But, like that shades-wearing, bass-drum-pounding pink rabbit with the alkaline-cell implant, Leppard keeps going and going and going. After Willis’ departure, Clark, Allen, singer Joe Elliott, and bassist Rick Savage recruited ex-Girl guitarist Phil Collen and continued their collaboration with legendary producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange to release 1983’s Pyromania. Boasting the MTV blockbuster hits “Photograph,” “Rock of Ages,” and “Foolin’,” Pyromania sold six million units that year, and it has since been certified diamond for exceeding ten million sales. After his devastating car crash, the unflappable Allen devised a method to play his kit with electronic triggering devices for 1987’s Hysteria, which became one of the few albums ever to chart seven Billboard hits—including “Love Bites,” “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and “Women.” In all, the band has ten studio albums, 65 million sales, and a Rock Walk of Fame induction under its belt.

We spoke with guitarists Collen and Vivian Campbell (who played in Dio and Whitesnake before filling Clark’s shoes in 1992) recently about their most overlooked guitar abilities and their latest album, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge [Bludgeon Riffola/Island]—which includes a cameo from country star Tim McGraw on “Nine Lives,” and also features some of the band’s most visceral, varied, and in-your-face guitar tones ever.

What’s the story behind the reinvigorated tones on Sparkle Lounge?
Collen: We didn’t take a year off to write songs and do all the crap that takes ages and loses momentum. We wrote songs and started recording them on tour using Viv’s laptop—that was the Sparkle Lounge. And because we were in rock mode, singing and playing guitar every single day, it sounds a bit more aggressive.

Campbell: We used an Apple G4 PowerBook running a Digidesign HD3 Pro Tools rig with Line 6’s Amp Farm modeling plug-in. After our last tour, we went to Joe’s place in Dublin to finish up in a more conventional manner, with actual mics on the cabs—which is something we haven’t done since 1996’s Slang. We used Royer and CAD ribbon mics on Randall MTS Series module amps—mostly the George Lynch and Plexi modules—through Marshall 4x12 cabs with Celestion Vintage 30s. I did a lot of stuff in Amp Farm at home, just running my Les Paul into an Avalon VT-737SP preamp to warm up the front end. I like the JCM 800 model with the extra gain and the 4x12 cab off-axis. I recorded it flat and then let Ronan [McHugh, Leppard’s sound technician] work his EQ magic. Phil and I did a lot of the guitars in real time, too, which gave us that push and pull. It’s not as clinical as one guy sitting in front of a Pro Tools screen.

Collen: For most of the albums from Hysteria on, we used Rockmans, Marshall JMPs, and Palmer speaker simulators to go direct—which is what we do live. I used a Fender Cyber-Twin and the JMP for a couple of things this time, but mostly it was the Randall. The other big difference with this album was that everyone came in with three or four of their own songs instead of writing all the songs together. I wrote “Nine Lives,” “Go,” “Tomorrow,” and “Hallucinate.” It’s like four little solo albums. We wanted it to have a fun vibe and avoid power ballads.
“Nine Lives” has some uncharacteristic countrified chicken-pickin’.

Collen: That’s my favorite part on the album, although it’s really hard for me to play and sing simultaneously. There’s all this muting stuff that I had to go over and over to get right—literally, just before we went onstage the first night. Halfway through the solo, there’s a fingerpicking part where I tuck away the pick and use my thumb. The whole dat-dat un dat-dat was my blond ’70s Telecaster with Fender Noiseless pickups into Amp Farm. I tried to redo it later with a real amp, and it just didn’t have the right character.

You sound like you’re having a blast playing the dueling leads in “Bad Actress.”
Campbell: Phil and I played it together in real time. I would do the first eight bars, and then he would do eight. There was a little bit of competition going on, and it was fun to get out there and show off a little bit.

Collen: Viv’s doing all the wah-wah stuff, and then I do the super-shredding parts, and then we join up together at the end. I’m mixed to the right, and he’s to the left.

What other gear did you use?
Collen: My Jackson PC-1 signature guitars, which are customized with baseball-bat necks. I like that feel, and I think it makes a huge difference tone-wise, too. They have a DiMarzio Super 3 humbucker and HS-2 middle single-coil, with a Floyd Rose Sustainer in the neck position. Recently, I had titanium blocks, saddles, and locking nuts put on my Floyd Rose tremolos. We just played on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Dancing with the Stars, and even on TV I was thinking, “[Expletive] hell!” It made such a difference—I wish I’d had them when we were recording. I also use a single-space TC Electronic multieffects unit for a little bit of delay and chorus. We both use Dunlop stainless steel picks and D’Addario strings. I’ve been using metal picks because of Brian May since before Def Leppard—they sound more present, have more attack, and are a bit more aggressive and harsh.

Campbell: I primarily play Les Paul Standards, but I’ve been playing my ’70s Les Paul Custom a lot for the last couple of years. I bought it for $400 at a pawnshop in 1992. I’ve also got a TC Electronic 2290 delay unit, and I recently got a ’70s Eventide Omnipressor optical compressor. It took me years to find, and I love it. I pretty much kick it in on every solo now—anything where I have to sustain a note.

Your rigs are conspicuously lacking in stompboxes.
Collen: I rarely use pedals. There are some really cool ones out there, but they’re very limited. With a studio effect, you can hear a sound in your head and say, “I want it to sound a little bit like a Leslie cabinet but with delay and a 12-string effect.” That sounds a bit crazy, but I’ve said stuff like that—and the engineer dialed it up. If you’re limited to a stompbox with three or four knobs, it’s hard to do that.

Campbell: It’s getting so easy to manipulate tone that I’ve kind of reached burnout factor. I love the simplicity of plugging a guitar into an amp. Ultimately, all tone comes from your fingers. I mean, listen to Jeff Beck, the greatest guitar player who has ever been—with all respect to Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen. The most amazing thing, having seen him play several times, is that it’s not how he can play it—because you can always analyze how somebody does something. It’s where does it come from—how does he think of this stuff?

Do you guys agonize over things that the average player has no idea about?
Collen: We put a lot of effort into making our parts sound like they’re not layered. I remember when I joined the band thinking that some of the Steve Clark stuff, like “Billy’s Got a Gun” [from Pyromania], was just out of this world. There will be all kinds of complex stuff happening—like inversions going on underneath—but it’s so subtle you don’t hear it unless you sit down to work
it out. That’s what makes it sound like Def Leppard. A lot of bands just play very straightforward power chords.

Campbell: As a guitarist, playing in Def Leppard isn’t that challenging. But it has made me a much better singer, songwriter, and producer. I feel more complete as a musician. The thing we excel at, and that I’m very proud of, is that we can absolutely replicate what we do live without cheating.

Collen: We’re the only band I know—except for Styx—that really does all their vocals live. In the past, a lot of people said, “How on earth are you going to pull this off live?” But you should never worry about that. Playing live should be fun and spontaneous. With “Love Bites,” we recorded all these tracks and then it went to Number One, and we’d never played it as a band. We took some time off and thought, “We can’t pull this off live.” Obviously we did—we do it every night now—but it was really difficult at first. Those challenges are quite fun. You always find a way to work through them, and two weeks later you’ve forgotten that it was such a struggle.