Def Leppard is rerecording their back catalog because of an argument with Universal over the digital distribution rights of their original songs. Despite being the slickest of the 80s hairbands, it took some effort.
”You just don’t go in and say, ‘Hey guys, let’s record it,’ and it’s done in three minutes,” Elliott notes. “We had to study those songs, I mean down to the umpteenth degree of detail, and make complete forgeries of them. Time-wise it probably took as long to do as the originals, but because of the technology it actually got done quicker as we got going. But trying to find all those sounds…like where am I gonna find a 22-year-old voice?
It might have taken just as long to record these as the originals, but I have a feeling the band was a lot more sober this time around.
I don’t know anything about the legality of this – why doesn’t every artist who is pissed at their label do this – but it’s an awfully interesting approach.