Howard Stern interviewed Def Leppard earlier this week, and he called legendary former Journey frontman Steve Perry ‘mean.’
MarksFriggin.com recapped: After the performance Howard said that was beautiful. He asked if they still get a charge out of playing. The guys said they do. They said they love it. Howard said he read some crazy stat. He said they went out with Journey last summer and it grossed some crazy amount of money. He said it sold over 1 million tickets. He said it was the number 2 tour of 2018. The guys asked what band was number 1. Howard said they should know that.
Howard asked the guys how it was with Journey. The guys said they were great. Howard said he never did like Steve Perry. He said he was mean to him. Joe said they did 60 gigs with them and it was great. Howard said that it must be exhausting to go out on tour. Joe said if you pace yourself well anything is doable. Howard said you can’t do them all in a row. Joe said they bitch and moan about playing Denver because it’s so high out there. He said they like playing sea level.
Howard said their third album broke wide open for them. He asked if they wanted to break up before that. Joe said not really. He said that most bands they were into didn’t break until their 5th album. He said back then they were allowed to take time to grow.
Howard asked who signed them. Joe said it was Polygram over in England. Howard asked how they got heard. Joe said that John Peale heard them. He said that he gave him a tape and he heard it and called him the next Monday. He said he played a song every night for five nights in a row and that got attention.
Howard said the record company didn’t pressure them back then. Joe said that stared in the 90s. Phil said they were being nurtured. He said that’s how things worked back then.
Joe said they really dug in by the third album. Howard said Pyromania had major hits on it. He said it’s pretty remarkable. Howard asked why it all gelled like that. Phil said MTV happened. Joe agreed. Phil said they looked like Duran Duran so that had a lot of appeal too.
