Def Leppard Celebrate High 'N' Dry 35th Anniversary

(Classic Rock) Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott has reflected on recording the band's second album High 'N' Dry. It was released in 1981 and this week celebrated its 35th anniversary. And Elliott says it was the album that helped forge their path to the top - and credits longtime producer Mutt Lange for his guidance through the studio sessions.

Elliott says: "35 years since the album was released - it doesn't seem that long because our career is constantly evolving. It's not like we split up for 10 years and then got back together. It's one part of our story - it's a building block in the whole process of what Def Leppard has become in 2016.

"When you look back at it now, there are bits of it that hit and bits of it that missed. But generally speaking, as the second album, it was the start of where we were going to go.

"We were open-minded and so happy to be working with a producer like Mutt Lange. He was like a teacher and we wanted to learn from him. He was this rock guru and we were prepared to get in the pit with him and wrestle it out."

Elliott reports that recording High 'N' Dry was "an enormous learning curve" and adds: "By the time we started doing Pyromania a year later, what we'd gone through recording High 'N' Dry, it had sunk in and we'd realised it was worth all the effort." Watch the video here.

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