Before she became one of the planet’s biggest pop stars, Taylor Swift collaborated with Def Leppard: “She heard our music in her mother’s womb”

Joe Elliott and Taylor Swift onstage

Joe Elliott was sitting in Def Leppard’s dressing room when someone walked in and placed a laptop in front of him, telling him to watch the video clip on it. It was 2008, and the Sheffield band were touring in support of their recently released album Songs From The Sparkle Lounge. The video on the laptop featured an interview with a rising young country-pop singer who had been garnering headlines recently.

“It’s Taylor Swift,” Elliott told Rolling Stone in 2018. “She’s doing this interview and she said there was only one band that she would ever do a Crossroads with and it was Def Leppard.”