DEF LEPPARD

DEF LEPPARD Vocalist Joe Elliott - "We Don't Want To Be Working For The Man, We Want To Be The Man"




DEF LEPPARD vocalist Joe Elliott recently spoke with The Hollywood
Reporter about the band's ongoing crudase to re-record their classics in
a stand against their label. An excerpt is available below:





THR: Is this fight with Universal more about money or controlling your musical destiny?


Elliott: "It's about principle. I'd be lying if I didn't say it was
about money because the problem we've got is, they want to pay us what
we think is a ridiculously low rate. It’s a well-known fact: Artists
throughout the years have always been shafted by record companies. The
reason we're being so sticky about it is because two years ago, we made a
deal with a gentleman at Universal who was pretty much on our side --
he was a fan, a smart businessman and a fair guy -- and we shook hands.
Fifteen days later, somebody above his head said the deal's not going
through. To an Englishman, when you shake hands, it's a binding
contract, and Universal reneged on it. So we dug in our heels and said,
'We're gonna say a blanket no to anything that you ask for.'"


THR: And Def Leppard is in a unique position because you’re one of few bands to have veto power. How does that play out?


Elliott: "They can't release our back catalog, we're not going to
let them put a song on a compilation unless we want it there, and
they'll never be able to license. They won’t be able to do anything
without our permission because that’s in our contract."


THR: Explain the crux of the band’s argument.


Elliott: "We want to get the same rate for digital as we do when we
sell CDs, and they're trying to give us a rate that doesn't even come
close. They illegally put up our songs for a while, paying us the rate
they chose without even negotiating with us, so we had our lawyer take
them down."


THR: And what would be a fair split in your view?


Elliott: "When you do your own recordings, you're making about 85
percent and 15 percent goes to iTunes or whichever particular digital
domain you put them up. Something along those lines would be fair. But
they were offering us the opposite -- a quarter of what we get paid on
our CDs. So we thought if we can't get them to pay us a decent rate on
the digital, then we're going to go in, re-record them and pay ourselves
decently. Because we're not fighting against our own back catalog. If
we put re-records up against the originals, nobody would buy the
re-records. So what we're trying to create is what they know by making
as close as we can, forgeries of what we did in '83, '81, '87…"


THR: What about the inevitable argument that you guys are just being greedy.


Elliott: "I'm obviously aware people are going to say that, but we
made a decision years ago that we would try and wrestle back control.
And I think that's something to be applauded. We are just trying to own
what we've done. We own our T-shirt deals, our own staging, and our own
rights to make whatever decisions we want. We're not trying to milk our
back catalog for billions of dollars, we're just trying to get paid a
fair amount. The one thing I'll say about this band is that we actually
perversely enjoy the fact that if there's going to be a major screw-up,
we can't blame anybody except ourselves. We don't like saying, 'I told
you so,' or pointing fingers at people going, 'You've just ruined my
career.' If that’s going to happen, we want to be the ones to do it. We
want to be in charge. We don't want to be working for the man, we want
to be the man, if you like."


Click here for the complete interview.