Def Leppard’s Vivian Campbell Addresses Joe Elliott’s Post-Treatment Vocal Performance

Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell recently appeared on Let There Be Talk with Dean Delray. The musician revealed that the band’s lead singer, Joe Elliott, has come back into singing more potent than ever after his disease.

Joe Elliott is famous for his excellent vocal technique and wide-ranging voice. He has also been highly praised for the exceptional control of his voice during the band’s live performances. Although he always tried to keep his voice active by working with Def Leppard and other side projects, he, unfortunately, came on the verge of losing his singing abilities in 2015, which almost ended his career.

The singer began experiencing problems with his voice around this period and thought it would pass in time. However, when he went to a doctor, he learned that he had pneumonia which severely damaged his throat. He had to cancel some of his shows with Def Leppard. Doctors even suggested he retire as it would be challenging to get his voice back.

Ultimately, Joe Elliott never gave in and did everything to heal quickly. He worked with a vocal coach to get his voice back into shape. He made a great effort and started to feel much better only in 18 months. Elliott was able to return to the stage thanks to his determination. He has been still using some methods to protect his voice.

During a recent conversation, Vivian Campbell addressed this difficult period for Joe Elliott and stated that he worked for weeks and weeks and re-taught himself how to sing again. The guitarist explained that they are proud that he has returned to the stage stronger than ever. Campbell revealed that Elliott still has a long warm-up process to protect his voice before the shows. For Campbell, it is worth it as doing these exercises has helped Elliott sing better than ever.

Vivian Campbell’s statements on Joe Elliott’s vocal performance after his disease:

Joe is singing better than ever the last several years. He had a little bit of a scare around 2015 or 2016. His voice was getting weak, and he wasn’t confident in it. We had to cancel a few shows to give him some time to recover. It was at that point that Joe kind of went back to the drawing board and basically re-taught himself how to sing again.

He put a lot of work into working with a vocal coach, a guy called Roger Love, whom I had actually worked with years before I joined Def Leppard. Rogers has been working with Joe on and off for over 30 years. So they started doing an intense regime, like pretty much every day for weeks and weeks.

Still to this day, before a show, Joe starts this whole warm-up process by like earlier mid-afternoon and the latest. It is a lot of hard work, but he has discovered that it is worth it because it has made him very robust. Joe got this super-strong falsetto voice. We are all proud of him that he has come back stronger than ever.

You can listen to the entire conversation below.