"I wouldn't mind checking out Toronto a little bit 'cause I've never really spent any time here," he enthuses. "I've got a YJ jeep at home, one of the new Ranglers. You know, a jeep jeep - one that even if I was in a hurry it wouldn't go very fast."

Being that life on the road is always moving rapidly, for Rick this is a nice change of pace. "When I'm at home (Holland) I like doing things that you'd find pretty boring, things I never really get to do, like sitting in front of my TV on my couch.

"Holland is a nice place," the Sheffield England born drummer continues. "I don't get to spend very much time there but when I do it's gorgeous; nice lakes, lots of places to go and see. Where I live in Holland is about 15 minutes from the beach so wheneverI can, I try to spend as much time as possible there, although I'm still white as a ghost! I don't take the sun in, I just reflect it(chuckles). I'm freckles everywhere - I look like a tea bag by the end of the day.

"I could do with a beachfront apartment in every place I've gone to," Rick says, but he's not just talking sun and sand. "Because you spend so much time touring, it's a good way to get away from it. You see, the work never stops."

Follwing their European tour and just before this Canadian tour, Def Leppard stopped in New York and for the first time Rick was able to take advantage of it. "I walked around the city a bit, I did the tourist trip. I went to the World Trade Center. I did a load of shopping, bought a new camera. It's the first time I found an auto-focus camera that I can actually use with one hand; to zoom in and out with, which is really handy. I'm sort of gathering up a few memories of this tour."

While Rick was gathering memories, his bandmate guitarist Phil Collen was making memories of his own by showing up at an L.A. Guns concert in the New York/New Jersey area. Collen took the stage with ex-Girl bandmate, lead vocalist Philip Lewis and the rest of the Guns to play Led Zeppelin's "Rock 'N Roll," a song Leppard has been playing in their own show, which they performed the following night.

"We played an intimate sort of affair," Rick describes the show, which was a benefit they gave for three local high schools who "won" the band via a radio station contest. Says the Scottish schooled Allen, "We didn't know what to make of it when we first got onstage, but it ended up being a real treat. It was like going back and playing in small theatres and clubs. In fact, in a sense we've brought back the intimacy with the way that we put on the show in the round, with the square stage in the middle of the arena. You have four front rows rather than one, and people that before looked like pinheads sort of, way off in the back. It makes a lot more sense playing like this."

Along with lead vocalist Joe Elliott, guitarist Steve Clark and bassist Rick Savage, Phil and Rick have certainly been causing quite a sensation wherever they play. Rick comments, "It's sort of getting back to Pyromania days again. There's still your hardcore Pyromania fans coming out to the shows, but we're getting quite a lot of young people, especially young girls coming along to the shows, screeeaming."

As for closer to home, where in the past Def Leppard's had to struggle for acceptance, Rick says "It's actually getting quite good for us in England now. You know, we played two nights in Wembley in London, which is about nine or so thousand each night. That's the circuit we wanted to play. Of course next time we want to play even more nights(chuckles).

"Until we did the tour in England, we'd never really seen a European audience react the same way as an American audience. The American audiences tended to be a lot more rowdy. Now, they're kind of level with each other, a bit of competition going down there, you know?" he laughs. "So, as things get bigger worldwide, the audiences become more and more the same."

One thing audiences worldwide have been able to see is that Leppard puts in a most entertaining show. Rick credits this to their songs. "Playing a Def Leppard set onstage these days feels like playing your greatest hits. It's really nice, I mean, everybody knows the songs and everybody's singing along. It's a whole big load of fun for everybody to go see the show." (Not bad for a bunch of guys who use newspapers as a source of ideas and titles for songs!)

Audiences will soon see a slight change in Rick's drum kit. "I'm keeping the same format with the pedals and the pads," the 24-year-old Allen explains, "but I'm going to use different trigger process that probably won't affect the sound that we're getting now out front, but from a playability point of veiw I'll be able to express myself even better."

One thing fans won't ever see is Rick play a drum solo. "I hate drum solos," he says. "They're the most boring things. I try to express myself within the music. There are a couple bits where I get sort of like 'hey, Ricky Allen' where nobody introduces me but it feels that way."

Although he started out in music 14 years ago trying to play guitar with a tennis racket along with a friend who had a guitar, Rick knew his destiny was to play drums right away. "The tennis racket was okay but it didn't sound like a guitar and I got into playing on cookie tins with a paor of sticks my dad had knocking around the house, I don't know why. Probably from playing with the Scouts. One thing led to another, I saved up some money and bought my first drum kit. My mom and dad were quite smart actually; they made me go for drum lessons before they let me get the kit which meant that I didn't lose interest immediately, you know? I got a Del Ray blue sparkle kit that ws the most obnoxious thing you've ever seen, but it sounded great and I loved it."

Ian Paice and John Bohnam both were influences, but Rick claims, "I like to play more technical stuff like jazz but I could never count past four (laughs). NO, but when I started playing in rock bands, the feeling I got was definetly the way I wanted to go."

The same was true of when he met Leppard in '78. "It was funny," Rick remembers. "The advert said 'Leppard Loses Skins' and my dad suggested I call them, I was sick of auditioning. Joe, Steve and I had a meeting in the bathroom of a local club, I arranged as audition, auditioned, and got the job." They clicked immediately because, "it was the first time I had ever met four guys who thought the same way as me , which was to make money, put it back into the band and keep going."

Having been together ever since, this team of young musicians is practically going for infinity. "We're going for the history books," Rick declares. "Nobody sees any ending in sight because we're such good friends."

As the Def Leppard "Thunder God" (a name derived from Allen's friend Gordy who encouraged the drummer after his car accident, and is even emblazoned to his drumsticks) concludes, "It's like I say to everybody, it's nice to have a second chance after all this time. Because of people's support for the band, we're one bunch of happy guy's. Everybody's looking toward the future and looking forward to doing it all over again."