Nearly a year ago, around the time Def Leppard was releasing The Collection: Volume III box set, frontman Joe Elliott spoke about the band being “ahead of the game” in making a new album, working remotely and trading files for “a bunch of songs that one day will come to fruition, I’m sure.
Turns out things were a little further along than he let on.
The fruits of Def Leppard’s latest labors will surface as Diamond Star Halos, the quintet’s 12th studio album — and first in seven years — set for release May 27 in front of its Stadium Tour with Mötley Crüe and special guests Poison and Joan Jett. The 15-song set, produced by the band and longtime engineer Ronan McHugh, takes its title from the lyrics of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” while the first single, “Kick,” nods unapologetically to that totem as well, with the rest of the album drawing from the band members’ early influences as well.
“It wasn’t planned that way; It’s just how it happened,” bassist and co-founder Rick Savage tells Billboard via Zoom from the Savoy Hotel in London, where he, Elliott and guitarist Phil Collen have gathered to talk about Diamond Star Halos. “We were all really influenced by an era that was somewhere between 1971 and 1974, where you were just learning and a sponge for all the stuff you were watching on Top of the Pops.
“And the way we’re presenting the songs, it’s not just the rock of that era. It’s the other people like Elton John and Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, even the Eagles. There’s flavors of that flooding all the way through the album.”
Diamond Star Halos is certainly diverse. There are plenty of big, proto-Def Leppard style arena anthems such as “Kick,” “Fire It Up” (co-written with Sam Hollander), “Take What You Want,” “Gimme a Kiss” and “U Rok Mi,” but the band also ventures into Americana territory, joined by Alison Krauss for “This Guitar,” which Elliott says has been around for 17 years, and “Lifeless.” Longtime David Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson adds a different flavor to the orchestrated “Angels (Can’t Help You Now)” and the dramatic “Goodbye For Good This Time,” while Def Leppard explores other moods and textures on tracks such as “Liquid Dust,” “Unbreakable,” “All We Need” and the twisting album closer “From Here to Eternity.”
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