unbelievable: singer Joe Elliott looked back on a hard rock..

“In six months, we got through 300 bottles of vodka, 400 bottles of whiskey and cases of beer. It was insane”: The unbelievable story of Def Leppard’s 80s hard rock masterpiece Hysteria
By Dom Lawson( Metal Hammer ) published 21 hours ago
Four years, one near-fatal car crash and an ocean of booze in the making, Def Leppard’s Hysteria is the 80s hard rock album against which all others should be measured

The story of Def Leppard’s Hysteria is like no other. It involves an arm loss, three producers, three studios, two crashes… oh, and about three years of delays and frustration.

The Sheffield band hurled themselves into the recording of the album on the back of achieving enormous global success with their third album, 1983’s Pyromania, which had established the line-up of vocalist Joe Elliott, guitarists Steve Clark and Phil Collen, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen as a global phenomenon. With that albums, had finally realised the potential first shown on their 1980 debut On Through The Night and developed a year later with High ’N’ Dry. Now the challenge was to follow the multi-million-selling Pyromania, which was only kept from the top of the US charts by Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

“When we started doing Hysteria, our producer ‘Mutt’ Lange – who’d done High ’N’ Dry and Pyromania – told us we should set out to make a hard rock version of Thriller,” recalls Joe. “He really did believe that this band were capable of making a record with seven potential hit singles on it – and he was right.”

Leppard pitched straight into making what was to be a career-defining album as soon as they came off a near year-long tour on the back of Pyromania. They didn’t ease down to enjoy their success – it was a case of getting stuck straight back in.

“Our last gig was on February 8, 1984 in Bangkok,” says Joe. “From there we flew to Dublin [the band were forced to become tax exiles after the huge finances generated by sales of Pyromania] and checked into a hotel for five days while we looked around for a suitable Young Ones-style house in which to base ourselves.”

“You’ve gotta remember that we were all in our early 20s, single, and had been on the road for a year,” laughs Joe. “So not only did we write for the new album, but also partied really hard! In about six months, we got through about 300 bottles of vodka, 400 bottles of whiskey and cases of beer. It was insane.”

However, there was also a serious edge to what was going on – they were determined to top what had gone before, This wasn’t about emulating success, but taking everything to a new level.

“The first song we wrote was called Fractured Love, but Mutt rejected it, because all it seemed to do was tread old ground. We thought, ‘Here we go again. We’re back at school with the headmaster.’ But he was dead right. We had to pick up our game and raise it. That’s what all of us wanted. Eventually Fractured Love got used on our Retro Active album [1993], featuring unreleased stuff and rarities.