Op 30 oktober verschijnt het nieuwe album van Def Leppard, simpelweg Def Leppard getiteld. Het is het elfde studioalbum van de Britse band en de opvolger van Songs From the Sparkle Lounge uit 2008 en telt 14 liedjes waaronder de  single Let’s Go, Invincible, Last Dance en Wings Of An Angel. Het album is geproduceerd door Ronan McHugh en werd opgenomen in Joe’s Garage studio. Over het nieuwe album zegt voorman Joe Elliott: ‘We got together to see what we had with maybe putting out a three track EP in mind. All of a sudden we had twelve songs on the go, and two more would come just a few weeks later. It’s the first album we’ve ever made with no deal in place and no one looking over our shoulders so the freedom was immense and I think you can hear it in the songs.’

In het bijzonder uitgebreide tourschema van de band zien we vooralsnog geen Nederlandse data staan helaas. Maar wie een klein stukje wil reizen, kan wel naar Engeland waar de band in december tourt met Whitesnake en Black Star Riders.

Zanger Joe Elliott verklaarde waarom het album simpelweg Def Leppard heet: “because that’s what it sounds like. It doesn’t sound like any one specific era of Def Leppard. It’s got everything. You’ll listen and you go, ‘Oh, that sounds like Def Leppard,’ or you’ll go, ‘That is Leppard, but it sounds a bit like Led Zeppelin or Queen but you can hear the AC/DC or the Crosby, Stills & Nash coming through.’ We have not shied away from anything that’s influenced us in our growing up periods of our life. Just because we’ve made the kind of music we’ve made doesn’t mean to say we don’t like all of this other stuff.”

Gitarist Phil Collen is trots op het resultaat : “It’s probably the most diverse thing we’ve done. And I think it’s the best thing we’ve done since ‘Hysteria’; I really do. I’ve said that, and I’ve heard that come back as a quote, and I sincerely believe it. It’s the loudest rock guitars we’ve ever had on some tracks. Some of the stuff we’ve done as a band in the studio — we all played along live and then added to it — and then other tracks were pure studio stuff.’

Gevraagd of het album experimenteel is te noemen, zei Collen: “I don’t think that’s the right word. I think ‘Hysteria’ was experimental, because we were using all this new technology. This is more just expressive, is the right word. Instead of pandering to anyone — whether it be fans, a record company or whatever — we actually have just done our own thing. There was a purity to it that we haven’t had before. There wasn’t one time when someone said, ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s gonna work.’ Everyone tried it. And I don’t know whether that’s experience or what. It’s certainly not age, ’cause most people, they get a little more uptight as they get older, but this is… It’s the opposite; there’s a more relaxed feel, and, because of that, it kind of flows. So I don’t think ‘experimental’ is the right word. I think it’s more liberating and expressive, is the way I would go with it.”