Def Leppard

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Formed 1977.

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Def Leppard's Rick Savage chats to Jon Holmes

Def Leppard's bassist and founding member chats to Jon about the band's history ahead of 6 Music's Sheffield Sunday.

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Biography

Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Since 1992, the band has consisted of Rick Savage (bass, backing vocals), Joe Elliott (lead vocals), Rick Allen (drums, backing vocals), Phil Collen (guitar, backing vocals), and Vivian Campbell (guitar, backing vocals). This is the band's longest-standing line-up.

The band's strongest commercial success came between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Their 1981 album High 'n' Dry was produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who helped them begin to define their style, and the album's stand out track "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" became one of the first metal videos played on MTV in 1982. The band's next studio album Pyromania in 1983, with the lead single "Photograph", turned Def Leppard into a household name. In 2003, the album ranked number 384 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Def Leppard's fourth album Hysteria, released in 1987, topped the U.S. and UK album charts. As of 2009 it has 12x platinum sales in the United States, and has gone on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide. The album spawned seven singles, including the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number one "Love Bites", alongside "Pour Some Sugar on Me", "Hysteria", "Armageddon It", "Animal","Rocket", and "Women"

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