DEF LEPPARD- NEW SINGLE NEW TOUR
Sheffield’s very own Def Leppard have released a new single, Rejoice. The release comes ahead of the band’s upcoming Las Vegas residency, which kicks off at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on February 3 and runs until the end of the month. Based around a drum loop and featuring a typically Leppard-sized chorus, Rejoice harks back to the late-90s sound of albums like Slang and Euphoria.
“This song’s been an amazing journey from concept to conclusion,” says frontman Joe Elliott,
“I said to Phil [Collen] one day, ‘I’ve got this idea for a lyric where the narrator is at absolute rock bottom and wants to rise up to a higher level. Do you have a musical piece that might do.’”
“I had this riff, this idea for a song a while ago actually, so when Joe came to me I created this drum loop based with a tribal sound and it fit perfectly with this other arrangement I had,” adds Collen. “I sent it to Joe and it was like magic – he sang straight over the top of it. And that’s how the song was formed.
“Then we gave it to Ronan [McHugh, Leppard’s long-serving sound engineer] who’d done a proper drum loop with different sounds. It all started gelling and just sounded like a powerful chant. It’s hard rock for us. It’s got a bit more of an ‘oomph’ than stuff we’ve been doing for a while. It’s kind of magical.”
It’s kind of magical.”
Having heard the track a few times it’s slowly starting to grow on me. Less ‘whoas’ than normal and from the start it makes you think about who it is, though very soon the penny it does drop.
Def Leppard’s Las Vegas stint is followed by some European shows this summer. Full dates are on the band’s website.
