Def Leppard

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In November of 1977 the first Def Leppard rehearsal took place with Lead singer Joe Elliott, bass player Rick Savage, gutarist Pete Willis and then drummer Tony Kenning. They changer the spelling of their name from Deaf Leopard to Def Leppard and that December played their first gig for 6 of their friends. In January of 1978, Steve Clark joins the band as a second gutarist. In November of that same year, drummer Tony Kenning is fired and breifly rplaced by Frank Noon before settling on Rick Allen on November 28th. In March of 1980 their debut album, " On Through the Night" is released and The band starts it's first U.S. tour opening for such acts as Ted Nugent, Judas Priest and AC/DC. In November of 1981, the new cable channel MTV discovers the video for "Bringing on the Heartbreak", and play it in heavy rotation sending their second album "High-n-Dry" up through the charts. In July of 1982 as the band works on their 3rd album, gutarist Pete Willis leaves the band and is replaced by Phill Collen. In January of 1983 "Pyromania" is released to massive acclaim and sales. In 1984 as tey began working on their 4th album but it's put on hold when drummer Rick Allen is involved in a high speed automobile accident leaving him with one arm. After recovery, Rick learns to play the drumms with just one arm, and when the group is invited on the "Monsters of Rock" tour, they take an extra drummer, Jeff Rich to help out. It wasn't until Rich misses a gig that the group realizes that Allen can play alone, and in 1987, they release their biggest album to date, "Hysteria", selling 16 million copies in the U.S. alone and 7 of the 12 songs being released as singles. The band goes to work and yet another album but set back again with yet another tragedy when in January of 1991 gutarist Steve Clark dies from mixing alcohol and pain killers. It's not until 1992 that they release their next album, "Adrenalize", with Vivian Cambell taking over at guitar. The band goes on to release several more albums including 3 greatest hits, "Vault", "Best Of" and "Rock of Ages". Their latest album, "Yeah!" was released in 2006. After nearly 30 years Def Leppard continues to make hits and sell out stadiums across the U.S. and Europe and will undoubtedly go down as one of the greatest rock groups ever!