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Update: The Sommet Center show has been postponed.

Nashville Cream: So, Def Leppard are going to be here Monday?

Rick Allen: Yes, I do believe that. I'm actually on a break at the moment, so I'm not very focused on the tour, but I'm excited to get back and play the shows, it's been going really well.

NC: How long have you been out so far?

RA: We've been out for about, what is it 6 weeks?

Lauren Monroe: Since the end of May.

RA: So, I think it's probably about 40 or 50 shows this year. It's not that long of a tour, it's not like some of the tours that we've done.

NC: You guys aren't promoting a record at the moment, are you?

RA: Yeah, it's called Songs from the Sparkle Lounge.

NC: Okay, so that's the 2008 record?

RA: Yeah.

NC: OK, I know you guys were here last August as well so I didn't know if you were still in the same record cycle?

RA: Yeah, this is basically the last cycle. As we speak we're recording new songs and writing new songs, coming up with new ideas and getting ready for the next chapter.

(Thanks to our editorial intern Rachel Warrick for the transcription.)

NC: So I understand the two of you guys have a record together?

RA: Myself and Lauren, yeah. A fantastic experience for both of us.

NC: What's the project called?

LM: It's Lauren Monroe and the name of the album is The Freedom Sessions and it's a cross mix of various genres rooted in Americana and acoustic rock music.

NC: Is it something that you expect Def Leppard fans to get into or is it its own thing?

LM: It's completely its own thing, but we've had a really wonderful response from Def Leppard fans who open to it. I think that the heart of a Def Leppard fan really appreciates good songwriting, which the guys are great songwriters and these songs have a real solid base to them and we had a great time making the project and we had some wonderful musicians on the record, we had John Thomas from Bruce Hornsby on it and of course Rick playing drums.

NC: And he produced right?

LM: He produced.

RA: That was an incredible experience for me. It's always been a little easier to work as a team with Def Leppard with the responsibility of how it sounded. All these details I'd never really paid attention to before all of a sudden it was all down to me and I just got into what I would call obsessive listening, really the art of listening and you say 'Do you know that?' 'Have you heard it?' and you say 'well I've heard that before' but then 'no, do you really know it to the point where you know the thing inside out?' and that's the kind of listening that I'm talking about just really knowing every last nuance of what's going on. That was a fantastic opportunity for me; I got into trouble a little bit time wise, it was always 'it's nearly finished' and I just needed to tweak this and tweak that and then a month later I'd still be tweaking this and tweaking that and another month after that. It can get to the point where you go 'well, this is never going to be finished.' I suppose working with the likes of Mutt Lange you start to realize the intricacies of production and how projects can take years.

NC: Did you use any tricks you learned from working with Mutt?

RA: I think literally just being around him and just his sense of melody and his sense of tuning, timing and all these different elements that come into play. I think just generally being around him, his life philosophy and ultimately how that affects his music, yes, I've learned many things from him.

LM: I think one of those things too I remember that happened in the studio was doing some of the vocal tracks and I would think this take sounded better than this one and that take sounded better because it was sung more in pitch and it was more perfect and he would say, "No, this one sounds better, it has more of a vibe, it's not perfect but it feels better." I think that's something that came from his expertise and experience and working with Mutt. You find what brings about an emotional quality, it's not always about the perfect take.

RA: That's actually a really good point, bringing out the emotion in people. At the end of the day that's really what you want to do with music, you want people to have some sort of reaction to it whether that's a good reaction or a bad reaction depending on the subject matter and a whole host of other things. This has really, really opened up a whole horizon of possibilities for me, I'm really blessed to be able to do this, it is fantastic.

NC: How do you guys plan on releasing the record?

LM: It's been released online and it's completely independent. So, we're taking that route along with a lot of other people, rather than going with a label right now, and we're fortunate to be able to be doing it. We've been playing shows around the Los Angeles area, and are you out of Nashville?

NC: Yeah, but I actually grew up in Los Angeles, I'm pretty familiar with it.

LM: I have to reschedule a show in Nashville; I will be rescheduling it coming up. Most of the shows I'll be doing are benefits for veterans because we have a foundation that we work with.

NC: Do the two of you play live together?

LM: We do, whenever we can.

NC: This question is really for Rick. Can you describe the difference between playing songs in front of 20,000 people know them as opposed to playing in front of say 200 or 300 people with songs that people don't necessarily know?

RA: I actually find it more nerve racking playing in front of smaller audiences believe it or not, I always feel as though I'm sitting up there just completely naked, maybe that's what I should do is just get up there naked and just get the whole experience over with. [Laughs.] There's a big difference in terms of the equipment that I use as well, when I play with Def Leppard I use this hybrid drum kit that's part acoustic part electronic. When I play with Lauren, if you were more familiar with the way the songs were recorded, it's very organic there's a lot of acoustic instrumentation, B3, Wurlitzer, upright bass, a smoky little drum kit, that kind of thing. That's really how I grew up playing, on this tiny little drum kit that was tucked away in my bedroom and it's fantastic that I get to connect with acoustic drums again and realizing that's what ignited my passion to want to play in the first place. So, that's a major difference--playing with all these dynamics. With Def Leppard it's 'the harder, the better' and then playing with Lauren I get to actually move with the dynamic of the songs and it is a different experience, but I appreciate both.

NC: So you'd say that there's musical nuances that you can't really get in an arena setting?

RA: It's simpler because I'm playing as hard as I can possibly play and you know there isn't really a nuance when you're on 10 it's a loud as it's going to get. (laughs)

NC: Tell me about the Raven Drum Foundation.

LM: Well, it's a foundation Rick and I put together in 2001. Our mission is to educate and empower people who are going through crisis. The center of the work is through the drum. Right now we've geared our attention toward veterans and their families because we've had a number of experiences and we've visited Walter Reed and Brook Army Medical Center and we really saw the need for empowerment and support toward Vets when they get back and their families as well. The work is geared around them right now and we bring the drums in and we teach them how to reduce stress and to manage stress through drumming, breathing, stretching, and through stress management techniques that are integrative so they can bring some of those tools home and use them when they are feeling anxiety. A lot of these people suffer from post-traumatic stress and combat stress, it's pretty intense and it affects the whole family so we bring awareness to that and give them ways to open their heart and try to work with that into their lives.

NC: So it's music therapy essentially?

LM: Yeah, it's music therapy and we combine integrative work too like meditation and guided imagery and restorative stretching.

NC: Rick, Given your own personal experience, how do you relate to the people you see in doing this?

RA: I relate to them. The fact that I can relate to them immediately without any kind of language or communication, literally just walking in a room. That in itself is a huge, huge blessing and I always say to people, on the face of it, it would appear that my situation was terrible and it was but it's turned into this fantastic blessing because of the fact that I can share my life experience and connect with people in ways that are just profound and then we end up inspire each other. As human beings all we need is that spark of inspiration and then once you wake up the human spirit it's like there's no stopping you. That's really how we connect and how it can inspire people and inspire me also to be as good as I can possibly be.

NC: At this point, anyone that knows the name Def Leppard knows the story of your personal triumph over adversity, how does that feel for you to have that out there and to be able to use that?

RA: It's just a huge asset. It is interesting people say, "I don't know what I would've done," and I'm like, "Well, neither did I," but that's the wonderful thing about the human spirit, once you connect with that part of yourself, you can actually accomplish the most incredible things and that's really what happened to me, I was able to tap into a side of myself that I really hadn't visited before and I realized the strength. Obviously, having Def Leppard behind me is fantastic; it's a wonderful vehicle for everything that I'm doing because immediately there's awareness around something that I would like to accomplish.

NC: What was it like returning to Donnington this year?

RA: Oh man, that's a good question. Initially there was a fear, I wasn't sure how people were gonna react, I wasn't sure how I was going to be received and then when Joe introduced me all those year ago in '86 it was just so overwhelming and going back there with less fear, obviously, I was very nervous to get up there and play again, but people are the same you know. When they see somebody's hurting, when they get behind something and they show support, they're unstoppable and it was the same thing this time around. They really showed support, they really wanted me to succeed, it wasn't just back then, it's really just a beautiful thing. I just feel really blessed.

NC: Between '86 and now a lot of things have probably come full circle, a lot of things musically as far as where the band is culturally, what was it like for the band in the mid-'90s when your brand of metal music was considered out of fashion?

RA: Yeah, I mean we could have written our absolute best record and it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference. We could've written Hysteria. It was just music was going through a change and it was fantastic in a way because we were all huge fans of where the music was going. It was akin to when we first started out and the whole punk scene was happening, we really appreciated it but the only problem was we kind of fell victim to the change, so less people were really interested in what we were doing, it was less relevant to a lot of people. Like you say, you have these 10-year cycles and then the whole notion of Def Leppard came around again. Sometimes I think people maybe didn't remember what wasn't very good about the '80s because people started coming back in droves. Now, for the last five or six years, I haven't been this busy in my entire career, it's like every single summer we're either in North America or we're doing world tours, literally going all over the globe. So, it's really back to stay, it feels really good.

NC: Do you feel the band is a classic rock band at this point?

RA: Classic rock, but in many ways we're very current because we're constantly writing new music, if we were just relying on hits of Christmas past then that would be one thing, but the fact that we go out and support a new record every time we go out, I think that in itself keeps us on the cutting edge.

NC: There are a lot of successful bands that were your contemporaries in the '80s that aren't selling the amount of tickets and records you're selling. What is it about the Def Leppard that's kept that interest and success going?

RA: Well, no disrespect to any of the bands that we grew up with or where around at that time. We were one of the first bands to be doing what we were doing and really our influences were sort of the whole glam scene, you know, Sweet, Slade, Queen, Bowie, Mott the Hoople, that whole style of music influenced us. I'm not sure how the other bands were influenced but it didn't seem like there was an authenticity to it.

NC: You guys came to town a year ago and you're coming back Monday. How will this show be different than it was a year ago?

RA: There's Cheap Trick and Poison. We have an incredibly dedicated crew, state of the art lighting rig and sound system, but I think above all it's being able to experience hit after hit after hit and literally sit there and be entertained the entire evening. People will be engaged in many different ways, there will be some technologies that they've never experienced before, one of them being what we call Roximity.

NC: What's that?

RA: Well, basically it's being able to be a part of the show through either Bluetooth or wi-fi and being able to receive unique content and engage with the band in various different ways that they've never done before. That's something else that we really like, is the fact that technologically we're really at the leading edge.

NC: Def Leppard is a legendary live act but Who are your favorite bands to go see?

RA: Oh man! Some of the bands I was influenced by I would love to go see now, but unfortunately I don't necessarily think we're gonna see Led Zeppelin again, but hey, there's a chance. I grew up listening to Queen, Ginger Baker and the Police; I guess I could get to see those guys. I just listened to anything and everything that was going at that time. I would've loved to have seen Glenn Miller, but unfortunately not. All these different kinds of music really helped me find where it was I wanted to go.

NC: What are your thoughts on the current state of rock music?

RA: I'm finding that the burnout factor is just so quick these days. A band will be there and then it'll be gone. I find that so sad. It would appear that people just come and go too quickly, but the bands that remain are really good.

NC: Why do you think that is? Do you think it's an industry thing?

RA: I think that the "next factor" plays really heavily. It's like if you cant get to what you want to get to within two click of your computer then you move on to the next thing. It seems more throw-away. Back when I was growing up, the album art work was really important, reading about the band, getting into the band, and slowly starting to absorb the music in a way people don't seem to anymore. It just seems that the "next factor" applies very heavily.

NC: So there's no attention span basically.

RA: No, not as much. It's refreshing when people come to see Def Leppard shows because you see that they're fully engaged and I think that the fact that the music and the band has such a long history it just enthralls people, they really enjoy the whole experience and it's not one that's young, it's over 30 years old. When people come in, even if they weren't around when the band first started out, they definitely feel the full force of the experience of the band.

NC: Do you see a lot of the younger people out?

RA: Yeah, for sure.

NC: What's that like?

RA: It's a huge blessing just being able to encourage and attract such a wide audience like that.

NC: In terms of the new bands, are there any bands in particular that you name check as bands that you like?

RA: I really got into Coldplay. I think they write fantastic songs; I really enjoy what they do.