Def Leppards Phil Collen Interview With Ultimate-guitar.com

Ultimate Guitar interviewed Def Leppard Guitarist Phil Collen. Here he talks about various things from touring, the record industry and the elements of a good song.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: What do you think are the elements that make up a great song?

Phil Collen: It could be many different things. But lyrically if you create an image of some sort of… like for example Hotel California, that song actually puts you in a place every time you hear it, even from the very first time you hear it. You have an image of what it is going to be like, you have a solid picture. And to me that is really good songwriting. And melodically, you have to the hooks as well as it has to sound natural. If you are just doing it gratuitously, then it will tend to sound a little bit fake. But then again, there people who make millions of dollars writing songs in exact that way. For me, I tend to get a lot of inspiration straight off the bat and then from there for the rest of time, it is a lot of hard work. That is how the songwriting process usually works for me.

 

Ultimate-Guitar.com: When it comes to touring today, how does it compare to touring during the ‘80s. What do you think are the main differences?

Phil Collen: The main difference is the state of the record industry today. I think on the grand scheme of things, records are less important now. I mean, for an artist you still need to do that, make a record, but from a business point of view you really end up not having an album to promote at all as opposed to having it the other way around. The way it used to be like. It is very hard to get stuff out there on a major level today but on a grass roots level, it’s very different as you can get stuff out there on the internet. And do stuff like that which is very exciting. And because of that, it creates a lot of artists who are not afraid at doing their own thing, and are not being told what to do by some A & R guy. So they’re following their own noses and being very natural about it. And I like that aspect to it. And that is the main differences from when we used to tour before to today. And I think music is very, if not, more important in people’s lives than it used to be too.

Read this interview in it’s entirety at Ultimate-guitar.com