Def Leppard Band Releases Hysteria Music Video From His New Album
Def Leppard Band – Legendary British rock unit Def Leppard has released the video for Hysteria, the second track from the band’s upcoming album, Drastic Symphonies. Def Leppard’s new album Drastic Symphonies features Def Leppard’s best songs dramatically reimagined and sounding bigger and more exhilarating than ever before, in association with London’s iconic Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Def Leppard has deconstructed and rebuilt not only some of their most famous tracks but also some of their hidden gems. They combined the audio from the original cassette and performed it with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
The album includes new vocals and guitars culminating in an exquisite symphonic arrangement. At different points, listeners can hear vocalist Joe Elliott singing a duet with his younger self.
In an interview with BBC Radio 2 of The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, Def Leppard’s how the Drastic Symphonies album project came about, Joe Elliott said: “We first discussed this – it was put on our plates by some grown-ups about four years ago. And, of course just, because we were on tour, we got sidetracked. Then with COVID, we did a new record [Diamond Star Halos in 2022]… Just nine months ago [came out]. We were really under the radar. We were in Abbey Road recording a record this without telling anyone. So we are preparing it for the next year, which is now.”
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra recorded at Abbey Road in March 2022. Produced by Def Leppard, Ronan McHugh, and Nick Patrick (RPO album/orchestra producer—Elvis, Roy Orbison, BEACH BOYS, and Buddy Holly) with arrangement by Eric Gorfain (Neil Diamond, Ryan Adams, Christina Aguilera).
Joe said “What we did is we reworked our top 16 symphony songs and did it with the Royal Philharmonic. We wanted to make sure that everyone knows this isn’t just a record from the past with orchestra thrown on top like icing on the cake.”
The frontman continued, “We took these songs from scratch. I covered some of them because the original vocals were out of place after you put the orchestra over them. So in one of the songs, namely a song called Too Late For Love, I sing a duet with myself from 40 years ago. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s a lot of fun. The timing and the phrase immediately come to mind—like it’s never left my DNA—but it was one of the strangest things I’ve ever done. It’s like singing to a living ghost, if that makes any sense.”
Joe Elliott added that the result was very good and they were happy. Def Leppard’s release of this new record just nine months after Diamond Star Halos demonstrates some forward momentum—not just from a touring standpoint, but from a career standpoint. Says Joe Elliott, “We always wanted to go ahead and do something different.”
The Drastic Symphonies album contains 15 tracks, see the tracklisting below:
- Turn To Dust
- PaperSun
- Animal
- Pour Some Sugar On Me (Stripped Version)
- Hysteria
- Love Bites
- Goodbye For Good This Time
- Love
- Gods Of War
- Angels (Can’t Help You Now)
- Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
- Switch 625
- Too Late For Love
- When Love & Hate Collide
- Kings Of The World
While the track titled Atmos will appear as a bonus track on this album.
When Drastic Symphonies was first announced, Joe Elliott said in a statement: “Def Leppard Band has always enjoyed going off the rails—working with the likes of Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, and Alison Krauss, for example. So when offers to revisit some of our back catalogs with the Royal Philharmonic were provided to us, we all jumped at it. While we are far from the first band to ever do this, working directly with the orchestra at Abbey Road on some of our more orchestrated songs seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.”
Def Leppard Band guitarist Phil Collen added: “When the offer to do an orchestral album with RPO was suggested, we were honored. But we didn’t just want an orchestra to beat our previous records. We decided to make something special. Have something classic but present it in a new way that involves making everything work within the context of Drastic Symphonies.”
Recording new parts, mixing previous sounds, getting some of our instruments out so the orchestra can breathe, and really make a new album. It was an incredibly inspiring process that culminated in RPO’s live recording at Abbey Road Studios in London.
