You might have thought Def Leppard’s ‘High ‘N’ Dry’ always sounded a little similar to AC/DC. Well, you’re not wrong. Def Leppard recently shared a snippet from one of Joe Elliott’s interviews from four months ago. In the chat with Rockonteurs, the frontman talks about the making of the track and why it sounds like an AC/DC song.
“[Ruff Diamond says], We do the tour, we’re still hoping he’ll come in mench, keeps tacking away chipping away. [He says], ‘All right I’ll do the next record,’ because he was between jobs or whatever. So he had us scheduled in for three months for ‘High ‘N’ Dry,’ which we recorded in Battery Studios where they’d recorded all ‘Highway to Hell,’ most of ‘Back In Black,’ it was done in the Bahamas but they came back to Battery to mix it and maybe do some or whatever.”
The frontman even compared Def Leppard’s song to one of AC/DC’s most popular tracks: “So our drum kit was set up where Phil Rudd’s drum kit was set up. We were using Marshall’s the same way that Angus and Malcolm were. So we were doing it in the same studio which is why if you listen to ‘High ‘N’ Dry,’ and listen to ‘Highway to Hell,’ they kind of sound the same even though it’s two different bands, the only difference being harmonies, ballads, but one ballad, and a bit more naivety, because AC/DC had already done six albums by the time they worked with more.”
The conversation has been going on for a while, even making its way to Reddit. One user asked about the resemblance between the two songs, suggesting that the ‘musical style, the riffs, and the chord progressions’ of ‘High ‘N’ Dry’ matches AC/DC.
“I can hear it with Bon Scott vocals. I’m sure it has to do with Mutt recently doing HtH and BiB combined with the harder sound Def Leppard had at the time. Perfect pairing,” a user responded to the question. Another added, “100% agree on the AC/DC. Call me crazy though on a side related similarity, I’ve always thought at the 2 minute mark of ‘Let it Go,’ if you close your eyes and picture Ozzy, it sounds just like him!”
Def Leppard is getting ready to go on tour. The band will play their first show of 2025 on January 4 at Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
