It doesn’t happen very often with Joe Elliott, but for a brief moment, Def Leppard’s singer is lost for words. He and the other four members of the band – guitarists Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell, drummer Rick Allen and bassist Rick ‘Sav’ Savage – are standing on hallowed ground, inside Studio 1 at Abbey Road, where The Beatles created some of their greatest music.
But this is not a regular recording session for Def Leppard. They are here not to play, but to observe. They are positioned on a balcony high above the studio floor. Below, arranged in neat rows, are the musicians of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. And as the orchestra plays the melody to one of Leppard’s biggest hit songs, Love Bites, Joe Elliott mouths a silent ‘wow’.
