"Well, here we are in beautiful Malibu," smiles Jon, lounging back on his comfortable chair and gazing contentedly at the waves bearing down on the shore.
It's early afternoon, the sun is out, and Jon's got his shirt off. He's got a fag (cigarette) in one hand, an iced tea in the other, and he's got company. Sitting next to him on the patio, gazing out over the sandy shore and the deep blue ocean, is his house guest for this afternoon- Joe Elliott, Def Leppard's renowned frontman and Jon's fellow rock superstar.
The pair of them have spent the morning wandering along the beach. Now they're about to get down to the day's business. Between them is a table, upon which sit two drinks, an ashtray, and a tape recorder, which Jon has just activated.
Why? Because Jon has volunteered to do our job for us, and interview Joe for Kerrang!
"Have you ever done this before?", asks Joe as Jon presses Play.
"Never," Jon laughs.
He may be a virgin journalist, but Jon will undoubtedly prefer to chat to his rock and roll mate alone. So we will leave it to them. Record company press officers take note --
Mr. Bon Jovi begins by complimenting Mr. Elliott and his Leppard bandmates on having produced their best album yet with 'Slang." Interestingly, that's also the way we begin every interview...
They start yapping about adapting and surviving in the ever-progressing 90's. Def Leppard have, after all, been pouring sugar on rock fans for 16 years. Bon Jovi have kept the faith for 13. Both are still alive and well, leaving most of their former peers to eat their dust.
"Some of the reports on 'Slang' I saw said it was a great record, but we should consider changing our name", says Joe. "In other words, there is a stigma around the name Def Leppard and our history, even though the music's good."
"It's a shame but true", agrees Jon. "That's American radio. It's in a funky place, as little as I pay attention to it. To me, it seems that if you're not fashionable they can't put you on their station. But you guys have beaten that- you're on 150 stations in American. It really looks like your album is gonna happen here."
Joe:"Yeah, but there was one classic comment about Slang from some DJ in Bumfu@k, Illinois;he just said 'UGH!" But even on Radio One in Britain, which has gone all alternative now, our single sat nicely between Ash and STP. We're over the first hurdle and that's really encouraging, beacuse success can go as quickly as it came. I mean, lookat all your Poisons and your Motley Crues. You've got to grab it by the ballsm just like you did. 12 million albums later, Bon Jovi are everywhere, and that's what we've got to try and do as well. We're too good to disappear that quick, and we ain't gonna roll over and die."
Jon recognises 1992 as the year when a 'changing of the guard' occurred in rock. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain became the spokesman of a new generation, and out went flash bombs, big hair, and merrily gorging on your successes.
"We were blind to it", Jon insists. "We certainly weren't listeing to Nirvana or anything when we were recording 'Keep The Faith'. So when rock bands got pushed out of the business, people would say to me, "What about Def Leppard?" I knew all the original bands would make it, and all the lesser bands that the A&R guys created wouldn't be able to stand up."
"We were aware of Nirvana,Pearl Jam, and STP in 1992," says Joe. "Then we eventually noticed how we were becoming redundant from a sound point of view. But anybody with half a brain would know that you guys, us, and a few others are gonna survive. We're all prepared to realise, 'Fu@k it, you have to move on'. On our new album the title track is the only one which comes close to having a foot in the old sound. If you played 'Work it Out to someone without telling them who it was they would never know, because I'm singing like Iggy Pop".
Jon:"I actually wondered if it was someone else singing. I was gonna ask you if it was Vivian singing."
Joe:"Yeah, well the howling, screeching 80's dog-bark singing is out. It gets tedious, and it's fu@king hard to keep going! It's not a question of following fashion, you must be aware of what's going on around you. We take forever to learn things, and we always seem to be two steps behind everyone else. But we always seem to sell more records than them, so I really cant complain. Now, we're aware of what's going on, and we just have to make sure we stay that way. The whole shoe-staring thing is over."
The man from Bon Jovi is utterly bamboozled by that last expression.
"What's shoe staring?", Jon asks. "Oh, right, people who look at their feet!"
Joe:"Yeah. Now you've got Green Day, and whether you like it or not, its fun. The Presidents of the USA are fun. There's a smile on the face of grunge, and its kicked a few people in the balls. I don't know what Eddie Vedder's gonna do next time Pearl Jam comes out. Is he gonna be a miserable bastard again? Or his he gonna learn to smile?"
Jon:"yeah, he'll have to figure that out. But I think he's the real deal and a wonderful talent. I give him a alot of credit for saying he doesn't like success and then not making videos. He's not selling himself out. He makes his records, they sell zillions and he says, 'Well, that's nice, I'm glad people like it, but I dont want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.' God bless him."
"Oh, no, I love Pearl Jam, I really do," Joe stresses, "amd I understand why they're big as well. There's alot of stuff at the moment that you can like, but you won't be playing it in 20 years time. Like the Bush album. It's alright, but it's just fu@king rehashed Nirvana-meets-Pearl Jam. It's a good record, but in the same way that Poisons Unskinny Bop sounded good for six weeks. Would you play that one now?"
Jon is unable to protest, shaking his head.
"Ask me if I would play Slippery When Wet , or our Hysteria album, or a Led Zeppelin record, and yes, I will." Joe continues. "And I'll be playing the first Guns N Roses album forever."
Jon drags on his fag and nods in agreement. His interviewee is in full rant mode.
"But a lot of stuff, like Poison, was just tour bus fodder, Joe says. " Then you take it home and it just gathers dust. Pearl Jam won't be like that, and I hope the Stone Temple Pilots keep it together, because I really like them. Weiland's got a major problem, unfortunately, and the rest of the band are pissed off at him."
"Yeah I understand," says Jon enigmatically.
"But alot of these kids are in a different headspace", reckons Joe. "It just seems to be a total drug culture, which it never was with us. I'm not saying nobody indulged now and then, but you either tried something and didn't like it, or you knew you just wouldn't live your life by it. The closest thing I get to a habit is this bloody thing,"he says, waving his cigarette around, "or a glass of scotch now and then."
Talk shifts to the decidely un-rock n roll topic of EQ's makes of amplifier and how mega-producer Mutt Lange helped to shape the sound on Leppard's globe-conquering "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" records. We'll not trouble you with it here..
Eventually, Joe sums up the attitude behind Slang. "We wanted to go back to being a neutral, happy go lucky fu@king rock band again," he says. "Maybe that's commercial suicide, but we've always got the songwriting. We're never gonna do a Pantera album, or a Barry Manilow album. for that matter. But in the past, if we wanted to re-record a song we'd have to shat ourselves, because it took six months. This time it took six minutes. It was so exciting! We felt like a garage band again. I mean, I'm 36 years old, man!"
"So the feeling in the band is good now?" Jon interjects. "You're looking forward to getting back on the road?"
Joe:"Oh yeah. As you know, nobody joins a band so they can go and work in a studio forever. ANd I think we must have been in a studio longer than the Rolling Stones, and they're nearly 20 years older than us! But I got into this thing because I saw T-Rex on 'Top of the Pops', and something inside me just went 'BANG!'. That was it- fu@k soccer, fu@k everything else. I wanted to be a pop star. With the emphasis on pop, because that's all we heard in England."
Jon detects some more current influences on "Slang".
"Absolutely!", Joe says, almost spilling his iced tea in a spasm of enthusiasm. "For alot of this album we've actually been listening to some of the new stuff. Just to get the vibe, we'd be playing Soundgardens 'Superunknown' and all of the STP's stuff when we were recording."
Joe and Jon turn their thoughts to age, seeing as people like us are always calling them 'veterans' and 'seasoned pros'.
Jon:"Its a funny feeling. I dont feel old, but in the same breath I feel like an elder statesman. YOu know what I mean?"
Joe:"Well, you've been there and you've done that, so you're entitled to it. People shouldn't look down on it either. I get annoyed at negativity because you're supposed to get better as you get older. Popularity revolves on a wheel as well. You go through a period when you're naff, and suddenly you're very cool again. Page and Plant are now very cool but they weren't in 1984. Now everyone's a KISS fan, but in 1989 they thought KISS sucked. It's the same fu@king band! Right now, in certain areas of the world, we suck, but maybe in 2001 we wont. People just get bored and decide to knock someone".
Jon: "But we're both over that hump. In America, the song 'Keep the Faith' woke us up by not doing so well. We ran into a brick wall, beacuse we'd gotten used to the success of 'Slippery when Wet' and 'New Jersey'. Even my solo album was big! I really believed that Keep the Faith was a great song and it was gonna work, but when it didn't, it made us hungry, humble and focussed. It sounds liek you guys have the same feeling."
Joe: "Absolutely. Those three words sum it up. Its like, lets check the ego at the fu@king cloak-room here."
Def Leppard start their Slang tour in Bangkok. As Jon points out, the band first played there 12 years ago.
"It's great to say that Leppard are still going strong in '96" he tells Joe. "Actually in '84 did you think you'd still be here? You know what I mean? Wow!"
"I never thought that far", says Joe. "It's only now that you start thinking, 'Good God!' Its 16 years since our first album came out! I'm very comfortable with that, but there's alot of 21 year olds out there who probably think we're silly old men."
"But I remember when Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull was the age I am now, and it doesn't seem that long ago."
"Yeah, it's a long time", says Jon, coming over all misty eyed.
"You know, if we both stick with this music thing". smirks Joe, "we might even make a living at it!"
Jon's still laughing when the tape goes 'click'.
We've reached the end of part 1 of the Jon and Joe show. Same time, same place next week.
PART TWO
Jon Bon Jovi thought he could stop Joe Elliott from talking - he was wrong. Def Leppard's gob-on-legs has spent a week bending Jon's ear, and he's only just told him why Lars Ulrich's a 'leech' and which of the Chili Peppers he wants to smack...
"Lars Ulrich leeches!" cackles Joe Elliott.
Then Jon Bon Jovi bursts out laughing. For a few seconds, all you can hear is the sound of two rock superstars guffawing away. Oh, and the afternoon breeze blowing off in the Pacific Ocean.
Here we are again, sitting on the patio outside. Jon's Mailbu beach pad. As you join us again, Jon has just lit a cigarette, had a quick sip of his iced tea, and flipped the tape over, When the conversation resumes, the pair are affectionately taking the piss out of Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich's short hair and hid addiction to schmoozing his fellow rock stars- or, as he puts it, 'leeching'.
"Did it start with the white leather jacket he wore when he was hanging out with Guns n Roses?" he chuckles. "Then they couldn't get him off the Oasis tour bus for three weeks! The boy's very strange."
"But I think Metallica have made some brillliant moves",interjects Jon, gently shifting Joe onto a topic less likely to offend their millionaire mates.
"Yeah, but the thing is, I don't know whether they've been accepted yet from the kids point of view" retorts Elliott. "Perry Farrell stopped organizing Lollapalooza, he's starting another festival because it's not alternative enough for him any more, it's now become.."
"Monsters of Rock?" offers Jon.
"Woodstock 0n the Road, actually," says Joe. "But you know what's really funny? Lars turned around and said to somebody that he now understood why Leppard have taken so long between records. He said that it's because of paranoia. It's being aware that there might be somebody up ahead with a dagger waiting to say 'Ha! It's over!'
Joe obviously has his tongue wedged in his cheek when he ridicules Mr. Ulrich. But hes not joking when he comes to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They've been having a pop at Def Leppard in the press, and they're definitely NOT on Joe's Christmas card list.
"When people like Flea and Anthony Kiedis start having a f@cking go at us for the way we sound, it really pisses me off," he scowls. "I mean, we weren't fortunate enough to grow up in LA with 10 rock stations. We had two hours a week. So of course we're gonna be influenced by the Sweet, Slade, and Gary Glitter..."
"That's what you were exposed to", soothes Jon. "I mean, I like what the Chilis are doing, and I dont know if they've had a go at you or not, but it has to be said that the vocal melodies on 'Slang' are something THEY would do.."
"F@cking right!" Joe bellows indignantly.
The man has had a cause to bellow indignantly many times during Leppard's career. Someone always wants to have a go, whether its over the band's commercial approach or the way they use technology.
THE REST TO COME SOON!
More to come! Joe has lots and lots of breath left :-D Check back soon!!!