Def Leppard : the definitive visual history

233 Pages·2011·139.08 MB·English

by  Halfin

THE DEFINITIVE VISUAL HISTORY
THE DEFINITIVE VISUAL HISTORY
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ROSS HALFIN JOE ELLIOTT
PHOTOGRAPHS BY FOREWORD BY
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THE DEFINITIVE VISUAL HISTORY
THE DEFINITIVE VISUAL HISTORY
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROSS HALFIN | FOREWORD BY JOE ELLIOTT
This shot was taken the day we met Ross for the very first
time, at the Crookes Working Men’s Club, Sheffield, in 1979.
Hopefully this was the very last time we put our fists up
at the request of a photographer.
–Joe
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I first met Ross Halfin on the 5th of June 1979 when I picked
him and Sounds journalist Geoff Barton up from Sheffield’s Sheaf Street
train station to take them to the Crookes Working Men’s Club to watch a
fledgling Def Leppard perform that night. I don’t remember much about the
actual journey that day, but as I was driving my work van, which only had
two seats in it, and at the time I would have considered Geoff Barton more
important, I can only surmise that Ross was in the back getting thrown
around all over the place, holding on for dear life and trying to protect
all his camera equipment from any damage! Ah, rock ’n’ roll, people, it isn’t
all limos and five-star hotels; well, it certainly wasn’t back then. Both Ross
and Geoff were pleasantly surprised at how cheap the drinks were at the
club and consequently were pretty loaded when they came back to our
dressing room after the gig. Geoff was waxing lyrically about how great the
gig was and how sorry he was for not taking the letters I’d been sending to
him more seriously. Ross was just shouting loudly in agreement and pissing
in the sink. This is my lasting image of Ross. Loud, opinionated, oblivious
to the more conventional bathroom habits that most of us adhere to but
more importantly, possessing an uncanny knack for taking GREAT photos.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Ross’s company, some of it in sushi bars and
Japanese bootleg shops, but most of it standing in front of him listening
to his mantras: “Chin up Joe!” . . . “Head down” . . . “Stop fidgeting” . . . behind the stage, he captures the vastness of a band playing to a massive
“Fancy some Japanese tonight??!” It was work, but it was fun. Looking at crowd to the point where it actually looks like everyone in attendance is in
these photos—some for the first time, some for the first time in many, many the picture. When he shoots from the pit, it is essential that the relationship
years—I’m reminded of just how many photo shoots we actually did with between the band and the lighting rig is captured totally in perspective; this
Ross. He seems to have been with the band just about everywhere we went, he also does effortlessly. I remember sitting in a hotel with Ross somewhere
from the first major shows we played in the UK opening for Sammy Hagar in the States during the Pyromania tour and moaning that the shots he’d
and then AC/DC, through the “Pete Willis” years, and the “Terror Twins” era. taken of me made me look like I was constantly screaming (I probably
And, of course, Ross was the first photographer to capture the sadness, the was!), or that they all seemed to feature me with my mouth wide open. So
pain, the doubt, and the eventual triumph over adversity that was the return we made a plan to only shoot me when I WASN’T singing! “I’m outta luck,”
of the Thundergod, Rick Allen. In these photos you can see that he was click–click-click! “outta love,” click-click-click! “gotta photograph,” click-
always there right up to the latter-day lineup with Vivian Campbell. We’ve click-click! “picture of . . . ,” pun absolutely intended. It worked a treat, and
scaled pyramids in Mexico, stood in front of a myriad of garage doors, even so from that moment onwards I was looking for Ross during guitar solos
climbed onto the roof of my house in search of that special location that and mugging for him, no doubt to the total annoyance of Steve and Phil!
makes the session unique. Of course, Ross does this with every band he
shoots! But at least the subject matter is somewhat different. When we decided to play in-the-round on the 1987–88 Hysteria tour it
prompted quite a challenge for Ross, as we effectively had four front rows.
The one arena, though, where Ross stands head and shoulders above any It was fine if he was shooting us as individuals but how on earth was he
other photographer I’ve ever worked with is shooting us live. He truly is the going to get any shots of us as a band? Rick was banging away on his
master of getting the perfect shot. Just look at how, when he shoots from drums and spinning around so everyone could see him from the front at
least some of the time and the rest of us were running around all over the Jimmy Page, part Brian Robertson; in all fairness he was just a kid we all
place trying to face forward to as many people as possible! The solution? grew up with who took it right to the edge, just a little too close to the
Put Ross in the lighting truss!!! Brilliant!! He’d be twenty-five feet above us, edge, sadly. But thankfully there are enough fantastic shots in this book to
and sometime during the two hours we’d be on stage, surely we’d all be in remind us all just what we’re missing every minute of every day.
close enough proximity for him to get some great action shots. It worked.
In fact, it worked fine, but the one thing neither Ross nor the band took Life, though, goes on, and as we mourned the passing of our great friend and
into consideration was that most essential of human needs, the bathroom colleague, we documented our grief on record and film. On the Adrenalize
break!! The poor guy had to go up at least thirty minutes before we went album we recorded a song called “White Lightning,” a paean to a lost soul,
on and he couldn’t be let down for about fifteen minutes after we came off! and we did photo sessions as a four-piece, some with Ross, some not, for
So he wasn’t a happy man when we finally saw him, and it goes without the one and only time in our career. Since that time we’ve forged ahead
saying that the next time he went up there he took a rather large plastic against other difficult odds, so-called grunge music, changing times, hey,
bottle with him . . . just life in general!! But with the aid of the “new kid,” Vivian Campbell,
who restored us back to a five-piece in time for the 1992–93 tour, we’ve
Of course, when you mull over twenty-five years’ worth of photographs, soldiered on into a new century and beyond!!!
you will inevitably go through a “kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions,” to
paraphrase a certain darts commentator. The obvious excitement of being There’s life in the old cat yet, but this book is a chance for us all to look
in America for the very first time and following in the footsteps of our back on some great times, some difficult times, and some triumphant
collective heroes, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Mott the Hoople, The Who, etc. . . . comebacks that make Sinatra look like a cab driver!! All through the lens
Seeing pictures of Pete Willis and thinking of what might have been . . . of one of the best rock photographers to ever piss in your sink!
Steve in all of his magnificent pomp, doing the archetypal rock-star poses
that he seemed to have invented, but that he and we knew were part Take a bow, Ross Halfin.
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