Credit: Far Out / Tidal
Fri 7 August 2026 20:00, UK
It’s no surprise that Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott looks back to classic rock as his musical foundation.
They straddled a curious line between the old guard and the new wave. The road to Hysteria’s later chart-topping conquest on both sides of the Atlantic in 1987 was paved by a generous slathering of immaculately produced pop gloss of gleaming keyboards and chunky Fairlight programming crunch with the help of Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange’s studio chops, winning fans in both the metalhead and teenybopper camps.
Yet, synths and keyboards stood merely as the radiant presentation of Def Leppard’s pop metal whirlwind. At heart, they were indebted to the classic rock of their youth when firing up their world-conquering hair metal outfit back as Sheffield schoolboys in 1976.
Just as the new wave of British heavy metal was rearing its head, the young Elliott was hooked on the records of Mott the Hoople, Jethro Tull, David Bowie, and UFO, proving to be formative albums on his long road to stardom.
Yet, one band of the era towered with particular affection for Elliott. When talking to Classic Rock in 2017 on the albums that changed his life, special praise was heaped on Queen’s third LP, Sheer Heart Attack, singling out one much-loved song from the LP that truly broke the band on the rock charts and heralded their decades-long stature as British music royalty.
“It’s an amazing record,” Elliott reflected. ‘Now I’m Here’ is still one of the best rock songs ever written. It was very varied, very Queen in the sense of setting a standard that they then had to follow. It wasn’t like an AC/DC record where you get ten songs that are very similar. This could have been four different bands on one record, with four different personalities making the music.”
He’s right that Sheer Heart Attack careens across a hectic mosaic of eclectic styles, a tradition Queen would carry through right to frontman Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991. Yet, Elliott guns straight for the album’s most direct hard rock number as the track that immediately springs to mind, flashing an insight into his musical priorities that would later birth the Def Leppard monster.
Further reading: From The Vault
Curiously enough, Elliott’s old Mott the Hoople favourite receives a lyrical nod on ‘Now I’m Here’ – “Down in the city, just Hoople and me” – on Brian May’s raucous songwriting effort, a celebration of their previous US tour they supported the aforementioned glam band on. Throughout its jubilant four-odd minutes, May cuts a swaggering, cocksure riff that Mercury fronts with all the effortless charisma he so naturally summoned when firing on all creative cylinders.
Big shoes to fill, but Elliott’s love of ‘Now I’m Here’ proved so great he stepped up to the seriously tall task of taking the the mic alongside May’s guest guitar at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, Def Leppard performing their own rendition of the Sheer Heart Attack single in memory of Mercury, later to find life as the B-side to Adrenalize’s ‘Tonight’.
ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE 
The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter
All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.