Joe Elliott Names The Producer Who Made A Lot Of Money Out Of Def Leppard For Doing Very Little Work

Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliot spoke in a recent interview with Classic Rock and talked about their iconic album, Hysteria.

Hysteria is the fourth studio album of the band, and it released in August 1987. The album peaked at the top of the charts in both US Billboard 200 and United Kingdom Albums Charts.

Even though some people would think that Jim Steinman was the producer of this album, Joe revealed in the conversation that he wasn’t a producer for this album.

Joe mentioned that they brought Jim as a helper for the songwriting part after their producer took a break, but they parted ways with him in a short period because he was useless.

While Joe was saying that Jim is such a lucky guy because he made lots of money from the Hysteria album although he did nothing, he also shut down the possibility of releasing the unheard songs from that era.

Here is what Joe Elliot said:

“Steinman was not a producer. I pointed that out. But because Mutt was a producer who assists in songwriting and arrangements, Cliff thought we might need help more in the songwriting department than in the sonics of the record.

Cliff got that completely wrong. But at the time, Steinman was literally the only option we had, so we ended up going with him. ‘Give it a go – and if it doesn’t work, get rid of the guy.’ Exactly what happened, because Steinman was less than useless!

Jim Steinman made a lot of money out of Def Leppard for doing very little work. He’s a lucky man in that respect.”

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