Def Leppard Join Forces With Royal Philharmonic Orchestra For ‘Drastic Symphonies’ Album
How cool is this? Def Leppard teamed with London’s iconic Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to create a new album called “Drastic Symphonies”. The plan is to release in May 2023!
The band has deconstructed and rebuilt songs you’ll know well and apparently included some ‘hidden gems’, too. They’ve intertwined original song audio with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing alongside (captured at Abbey Road Studio in March 2022). The album has new vocals and guitar parts, which play along with the symphonic arrangements.
Singer Joe Elliott says, “Def Leppard has always enjoyed veering off the expected path — working with the likes of Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift and Alison Krauss, for example. So, when the offer to revisit some of our back catalogue with the Royal Philharmonic was presented to us, to a man we all jumped at it. Although we’re far from the first band to ever do this, working directly with an orchestra at Abbey Road on some of our more orchestrated songs seemed too good of an opportunity to pass up.”
Guitarist Phil Collen says, “When the offer of doing an orchestral album with the RPO was suggested, we were honored. But we didn’t just want an orchestra plonked over our previous recordings. We decided to create something special where we would have something classic but present it in a brand new way that would involve making everything work in the context of ‘Drastic Symphonies’. Recording new parts, remixing previous sounds, taking some of our instruments out so the orchestra could breathe and literally making a new album. It was an amazingly inspirational process culminating in the live recording of the RPO at Abbey Road studios in London. An absolute team effort that took a good part of a year. It’s a new Def Leppard album, it’s a greatest-hits-plus album, with some rarely heard songs, it’s a live RPO album and we think it’s perfect. We’re so proud of how ‘Drastic Symphonies’ turned out and can’t wait to share it to the world.”
‘Drastic Symphonies’ Track listing:
01. Turn To Dust
02. Paper Sun
03. Animal
04. Pour Some Sugar On Me (Stripped Version)
05. Hysteria
06. Love Bites
07. Goodbye For Good This Time
08. Love
09. Gods Of War
10. Angels (Can’t Help You Now)
11. Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
12. Switch 625
13. Too Late For Love
14. When Love & Hate Collide
15. Kings Of The World
Cool, right? I mean, if Metallica can do S&M, why can’t Def Leppard do Drastic Symphonies? A good idea is a good idea.
