Def Leppard released a new single featuring guitarist Tom Morello, ”Just Like 73” (you can listen to the song below).
Guitarist Phil Collen recently discussed the new single and song during an interview with SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”:
“I was writing a song with Dave Bassett, who I wrote ‘Kick’ with. And the same deal, I really want to put a Slade slant on the backing vocals and just make it very much about ’72 or ’73. And Joe heard the demo and he’s, like, ‘Why can’t you have both?’ So we did, and then Joe started writing some lyrics because he’s obviously really tapped into that, and all the verse lyrics and all the imagery from exactly that ‘Diamond Star Halos’ period ends up on this song. We actually hadn’t finished it, so the rest of the band hadn’t even heard the demo, and we played it to everyone and they all loved it.
”They all put their stuff on it. Viv (Campbell) played guitar, Sav (Rick Savage) did (his bass tracks), Rick (Allen) put his part on and then we had some vocals, everyone had sung on it, and before you know it, it came out like this. So, we’re really thrilled. It actually sounds better than the stuff on ‘Diamond Star Halos’, to my ears. So I’m really excited about that. And it seems that everyone really digs it as well.”
Asked if the new single is the seed of a new Def Leppard album, Phil Collen replied:
“Oh, it’s absolutely the seed of another Def Leppard record. I mean, it was a leftover from the album before, but it was also the start of a new album. So, without a doubt. (Joe and I) write all the time. We send each other things. Sav gets in on there. Just between the three of us, there’s just a lot of stuff floating around already.
”So we’ve, yeah, got a bunch of stuff. It’s really exciting. And it’s a great place to be. It’s never that thing where, ‘Well, we’ve got to sit down and write an album.’ It’s, like, ‘Wow, I can’t wait to play this to the guys and see what the reaction is.’ And we keep pushing the boat out even further.”