It’s no exaggeration to say that their 1987 album Hysteria took Def Leppard to hell and back. Over three years of aborted sessions, a sacked producer and relentless bad luck, the band’s fourth album was the 80s equivalent of Chinese Democracy, swallowing an estimated five million dollars from the moment recording began in early 1984.
The record’s emotional cost, however, became even more expensive, after a car accident on New Year’s Eve 1984 led to the amputation of Rick Allen’s left arm. The band were forced into hiatus, while the drummer bravely re-learned to play on a customised electronic kit. “You really would start to think that we were cursed,” noted frontman Joe Elliott.
