..........For Def Leppard, Pyromania was the album that transformed the group from a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears wankers into arena packing metal royalty. In addition to cementing the band's place in the rock and roll firmament, Pyromania--which has sold close to 10 million copies in the U.S.--also had a wide reaching effect in the music industry at large, almost single handedly sparking the pop-metal explosion of the Eighties that brought us such groups as Bon Jovi, Ratt and Poison.

..........The records meteoric rise was dun in large part to its infectious, chant-along anthems. But Pyromania also benifited from the whole hearted embrace of the then-burgeoning MTV. "As soon as the video for the first single, 'Photograph,' took off, two entities exploded," says guitarist Phil Collen. "MTV was great for us, and we were great for them."

..........Pyromania's rich, multi-textured sound is the result of producer John Robert "Mutt" Lange's tireless (and some say obsessive) work ethic. Having produced both AC/DC's Back in Black (1980) and Foreigner's 4 (1981), Lange knew how to make hard rock magic, and did just that on Pyromania. "The album took 10 full months to record," recalls bassist Rick Savage. "But considering how much work was done, it actually doesn't seem like such a long time now. Mutt really pushes you, but he's such a nice person that he'll get the best out of you in such a way that it makes you want to do better. He has a gift for making you aware of why he wants you to play in a certain way, which is a very important thing for a producer to get across."

.........."We wanted big vocals, big harmonies and big guitars," Savage continues. "The entire album was played to a Linn drum machine and the whole thing was heavily overdubbed. We did much more than just double track guitars. It was a case of getting a dirty Les Paul sound, tracking it four times, and then maybe playing the same part over the top with a semi-distorted telecaster sound to create this really thick emsemble. Every individual compondent of the sound was so large. It's not something that can be achieved by setting a band up in the studio and pressing the 'record' button. It's got to be built and structured one instrument at a time.

.........."Everybody wanted our sound because it was so huge," he continues. "Although lots of copycats emerged, I don't think many of them understood how to do it. Mutt invented that three-dementional wall of sound. Each part on Pyromania sounds loud, but it has more to do with fequency than volume. If everything's in the proper bandwidth, everything can be loud and instruments won't cancel each other out. It's a real talent getting all the sounds in the right pocket, and Mutt does it masterfully."

..........Unfortunately, Lange's magical touch wasn't able to help guitarist Pete Willis from drinking his way off the record and out of the band. "Pete wasn't focused for dedicated in the studio," Savage recalls. "He'd show up drunk every morning and want to record. Finally, we got rid of Pete and asked Phill to give us a hand in the studio and play some lead guitar solos."

.........."I breezed through my parts on Pyromania," shrugs Collen. "The backing tracks were already recorded, so I came in and just wailed. It was a guitar player's dream to play over such great songs."

..........If the album's sound owes much to Lange's virtuosity as a producer, much of the credit for its now-classic songs--or, more accurately, its timeless riffs--goes goes to the late Steve Clark, who died in 1991. "He wrote the riff to 'Photograph,' 'Rock of Ages' and 'Die Hard the Hunter,' " says Savage. "He was the guy who set us apart from the standard heavy metal of that time. Steve brought to the table an inventivness that neither I nor Pete Willis had. We could turn his riffs into songs, but he was the idea man."

-- by Joe Lalaina (Guitar World, December 1999)