In the middle of Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard’s ongoing ‘World Tour 2023,’ guitarist Phil Collen took the time to have a chat with Rock Hard Greece. The recent interview touched on the band’s past and present performances, with the guitarist noting an improvement in Joe Elliott’s singing quality.
During the conversation, Collen talked about Def Leppard’s most notable shows and revealed Mexico City to have ‘the best audience.’ Then, he added that the band’s best performances took place in Korea and Los Angeles last summer.
Upon that, the interviewer said:
“It’s really crazy to have your best show in your 45th year of career.”
Agreeing with this, Collen spoke about the group’s evolution through the years by explaining:
“I agree, and I think, you know, we’re obviously better than we used to be. It’s got better. The plans got better. The songs got better; the production, the singing has gotten better.”
When asked to clarify his point about the improvement of Joe Elliott’s singing, the guitarist said:
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that we always kind of work on, you know… But yeah, it gets better as long as you keep practicing. That’s the thing.”
Back in 2015, Joe Elliott had pneumonia-related health issues, which affected his singing. The singer worked with a vocal coach for months to fix the situation and eventually recovered. A few years after this, he talked to Daily Express and claimed that the training caused his voice to be better than ever, echoing his bandmate’s comments.
The Def Leppard vocalist said:
“It’s [his voice] stronger than it used to be, best it’s ever been. I’d love to say I don’t know how it happened, but I do know how it happened. I worked incredibly hard with a vocal coach from Los Angeles. When we realized we’d be going out on tour with almost 250 shows and no opening act, so two and a half hours a night, we knew that we were going to need training.”
You can watch Phil Collen’s full interview in the video below and check out Joe Elliott’s statements here.