(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Mon 16 March 2026 21:30, UK
You can tell a lot about an artist from their opinion on The Beatles. Whether or not they believe the Fab Four were the most important group to ever grace the airwaves, the sheer impact of the band is something that is certainly not up for debate.
On initial glance, you would be forgiven for thinking that Def Leppard, and the group’s founding frontman Joe Elliott, are on the opposite end of the rock and roll spectrum to The Beatles. After all, John Lennon was rarely seen sporting sleeveless leather jackets, permed hair, or, indeed, impossibly tight trousers.
Nevertheless, the Fab Four did make a few notable contributions to the realm of both glam and metal, particularly on the White Album’s ‘Helter Skelter’, which is perhaps why Elliott cites the group as such an influence.
According to the Sheffield-born metal hero, though, there is one figure of inspiration that is equally as important as The Beatles – a bold claim, and an impossible influence to live up to. That person is, of course, David Bowie, who typified the era of glam rock that inspired Def Leppard, and remained a constantly-evolving artist throughout his illustrious discography. “As an innovator, Bowie was right up there with The Beatles,” Elliott claimed to Classic Rock in 2016.
While it is certainly worth noting that, without The Beatles, Bowie himself might never have risen through the musical rankings and into the mainstream consciousness, Elliott continued, “He moved on quickly from glam rock, just as The Beatles, in a very short period of time, took us from ‘Love Me Do’ to ‘Taxman’ and then moved on to Sgt Pepper and ‘A Day In The Life’. They radically changed, and Bowie obviously learned from that.”
Certainly, Bowie never stopped evolving throughout his career. It was his Ziggy Stardust glam era that brought him onto the radar of most mainstream audiences, but from there he sprawled off into different directions, embracing synthpop during the early 1980s following a particularly dark, experimental, and masterful period in the divided German capital of Berlin. As the Def Leppard singer put it, “He figured that a man on the move would never get tied down.”
“That seemed to be his mantra,” he added. “I loved the Berlin trilogy – Low, Heroes and Lodger – because by then I was 17, 18 years old, and I was starting to realise there’s more to life than electric guitars.” It was only a couple of years later, in fact, that Def Leppard unveiled their debut album, On Through the Night, although you would be hard pressed to make any links from that out-and-out metal record and the experimental nature of Low, for instance.
Although Def Leppard have rarely explored the influence of Bowie in their own work, at least not overtly, Elliott himself has devoted entire side projects to his adoration for the ‘Starman’. Namely, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the frontman was involved in a David Bowie tribute band by the name of the Cybernauts, along with former Spiders from Mars members Trevor Bolder and Mick ‘Woody’ Woodmansey.
Whether or not Bowie actually rivalled The Beatles in terms of innovation is a subject that remains open for debate, but it is far more difficult to dispute the endless inspiration provided to Joe Elliott by his songwriting hero, without which Def Leppard might never have come together in the first place.
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