The legendary art deco hotel rises high above the smog and poseurs ofL.A.'s infamous Sunset Strip. Ensconced in a beautifully appointed twelfth-floor suite in the St.James Club is none other than one of the biggest bands in rock, Def Leppard. Singer Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage, guitarist Phil Collen and drummer Rick Allen look comfortable in the elegant room, sipping cappuccino from delicate china, but you can tell they'd be equally comfortable in some dive bar, or on the golf course.

With albums like Hysteria selling in the megamillions, the Lep has been on top of the world-and, having suffered setbacks like the tragic loss of their guitar player, and drummer Allen's near-critical car accident, they've been on the bottom as well.

That is what's made Def Lep what they are today: humble and humorous, with a perspective on fame and its foibles. They're now very excited about the release of their fifth album, Adrenalize. Yes, only their fifth album, though the Brit boys have been a band for more than ten years. Phil and Sav laugh about their lengthy album recording process. When did they enter the studio to record their latest? "Ummmmmm, it wasn't this decade," laughs Phil. And indeed, it wasn't. Their old press indicated they planned to record the follow-up to Hysteria in '89, and have the record out by '90. "We really mean well, we're really genuine," insists Phil. "We just missed it by two years. But it's been worth the wait."

Surprisingly, for a band who has enjoyed such success, they claim not to have a formula, though they tried at first woth Adrenalize. "We thought we'd go back to the same studio, same vibe as the Hysteria record," says Sav of their time in an Amsterdam studio. "It was terrible, really. We were in the same studio where we'd gone through so much crap recording the previous record. It wasn't very inspiring at all. It was almost like we were back doing Hysteria again."

"When you first start," says Sav of the band's inception, "you never really have that much idea (of what direction you're going to take). You're more interested in writing the songs, because that's new to you as well. Even now we tend to build things up from a sound point of view; I don't think you could ever have a complete definition of how it's going to end up. You get a starting point that you really believe in, and everything's got to fit in that as it comes up. You set a certain standard and a certain precedent of how it should sound, and the picture actually evolves itself, provided you have the groundwork."

Phil picks up the tale. "It's like a process of elimination-either it's great or it ain't. It got to the point on this album where we'd done everything we could. We could have spent a few more months and fiddled around, but it wouldn't have made any difference."

Still, they did do considerable fiddling. "You think, 'The kids aren't even going to hear this,' if something's not slightly right, but if you start letting tht go, you tend to lose when you draw the line on what you keep and what you let go. So, especially where Def Leppard's concerned, it's really got to be all ot nothing, which is one of the reasons why it takes us longer than most people to record (the album), and why it sounds the way it does."

'Course, it took them a couple of eons to settle on an album title. "No, it's not a word," laughs Sav about Adrenalize. "We went through months and months of trying to think of a title."

"Actually, years," provides Phil.
"It's really difficult, with a bunch of people, to be really confident about any particular thing," Sav continues. "Like all agreeing on an album title. Phil actually came up with it in the end. For a start, it was the one thing somebody didn't turn around and say,'That sucks.'"

Obviously, however, there were many other sidetracks on the way to completing Adrenalize, recorded in Dublin, Ireland. "It's bizarre," reminisces Sav about Def Lep's history. "Every five minutes something would go wrong. Steve and I went through a shop window in my car. They took me off to jail; this was in Holland. Mutt, the producerm was in the hospital, an accident on the same road. It's nobody's specific fault-stuff happens," says Sav diplomatically. "I think it's totally out of your hands. If you're going to pay off some karmic debt by crashing into a wall, then there's nothing you can do about it. Over a long period, it's logical that more stuff is going to happen. People say, 'Well a lot of stuff happened on your record.' But they forget the record was over a long period of time. It took five years to record it. When you think about it, a four-year period is like the whole year of Jimi Hendrix. And bands like Free-they came and went in two years. It's amazing we're still around and making music."

Clearly, however, the heaviest moments in recent Lep history surrounded the death of guitarist Steve Clark. And some oof that can be seen in the cathartic song "White Lightning." "That was written after Steve died," says Phil quietly. "That was one of the very last songs we wrote. It was kind of influenced by the futility and everything of seeing this person, who was a great friend of ours, just dying, and not being able to do anything about it. The fact that it-alcohol-is so easily accessible, and it's a lot more dangerous than some people think."

"We don't like calling it a message song," Sav says about "White Lightning." "On our last record, we did 'Gods of War.' It's more a depiction of how things could be. It's not saying one's right or one's wrong; it's basically setting the scene. Obviously, you wouldn't exactly advocate the end of the world, or drug abuse, or alcoholism, but at the same time, we always find it better, graphically, to describe how it is, and let people make their own mind up. You know, 'Well, that's really attractive; I'd really like to get into that,' or 'Jesus Christ, that's really graphic; is that what it's like?' We're like, 'This is how it is; make up your own mind.'"

"There are all sorts of people that don't die, who are connected-either married, or related-and they have to go through it with them," explains Sav about the disease of alcoholism. "It affects so many people's lives-just one person's life, the song is kind of about that as well...personal hell."

They feel no guilt, only sadness over the loss of their compatriot. Phil and Sav muse about the reasons why Clark abused alcohol. "Sometimes it's totally out of their control. It's as basic as having red hair, or blond hair; it's actually bred in you. There's not a lot you can do about it, other than try to stay clear from the things that would trigger it off."

"We'd seen it coming for years," notes Phil. "It was weird, because I almost expected the phone call, and the person I expected to phone actually did, and it was like,'Jesus.'"

"I don't believe any band could have done any more-any group of people-could have done more than we did, and that's the one thing we can always say to each other. It wasn't as if we discarded him. From that point of view, we don't have any feelings of guilt, just sadness," explains Sav. "It was such a waste, because he was such a talented person as well. Every individual is important in their own right, but Steve actually got it across to millions of people. That's the frustrating part."

Clark's contribution to Adrenalize? "He co-wrote a lot of the songs. We demoed the guitars, so on some of the songs I copy his guitar note-for-note," says Phil. "It was a bit bizarre, because in the studio I've gotta be hearing this guy's guitar, and it's almost like a ghost. It's alive, there, and that was a bit weird." Contrary to rumors, though they will most certainly add a guitarist for touring purposes, there probably won't ever be a fifth member. A creepy result of the tragedy was the number of "ambulance chasers" who emerged to compete for Clark's slot. "The thing is, we were in the studio where no one could bug us. But they were phoning the office in New York," says Sav. "It was like when Rick had his accident, the day of it, there was people phoning us in Holland, going, 'I want the gig.' It was like, 'F?!k off!' Like anything, we always take our time in making decisions, so if anyone was phoning us like that, they definitely wouldn't get a listen, 'cause they'd be the wrong person."

For now, everything is as right as it can be in the Leppard camp. Though they've mourned their losses, the band continues looking to the future. There are three happy marriages in the band, with Sav being the sole bachelor. Phil, who lives in Orange County with his American wife, is a proud poppa, while Dublin is home to Joe Elloitt and Rick Allen. And even of Adrenalize doesn't sell a single copy, the Leps are happy campers. Really. "The album is a success to us, 'cause we've got it sounding how we want it to sound. Now the second stage is, obviously, we want everybody that's living to have the same opinion that we do, which is not always the case," laughs Phil. "But if the album, hypothetically, ia a complete flop, from our point of view it would still be a success."