school or hanging out at the time.  I would carry my copies of Hit Parader and Modern Drummer magazine to school. I would pull them out at the end of whatever class period I was in or study hall or whatever. This also explains my continued interest in writing about this stuff too.

Soon, Pyromania was a favorite of many of my friends and kids then.  After Photograph and Foolin’, the next single for the band was Rock of Ages.  For me, this was just the coolest. I had grown up attending church with my parents and had heard the traditional hymn of the same name. So, I loved the coincidental name. It also had the odd voice intro “Gunter glieben glauchen globen”  followed by a straight heavy cowbell. The vocal gibberish intro was later revealed to be producer Robert “Mutt” Lange counting off the song after multiple takes of the usual count of four. I remember thinking that the cowbell was the first percussive accessory I had to have on my drumset. So, I bought a cowbell and a bass drum mounting clip for my kit.  I soon found out that the cowbell that I had purchased was higher pitched than Rick Allen’s in the song.  It was rather cool until your musical friends with a better sense of pitch point out that Def Lep’s cowbell has a much lower tone.

By the time summer vacation of 1983 was in full swing, Rock of Ages was the next single blaring out of car stereos. So, when I returned to school in the Fall, the song I remember loving to hear at those early school year dances was Rock of Ages and that unforgettable cowbell intro.

Of course, these songs were the hit singles and videos that are remembered from this album. But, the continuity on this album flows from beginning to end. From Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop) to Too Late for Love and Die Hard the Hunter to Stagefright, these songs just make a very cohesive well thought out ROCK album. All these years later, I can put this album on and sing along and play air drums all the way through.  So, you can’t talk about this album and the production without touching on the winning track record of producer “Mutt” Lange.  When they started recording the album in 1982, Lange already had multi-platinum selling albums with AC/DC (Back in Black, Highway to Hell, For Those About to Rock We Salute You), Foreigner 4 and (of course) Def Leppard’s High & Dry.  After his work with the band on this album and again on their 1987 album Hysteria, He would become known for being one of the most successful producers ever.  The band laments about how much Mutt was such a task master in getting the optimum performance from the band. He even went so far to use drum machines and electronic drums in the mix. Rick Allen’s drumkit was actually mic’d through a Simmons electronic drumkit “brain” or mixer. To a Hard Rock loving kid like myself, this was quite the revelation.  The fact that Simmons electronic technology was used is rather coincidental considering that Allen would lose his left arm in a car accident on New Year’s Eve 1984. He then would turn to a modified Simmons drums with electronic foot trigger pedals to play the parts he had previously played with his left hand.  So, in all actuality, the sound of his drums (on record) never really changed.

Since Def Leppard had become one of my high school favorites, I was crushed to hear that drummer Rick Allen had lost his arm. But, as a drummer, I honestly believed in him. I knew he had the fortitude to find a way to come back behind the kit and come out triumphant. Of course he did. In 1987, the band came back with another multi-platinum selling album Hysteria. I bought that one too. Although, by this time, it was 4 years later I was entering my 3rd year of college. Some of my tastes had changed. It wasn’t altogether cool to be a Def Leppard fan.  But, the anticipation to hear this new album was there. I honestly liked it and eventually saw the band perform live(in the round) in Omaha in November of 1987.  It really was an awesome concert event to behold and I was impressed by the band and Rick Allen’s one-armed drumming style.  In fact, Rick Allen’s triumph through adversity is a testament to what can be done even with a disability like his.

In 1988, a concert video of them performing the song Pour Some Sugar on Me began to play in heavy rotation on MTV. At first it was cool to relive the concert I had just seen through this video. But, this was HEAVY ROTATION!  So, I grew tired of it…and fast. I use to say “I loved the song the first THOUSAND times I heard it.”  In October 1988, the band played again in Nebraska. This time in the state’s capital of Lincoln. I remember now that many of the college students I knew went to this show. I had no interest in the band anymore. I was absolutely sick of them. 

As time has gone by, my obsession with Def Leppard has pretty much dwindled to nothing. I occasionally will look up some old albums and give them a listen. The band is one of the remaining hold-outs for releasing their catalog in a digital form. They released a live double CD called Mirror Ball and that’s really all there is for digital download and streaming. In the late 90’s VH1 started a show called “Ultimate Albums”.  One of the albums they have highlighted (and I recorded) was for the album Pyromania.  As I watched the show, I was reminded of a more innocent time in my life.  I would put the CD copy I had on and sing along and I knew every little nuance to the album.  The album was like an old comfy sweatshirt that you pull out of the closet for just a bit of comfort. It’s familiar and it’s nice to go back and visit. In 2004, the album ranked number 384 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2006, Q magazine placed the album at number 35 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s". I’m sure the album is on a list of favorites who grew up listening to music in the 80’s.

So, when we went back to North Platte in early August 2012. I was looking forward to showing my son the house I grew up in, the church I attended, the grade school I went to, the places I had played, and the Eagle Scout project I made for an elementary school in 1983. But, as I drove by Cody Elementary school to see that my sign had been replaced, all I could think about was the memories and (of course) the music we were listening to that day so many years ago.