Def Leppard Work Out the Kinks

Wondering what Def Leppard's been up to recently? Rolling Stone has the scoop:

After a nonstop 2005 -- marked by a twenty-fifth-anniversary hits compilation, a slew of TV appearances and tours with Bryan Adams and Cheap Trick -- Def Leppard have no plans of stopping. This spring will bring a covers album, Yeah!, followed by a summer tour.

For Yeah!, the Eighties mega-rockers plan to reach back into music history for over-the-top favorites that predate the band. "I saw Marc Bolan and T. Rex in 1971 on Top of the Pops," Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell recalls, "and [singer] Joe [Elliott] has the same memory. I was nine years old, and I knew I wanted to play guitar. So most of the songs come from the glam era: T. Rex, Roxy Music, E.L.O."

While the album will include renditions of E.L.O.'s "10538 Overture" and Roxy Music's "Street Life" -- which Campbell says the band recorded "as more of a punk-rock song" -- expect more straight-up rockers, like Thin Lizzy's "Don't Believe a Word," as well as some melodic material, like the Kinks classic "Waterloo Sunset." "But we really made it sound like Def Leppard," Campbell says of the Kinks track. "Joe does a great vocal, and we made the guitar parts work."
-------
Finally, someone has made the guitars on "Waterloo Sunset" work!