Every guitarist has been told that rhythm guitar is the most important skill, because no one gets a gig playing only solos. But when Phil Collen got the call to play on Def Leppard’s third album Pyromania, it was to do exactly that. “The painting was finished,” he recalls now. “I just threw an extra layer over it.”
The band’s first two albums had been recorded with the guitar team of Pete Willis and Steve Clark, but when Willis was dramatically fired late in the Pyromania sessions, Phil was drafted to provide the solos on songs that would become hit singles and deathless rock anthems: Photograph, Rock Of Ages, and Foolin’. It was the gig of a lifetime.
Pete Willis made a huge contribution to Pyromania, co-writing four of the songs and laying down rhythm parts that singer Joe Elliott called “phenomenal”. Producer Mutt Lange had relied on Willis for his Malcolm Young-like ability to play on the beat. But on a personal level, there was a disconnect between Willis and the rest of the band. Phil Collen, of London glam rock band Girl, was the perfect replacement.
When Leppard began work on Pyromania in 1982, the sound of the decade was still emerging. There were benchmarks – Van Halen, Boston and AC/DC – but no
