Joe Elliott

Joe Elliott

Joseph Thomas Elliott (born 1 August, 1959, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, and educated at King Edward VII School) is the lead vocalist of the British heavy metal band Def Leppard.

Career with Def Leppard

Elliott met Pete Willis, member of a local band called Atomic Mass, by chance in November 1977 when he missed a bus. After finding out that they were both musicians, Elliott met the rest of the band members and auditioned. He admitted it was the greatest thing he had ever done in his life. The band was impressed by his singing and hired him as a vocalist. The other members even took Elliott's suggestion to change their name to "Deaf Leopard," which was later changed to "Def Leppard" to distinguish them from punk bands, as including an animal in the band name was popular in the punk community in Britain at the time. It has also been suggested that the intentional mis-spelling was partly a homage to "Led Zeppelin." Elliott soon became an integral part of the band while also contributing his songwriting skills.

As a songwriter, Elliott has drawn from his eclectic tastes in music (ranging from pop-rock to folk) as sources of inspiration. He also often comments that the lyrics to Def Leppard's music are almost never personal; they are meant to be easily accessible to the listener. He also plays guitar and drums as well as piano and electronic keyboard.

Side Projects

Elliott has worked with several side projects through his career such as participating in numerous tributes to other artists like Freddie Mercury, Alice Cooper, Mick Ronson, Ian Hunter and David Bowie. He had the honour of opening the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 by joining the remaining members of Queen and guitarist Slash to perform "Tie Your Mother Down".

He also has worked on several projects like The Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood's solo album Slide on This;" Lori Spree's Those Faces;" Ricky Warwick, The Almighty, and others.

He and fellow Def Leppard member/guitarist Phil Collen once had a side project together called Cybernauts. The project was short-lived, and the internet album that was available online has been deleted since its 2001 release.

Released in September 2003 through Sanctuary Records, Ricky Warwick's Tattoos & Alibis was produced by Elliott.

Personal life

• Elliott currently lives in Dublin, Ireland, with his wife Kristine whom he met while she was working in wardrobe for Def Leppard.
• He maintains a recording studio in his home called Joe's Garage in which he has recorded and produced many major artists. Artists have also recorded in Joe's Garage while he has been on the road with Def Leppard.

Controversy

On the opening night of the 2008-09 NHL season, Def Leppard performed live on stage immediately after the end of the Toronto Maple Leafs at Detroit Red Wings game in Detroit. Midway through the set, Red Wing forward Darren McCarty drove a motorcycle across the stage with the Stanley Cup on the back. Another Detroit player, Kyle Quincey, handed the cup to Elliott, who walked across the stage with the cup hoisted above his head. He then walked to a nearby pedestal where he was supposed to set the cup down and continue the rest of the song. However, Elliott placed the cup on its end with the base pointed up. Unaware of his mistake he continued back to the stage position as Quincey quickly noticed what happened and turned the trophy back over. Elliott saw this and quipped to the crowd, "Oh its upside down. Well never mind. We're soccer boys, what do we know"?[1] Some NHL fans we're offended at the mishap, as the Stanley Cup is the single greatest prize in all of hockey and is sometimes referred to as "the Holy Grail".

Controversy in El Paso, Texas

During the 1983 Pyromania tour in El Paso, Texas, Elliott made an offensive comment that turned off many of the fans in the audience and the people hearing about it. They had on June 6th, 2008, in a press conference, Joe Elliott sat with Phil Collen at the Sweden Rock Festival and criticised glam metal bands such as Poison and Mötley Crüe. He said, If you actually look at the way that the 'glam' bands, if you want to call it that, from Los Angeles dressed themselves up, they totally missed the point.

When English glam bands from the '70s came on 'Top of the Pops', it was almost an afterthought to what they were actually doing — music always came first, and then they'd be like, 'What are we gonna wear?' . . . Bowie was very image-driven, and maybe the music came second, but a lot of the other bands, it was always about the music — the image thing was just something that they did to just upstage other bands on 'Top of the Pops'; that's what they used to do. So we were never driven to do the mascara thing or whatever these bands did. They didn't have any substance musically, I don't think, in comparison to us, so we didn't feel we needed to do it. Bands that do that are doing it to cover up the fact that there is no substance in their music. The only band — and I'm not saying it because we're here — the only band that did pull it off was Hanoi Rocks. I thought Hanoi Rocks were a good band, and they looked… Michael Monroe (Hanoi frontman) was one of the best… I would have shagged him. [Laughs] I like Michael, I think he's sexy, and I'm not gay. And I think Andy McCoy (Hanoi guitarist) does the best kind of Keith Richards... so much better than Mötley Crüe or Poison or any of those bands. They (Hanoi Rocks) were real — the rest of the guys, it was all a bit fake for me.

External links

• Joe Elliott Biography on Def Leppard Frequency
• Joe Elliott @ DefLeppard.com
• Joe Elliott Discography @ Def Leppard Related Recordings
• Joe Elliott Fanlisting