Joe Elliott

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Joe Elliot during Def Leppard's Hysteria tour (1987).

Joseph Thomas Elliott (born 1 August, 1959, in Sheffield, Yorkshire, and educated at King Edward VII School) is the lead singer of the English rock band Def Leppard.

Contents

1 Career with Def Leppard
2 Side Projects
3 Trivia
4 Personal life
5 See also
6 External links

Career with Def Leppard

Elliott first met Pete Willis in 1977 by chance when he missed a bus ride. After knowing that they were both musicians, he met the rest of the members of Atomic Mass and auditioned (first as a guitarist, then as a singer). The rest of the band was impressed by him, and hired him. The band even took Elliott's suggestion to change their name to "Deaf Leopard", which was later changed to "Def Leppard" to look more like "Led Zeppelin" Elliott soon became an integral part of the band contributing also with his songwriting skills.

As a songwriter, Elliott has drawn from his eclectic tastes in music (that range from pop-rock to folk and anything in between) as sources of inspiration. He also often comments that the lyrics to Leppard's music are not personal; that they are meant to be easily accessible to the listener. He also plays guitar and drums.

Side Projects

Elliott has worked with several side projects through his career. Among them, he has worked in numerous tributes to other artists like Freddie Mercury, Alice Cooper, Mick Ronson, Ian Hunter,and David Bowie among others. He had the honor of opening the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, by joining the remaining members of Queen to perform "Tie Your Mother Down".

He also has guested on several projects like Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood's solo album Slide On This; Lori Spree's Those Faces; Ricky Warwick, The Almighty, and others.

He and fellow Def Leppard member/guitarist Phil Collen, once had a side project together called Cybernauts. The project was short-lived, and the internet album that was online, has been deleted since its mid-1990s release.

Trivia

Elliott auditioned to Def Leppard (then known as Atomic Mass) singing Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". He missed the octave change in the song but the band was so impressed with his looks and enthusiasm that they took him anyway.
During Def Leppard's early days Elliott worked in a bread factory where whilst sweeping up he would pretend to be AC/DC's frontman Bon Scott.

Personal life

Elliott currently lives in Dublin, Ireland, with second wife Kristine.

External links