After Steve Clark passed away, Phil Collen wanted to leave Def Leppard.

Guitarist Phil Collen of Def Leppard recently disclosed that he gave leaving the band considerable thought following

the 1991 death of his bandmate Steve Clark. Collen wasn’t sure he wanted to continue working on their Adrenalise

record, even though the group ultimately agreed to do so.

“It was an odd period,” Collen told UCR. We had collaborated on some of the tracks with Steve, who had recently

died away. It felt strange, and I recall questioning whether I wanted to continue.

Collen was convinced to continue with Def Leppard and complete the record by Joe Elliott, the band’s lead singer.

Collen remarked, “Joe convinced me to do it.” He emphasised that these songs were a heartfelt homage to Steve,

with whom we had collaborated on their composition. That encouraged me to continue.

Despite Adrenalize’s success and number one U.S. debut, Collen acknowledges he had conflicting feelings about it,

particularly in light of the tumultuous period surrounding the L.A. riots.

It immediately shot to the top of the charts when it was released, but that was at a gloomy time when many odd

things were occurring. It was undoubtedly a strange period.

In hindsight, Collen believes the band would have profited from releasing Slang, their more experimental album, in

1992 rather than Adrenalise.

We probably ought to have adopted Hysteria with Slang in retrospect. Hysteria is hard to top,” Collen remarked. It

would have been a daring change, but it could have been more successful if we had published Slang immediately

after. The musical environment was different back then, and things had altered, particularly with the birth of

Nirvana.