“strangely enough, when i first found out i immediately put on my diplomatic hat ‘cos i knew i’d have to talk to radio stations, music papers, issue a press release and all that. i didn’t really start to mourn until the funeral itself. i didn’t start twitching and go weird until i saw the coffin, and then i got to the church and his mum burst out crying as soon as she saw me, saying she couldn’t believe he was gone, and this was a while after he died because they’d kept the body for an autopsy. i bit my lip all the way through the church service,“ he recalls. "but then when i looked down into the actual grave i couldn’t deal with it… it cracked me up. we were all standing there when sav turned and said 'has anybody got a plectrum?’. you know, just to throw into the grave and say 'there you go’ and not one of us had a fucking pick between us. we’ve normally got a pocket full of the bastards but right when we wanted one…nothing. that actually lightened things up a bit - i don’t mean we were laughing or anything - and it was 'ah well, typical bloody def leppard… ironic to the end’.”
Take some time to spare a thought today- the 30th anniversary of when Leppard changed permanently.
Take some time for Wasted, High N Dry, Bringin On the Heartbreak, Photograph, Too Late For Love, Comin Under Fire, Armageddon It, Gods of War, Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion), S.M.C, Blood Runs Cold, Song and Emotion, and of course, Switch 625 and White Lightning.
He was 30 years old when he left us, and now 30 painful years have passed without him. Never, ever, forget today.
