Def Leppard found out the hard way that new artistic directions have a way of backfiring.
Hence Euphoria, the British quintet's ninth album released last year, harkens back to band's arena rock glory of mid-'80s classics like Pyromania and Hysteria, which combined sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and made the band a household name.
Their last CD, 1996's Slang, which lead singer Joe Elliott considered an artistic achievement and a great respite from the band's power-pop riffs and anthemic choruses, veered into Eastern influences and funk territory.
Sadly, it also steered much of the buying public away.
"Slang was a stripped back, well-made record," says the deep-voiced Elliott in a phone interview prior to the band's Civic Centre appearance Monday night, with Joan Jett, another blast from the past, as opening act. "Even though we made it without (our old producer)Robert John "Mutt" Lange, he called us up later to say he loved it.
"But after the single Work It Out went out on radio, we had a deejay down in Florida say this was great, too. He'd play it, but only if we changed our name. It wasn't a typical Def Leppard record. We were fighting against bigotry."
'Not cool'
Elliott, 40, contends had he, guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, bassist Rick Savage and drummer Rick Allen, recorded Euphoria in '96, "it would have killed us.
"That kind of music was basically not cool, but we were just doubly not cool ourselves back then. Last year, different story. Three years is a long time. And really, it's been eight years since we've done a typical Dep Leppard record. Now, Euphoria has been accepted, the band's been re-accepted and luckily, it's still the only album out there of its style."
He's right. Whereas power-pop contenders like Bon Jovi, Poison and Motley Crue have either shifted directions, burned out or faded away, the Def Leppard remains alive and well, spanning nine albums (including a greatest-hits set Vault) in their 23-year career.
And relatively unscathed, as of late. They've survived the death of guitarist Steve Clark in 1991 and drummer Rick Allen losing his left arm in a 1984 car crash.
AC/DC
That's not counting the little bits of craziness that can happen: At a recent show in Kelowna, B.C., a thief with "unsavoury connections" broke into the band's tour bus and stole thousands of dollars in personal effects, including a camcorder containing a video of Collen's children playing with Elliott's kids around Christmas.
But back to the band. Elliott still believes Def Leppard has relevance in the rock and roll world today.
Though their sound strives for that fine line between AC/DC and Queen, Elliott's perspective is more wide ranging.
"That's the great thing about this band," Elliott says. "We're a cross between Carole King and Motorhead; we're songwriters but we're also goofballs when we want to be. But we don't want to make a living out of being Carole King, neither do we want to make a living out of being a goofball. We meet right in the middle.
"And if people don't get it, they're never going to get it."
