In part two of our exclusive video about the making of last year’s Def Leppard album, the band explain how guitarist Vivian Campbell’s illness affected them as they prepared to take the new show on the road.
“It’s very important to me that I’m able to do my work,” says Campbell. “I’m not comfortable having someone onstage doing my work, especially if they don’t do a very good job.
“The insurance company won’t cover me for my cancer,” he continues. “Management were very nervous about that, and were like, ‘why don’t you stay home and take care of your health, and we’ll get someone to stand in for you?’. It’s taken me a long long time and an awful lot of emotional effort to convince my fellow bandmates and management is that this is probably the single most important part of my recovery from this disease. That I do not capitulate. That I continue to work.
“Work is catharsis for me. It validates who I am, and what I am, and it’s always brought me great joy to go out and play in front of a live audience, and that’s the main reason you pick up a guitar in the first place.”
