Def Leppard’s first two albums vaulted five boys from working-class Sheffield, England to the vanguard of the new wave of British heavy metal. On 1983’s Pyromania, the quintet set their sights even higher. “There’s no point in trying to appeal to half the population,” bassist Rick Savage tells Billboard. “Why not appeal to 100% of the population?”
With ace producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange back in the studio after 1981’s High ‘n’ Dry, Def Leppard crafted a technically sophisticated album of hard chugging yet melodic songs that catapulted them onto radio waves and stages usually reserved for pop stars. Prior to Pyromania, the music industry had been reluctant to invest in metal; an article in the April 14, 1984, Billboard quoted a radio executive who described “a longhaired kid wearing a torn Def Leppard shirt” as “the kind of person you wouldn’t want in your store.”
The album’s blockbuster success — which also eventually included a diamond RIAA certification for over 10 million units shipped — paved the way for the pop-metal crossover of bands like Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses and Poison, and set Def Lep up for a long, fruitful career. In 2022, the still-active band became only the third group to notch a top 10 album on the Billboard 200 in every decade since the ‘80s.
Ahead of the 40th anniversary edition of Pyromania (out April 26), Savage and frontman Joe Elliott hopped on a Zoom call with Billboard to pull back the curtain on the making of the classic — as well as share thoughts on a former CMT Crossroads collaborator who has since become the biggest pop star in the world.
Read the interview at Billboard.com
After Pyromania, radio and record labels couldn’t ignore the growing genre any longer. Pyromania went all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 (soaring past their previous peak of No. 38), produced two Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1s (“Photograph” for six weeks and “Rock of Ages”) and gave the band three top 30 Billboard Hot 100 hits (the aforementioned singles plus “Foolin’”).