Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell was recently interviewed by Long Island’s rock station 102.3 WBAB and talked about their new single, “Just Like 73”, which features a guest guitar solo from Tom Morello.
Campbell talked about the inspiration for the “Just Like 73”, “We’re all of a similar age, within a few years. And (the year 1973) was the time when we all came of age musically. That was our musical awakening. For me, it was Marc Bolan and T. Rex. It was also the start of the ‘Ziggy Stardust’ era. I mean, ’73 was an exceptional year for music. Some stunning albums were released that year. So, it was a great time to become aware of the magic of music, and we all share that in common, we all have that frame of reference in Def Leppard, because we all sort of blossomed through that era of music. And ‘Just Like 73’ is just this tongue-in-cheek homage to that era and that time in our life. The drum beat of the song that that opens it is reminiscent of the glitter band or something. And then everything else, like the huge vocals, is typical Def Leppard. And it’s a catchy song, so it fits right in there. We’ve been playing it (live) right from day one. You can tell that only a certain amount of people in the audience are immediately familiar with it, but it has a familiarity. By the time you get to the second chorus, people are, ‘Oh, yeah, here we go.’ So it’s it fits right in there.”
Campbell added, “We don’t wanna burden people with new music, per se, in this day and age. It’s very, very difficult to get that across. You’ve gotta to be very strategic about how and when, where you place new music. For us, it’s just the one new song this year. So it’s not a big problem. We’ve slotted it in there. But we realize there’s a fine balance to walk between playing new music and playing deep album cuts and playing the huge hits that most people know. But we’ve gotten very good at that. We’ve had a lot of practice.”
As for whether Def Leppard has plans to release a new album, Campbell said, “Well, there is (a plan to release an album), actually. I mean, ‘Just Like 73’ was actually left over from (Def Leppard’s latest album, 2022’s) ‘Diamond Star Halos’. The song just wasn’t quite finished a few years ago. Plus we had an abundance of songs for ‘Diamond Star’. And yes, we are constantly writing music, and yes, there will be another record.”
“Just Like 73” is out on 7-inch vinyl on August 2, ’24 and you’ll be able to pick it up in a special colour variant through the band’s D2C store and in black at all retailers.
Of playing on the song, Tom Morello said, “I had a blast rocking a solo on ‘Just Like 73’. I played ‘Rock Of Ages’ in my college cover band almost 40 years ago and here Def Leppard are still killing it in stadiums with a brand new tune that’s one of their best.”
Meanwhile, Def Leppard’s 23-city tour with Journey started on July 6 in St. Louis, Missouri and goes thru September 8 in Denver, Colorado.
How many more albums does Def Leppard have left in them? Here’s hoping at least a couple more, eh?
