Def Leppard “Forgeries” Appearing Online Available for Download

Def Leppard has some "forgeries" available online for you to download. Yes, they are not the original, but you wouldn't know. Even "Mutt" Lange, the original producer, gave it a thumbs up. So, why is Def Leppard spending so much time doing old versions of songs?

With newly recorded "forgeries" of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Rock of Ages" now available, the quintet has begun a series of re-recordings of its catalog material and "wrestled control of our career back" from the Universal Music Group, which front man Joe Elliott says the band refuses to deal with "until we come up with some kind of arrangement" over compensation, especially for digital downloads.

As Joe says,

"Our contract is such that they can't do anything with our music without our permission, not a thing. So we just sent them a letter saying, 'No matter what you want, you are going to get "no" as an answer, so don't ask.'

So what about new material?

"We're going to write on the road, and it'll likely be, 'Hey, I've got this idea for a song' and we'll play it around in the dressing room, and then when the tour's over we'll get together in short bursts and record a song or two, and then we'll start piecing stuff together."

The group's last new music was three studio tracks on the live "Mirrorball" album, and Elliott says Def Leppard might also consider "just releasing a song or two and then put an album out when we've got 10 or 11 songs we've been releasing over time.

[via Rolling Stone]