Legendary U.K. rockers Def Leppard are gearing up for The Stadium Tour with Motley Crue, Poison and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. In addition to finally getting the long-awaited tour underway, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers will also have a new album in tow, “Diamond Star Halos,” set for a May 27 release. The band also released a new single this week, “Kick.” The 15 track album is the first new studio set from the band since their 2015 self-titled release and features guest vocals from Robert Plant-collaborator Alison Krauss on two songs.
The album was recorded simultaneously in three countries. “It was joyful to do,” singer Joe Elliott told Billboard about the process. “As (bassist Rick Savage) Sav says, at any one time there were possibly four songs getting worked on at once. And everybody was at home, so you didn’t have to work on it constantly or be sitting around waiting to do your bit if we were all in the studio together or something. You could get on with doing other stuff. So it was a leisurely way of recording, but we could concentrate wholly on the record when we were actually recording. What we learned was it’s not where your body is, it’s where your mind’s at. We were in three different countries, but we were all on the same page.”
Guitarist Phil Collen added: “I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. There was so much more energy by not having to go to a studio or a situation where you were waiting on anything. I’d finish something, send it to Joe in Ireland and he’d send it to Sav and …we’d just be back and forth, and when I’d wake up in the morning there’d be something new in my mailbox. It was constantly exciting. I don’t think we don’t want to go back to whatever that standard way was that we did before.”
Collin also spoke about the first single: “‘Kick’ represented where we were at as well. It’s got that glam rock feel, that hand-clap groove, big vocals. It was just a no-brainer. It was not only that it’s got to be on the album, it’s got to be the first single as well.” The artwork for “Diamond Star Halos” features images by world-renowned photographer and director Anton Corbijn, styling concepts by Maryam Malakpour and graphics by the U.K.-based Munden Brothers.
