Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen reveals the reason behind his recent absence from the group’s co-headlining North American tour with Journey in a new interview with Mitch Lafon.
The UK band advised fans at their May 25 stop in Hershey, PA that the rocker had left the trek to deal with “a family emergency”, with the group bringing in Trixter guitarist Steve Brown to handle Collen’s duties for the show in Hershey and appearances in Buffalo, NY (May 26) and Cleveland, OH (May 28) ahead of his return in Cincinnati, OH on May 30.
Now, Collen says his departure to be with family was due to complications his wife, Helen, endured while giving birth to the couple’s son, Jackson.
“She actually died and they brought her back to life," Collen tells Lafon. “[There was] internal bleeding and just craziness. ... So I was actually on tour and when this happened. I obviously had to go to California [to be with her].”
Collen says he was confident that Brown – who played a similar backup role with Def Leppard in 2014 while guitarist Vivian Campbell was off the road to undergo treatment for cancer – would be able to jump in for him on short notice.
“I said, 'Steve, I know you know Viv's parts,'” recalled Collen, adding that the rocker “sings great; he can do all of this stuff. So he learned my parts, and my vocal parts, which is more serious than the guitar parts, I think. In our band, we have backing vocals – it's an instrument.... So it was a no-brainer. And I said, 'Can you step in for me?' Everyone was cool; they said, 'Go.' I went, and everything was fine.”
“When your friends or you family need help, you do what you need to do to make it happen,” Brown told Lafon. “When I got the call, [I said] give me an hour to pack my bags, and I was up in Albany, NY, within four hours."
The Def Leppard /Journey tour – which mixes arena and stadium shows and will see the group’s switch headlining slots throughout the run – will wrap up in Los Angeles in early October.
See also:
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Search Def Leppard at hennemusic
