Although Def Leppard is a hard-rock
band, it sounds like there are modern
country influences in your music. Did
that come from Mutt Lange?
Collen: Yeah, Mutt invented that stuff
when he got with Shania Twain. He made
that crossover possible because, before that,
everyone was struggling with pure country
and western. A lot of the rock guys who
lived in L.A. after the ’80s metal thing kind
of went away all moved to Nashville. They
cut their hair and started playing other
stuff—playing sessions. Mutt actually fused
the two together. I’m not a huge country
fan, but I remember while we were doing
Pyromania and
Hysteria, I’d go to his car
and he’d have a George Jones cassette lying
on the floor.
What are your main guitars now?
Collen: Mutt Lange introduced me to
Grover Jackson back in the day, and that’s
what I’ve been using since then. I have some
great, customized guitars, and Jackson got
them right. Some of the guys who do my
stuff now worked there back then, 20-something
years ago. They know what I like—the
size of the neck, everything. We just keep
improving on them. My main guitar is a
Jackson PC1. I have two models: One’s a
natural—and it’s an old workhorse—and I
just got another one called the PC Supreme,
which is a neck-through. It’s got a big, fat
neck. In fact, it’s the biggest neck I think
Jackson has ever made. When I pick up other
guitars, I don’t enjoy [them] as much. When
I play my own, I get a thrill out of it. That’s
been a constant thing with Jackson.
Campbell: Mine is a bastardized Les Paul
Custom with a silver-sparkle finish. It
started life as a ’78 Les Paul Custom that
I bought at a pawnshop in Nashville in
1993. It had a great neck, which was the
reason why I bought it. Then it got run
over by something very heavy when I was
traveling to Europe. What remained of the
guitar was the headstock, the neck, and the
front pickup. I had the guitar re-bodied
with a 1958 Jimmy Page-style knock-off
body, so it’s smaller and a little bit lighter
than a regular Les Paul Custom. I refretted
it with Dunlop 6000 fretwire, which I
have on all my guitars. It has a DiMarzio
Super 3 in the bridge, which is the same
one that Phil uses in his Jacksons, and
TonePros hardware. I’ve got a 300k pot on
the Volume knob, so it cleans up a little
more when it rolls off. Basically, the entire
guitar has been reworked, but there’s something
about that guitar that just sounds
and plays great.
You guys have different amp rigs for Def
Leppard, depending on where you are in
the world, as well as separate rigs for your
side projects, right?
Campbell: For Def Leppard, I have the typical
switching system, with a refrigerator rack
full of digital delays and stereo processing—
which is necessary. My Def Leppard rig hasn’t
changed for years, but this year I swapped out
my Marshall cabs for Engl cabs, which sound a
lot brighter to me. I’ve also put in Engl power
amps, which have a lot more flexibility. I’m still
using the Marshall JMP-1—I’ve had it in my
rig for 15 years—but in addition to those, I’ve
been given a couple of Engl preamps to try.
I also have a brilliant-sounding rig that I
built for the Thin Lizzy tour. It’s basically a
Mojave Scorpion 50-watt head and a Mojave
4x12 cab. It’s a very direct signal path.
With that rig, I run my Les Paul on a cable,
because I don’t like what a wireless does to
your guitar sound—but in Def Leppard
I have to use a wireless because of the size
of that stage. With Thin Lizzy, it’s my Les
Paul into a Dunlop Hendrix Wah pedal to
a Way Huge Angry Troll boost pedal to the
front end of the Mojave. The Mojave doesn’t
have an effects loop, but it has an adjustable
line out, so I take the line out and feed that
into the front of a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo.
watt amp that powers a Marshall 4x12 cab.
So I have a dry cab and a wet cab with a tape
delay, and it sounds
so good.
Collen: On the new ManRaze album, I
used exactly what I used on the three Def
Leppard bonus songs. It’s all software based.
I used Native Instruments Guitar Rig 4 from
my laptop, and it sounds killer. Live with
Def Leppard, I’ve been using the same thing
for, like, 15 years—a JMP-1 rackmount with
an old Randall solid-state power amp from
the ’80s. It’s been really reliable. I’m not really
much of an effects guy. In fact, my tech,
Scott Appleton, does all the effects changes
for me. It saves me from jumping around
on the pedalboard. With ManRaze, a lot
of the time I use a Fender Cyber-Twin for
live shows. It sounds great when you put it
through cabinets. It really gets the high gain
and everything, and it has effects built into
it. I just use an overdriven sound for solos
and add a bit of delay. For the most part, it’s
very straightforward.
Despite its somewhat straightforward “super strat” look, Collen’s Jackson PC1 signature
model has two pop-out 9-volt-battery hatches around back. One is for
the active DiMarzio
humbucker, and the other powers the Jackson Sustainer/Driver in the neck position.