As Def Leppard issue their new live package, “VIVA! Hysteria!”, in North America today, guitarist Phil Collen tells Rolling Stone that the band are heading into the studio in January and that they will release an EP before they put out the follow-up to 2008’s “Songs From The Sparkle Lounge.”
“We've got a load of new songs,” explains Collen, “it's just implement them and then, ‘What direction are we gonna take? Who are we gonna get to produce it? Are we gonna do it ourselves? Are we gonna do multiple stuff?’ An album would obviously take too long, so we're gonna do about four or five songs, get those out and then next year have an album come out, so it'll be an EP and an album.”
Asked who he would like to work with on the new music, Collen says “I love Skrillex. I think he's awesome, and he's a huge fan. Love to work with him, that would be killer. It's pretty specific and it's not necessarily Def Leppard, [but] I think it'd be great.”
“VIVA! Hysteria” captures the band during their 2013 spring residency in Las Vegas.
The UK rockers played 11 shows at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino this past spring, following in the footsteps of Motley Crue and Guns N’ Roses.
The Las Vegas shows featured two sets from the band: the first, a wild card collection of songs that changed from night to night – performed under the name “Ded Flatbird”; the second presented the band’s iconic 1987 album, “Hysteria”, from start to finish.
“VIVA! Hysteria” is available in multiple formats: 2CD+DVD digipak, Blu-ray, DVD and digital album download.
See also:
VIDEO: Def Leppard preview Living With Def Leppard documentary series
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Def Leppard offer free download from VIVA! Hysteria package