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Singer Joe Elliott of Def Leppard discussed the band’s most recent hit, “Rejoice,” in a recent interview with Marjorie Hache of France 24, as per Blabbermouth. Prior to Def Leppard’s return to Las Vegas for their “Def Leppard: Live at Caesars Palace,” the song was released in late January. “The Las Vegas Residency,” which began on February 3. “Rejoice” is currently accessible on all streaming platforms through UMe. When asked what “Rejoice” is about, Joe responded as follows.
Well, the title kind of sums it up, really. I wanted to write a really uplifting, positive-message song, and I said to Phil, ‘I got this great idea. I need it to be mid-tempo. I want it to have a big intro drum loop so we can actually walk on stage to this and expand it and make it longer live.’ But the whole idea of the song is, it starts off — I mean, it’s a great opening line, is, ‘I’m bored of boredom. I’m sick of all this.’ And, ‘I wanna be in a better place.’ So it gets to the climax, you go through the bridge, and you get to the chorus, it’s, ‘I wanna go higher.’ So it’s just very uplifting. It’s a joyous, uplifting song.
“That’s what we are — we’re an escapism band. We’re not here to preach. We’re not here to tell you who to vote for. Other people can do that. We like to take you away from that and just come and have a good time. It’s not meaningless — there is a message there, and the message is, we need to share this moment together and make it a positive one. And ‘Rejoice’ just about sums that all up.
Joe responded as follows when asked if the release of “Rejoice” indicated the impending release of a brand-new Def Leppard album.
Absolutely. We’re actually recording it. As I speak, somewhere in the world, people are adding their bits to some new songs. We’ve developed a whole new method of recording, which was brought on by COVID, I’ve got a studio at home, and everybody has always gracefully come to my house to record. We’d do a month at a time, and then everybody goes home. But they couldn’t travel. So we ended up recording remotely, and we found it to be exhilarating. Everybody got to be at home with their families, yet still make a record. And we trusted each other that we were writing songs. And so everybody just played on everybody else’s bits, and it’s easy to do. We don’t all record in one room when we are in the same studio — we do it, the drums and the bass and the guitars and the vocals; it’s all layered. So we’ve been recording while we were in Vegas [for the latest residency]. On days off, we had the drums set up in the basement of the theater, and Rick played loads of drums on his days off, and they’d do guitars in their hotel rooms, stuff like that. And I sing when I get home. So we’ve got about 17 or 18 songs written. So we’ve actually almost got two albums recorded. So we’re still deciding which songs are gonna go on album one, if you like. And then we’re looking at an early ’27 release.
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