Phil Collen reveals who was behind Def Leppard’s success in the 1980s

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen discussed the band’s partnership with Robert John “Mutt” Lange, regarded by some as one of the greatest music producers of all time, in a recent interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station, as per Blabbermouth. The success of his work with AC/DC, particularly on the 1979 album “Highway To Hell” and the 1980 classic “Back In Black,” gave Lange his big break. He then began working with Def Leppard on 1981’s “High ‘N’ Dry” and continued with the latter group on 1983’s “Pyromania” and 1987’s “Hysteria.” In 1992, he assisted with the executive production of “Adrenalise” for Def Leppard.

Phil responded as follows when asked how much Lange contributed to Def Leppard’s success in the 1980s.

Probably about 99%. [he taught us] everything. He taught us how to sing, he taught us how to play guitar. He sings on every song we’ve ever done [with him]. He does backing vocals. He’s got the best singing voice out of all of us put together. And he sings on everything he does. I mean, I even hear him on, ‘I’m on a highway to hell.’ His backing vocals are on that, and all the Bryan Adams stuff, Shania Twain stuff. Obviously, all of our stuff. And, yeah, you hear him on Foreigner, I think on The Cars. He’s just got a great voice. It’s just amazing.

Collen made this statement when Meltdown pointed out that, in contrast to Lange, certain record producers have a tendency to be very hands-off in the studio.

[Mutt did] everything. He’s the best producer in the world, [and a] songwriter as well. You’d come to him and you go, ‘I’ve got this chorus.’ He’d go, ‘Okay, well, that’s not strong enough for a chorus. We could use that for a middle eight or a bridge or something like that, but, yeah, we need a stronger chorus.’ And he’d come and he’d write with us as well. So that was a great thing.

Phil mentioned this while thinking back on the songwriting and recording processes that resulted in “Hysteria.”

We’d got 11 songs, and [Mutt] heard Joe play an acoustic, and he goes, he’s, like, ‘What’s that?’ He goes, ‘I don’t know.’ He’s going, ‘Pour some sugar on me,’ and it’s, like, ‘Whoa, stop.’ So we, we went in, took about 10 days to do that song. We stopped everything, and Mutt just kind of orchestrated the whole thing. So he was very active in everything we did. And most of the bands that he worked with, he did that kind of thing with everyone.

Mutt does everything. Everything. And he’ll play stuff. He’ll play something on a guitar. He’ll go, ‘Well, play this.’ And you hand him the guitar and it’s, like, ‘I can’t play that.’ It’d be insane. Or at singing. ‘So sing this.’ He’d be, like, ‘Hey, hey, hey, hey.’ And whatever, and you’re, like, ‘Really?’ And he does it just, like, one take. It’s amazing