| Stephen Maynard Clark was born to Beryl and Barrie on the 23rd of April, 1960. He was born and raised in Hillsborough, a north-western suburb of Sheffield, England. |
| The eldest of three brothers, Steve was a quiet child who "did well at school without excelling". Steve had his sights on pursuits other than school: at the tender age of 11 years old, he told his dad that he'd like to play guitar. On Christmas day in 1971 he was greeted with his first guitar... on condition that he learned to play it properly. |
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Keeping his part of the bargain, Steve took classical guitar lessons for a year and during those twelve months made the press for the first time when he was 12 years old; performing at a music festival at City School in Sheffield (see left - press cutting entitled 'The Young Guitarists'. Steve is on the right, of course). |
| After hearing Jimmy Page, classical guitar was thrown out of the window. Steve reminisced: "I began by learning classical guitar and then I turned to rock after hearing 'How Many More Times' by Led Zeppelin. As soon as I heard it I immediately thought, 'This is it! This is my vocation in life!'". | |
| Steve's classical training aided him well as he diverted all his energy into learning songs by ear; he'd spend hours figuring out every detail of Jimmy Page's - and others - solos and riffs. He soon had tracks such as Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway To Heaven', the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's 'Anthem' and Thin Lizzy's 'Don't Believe A Word' worked out note perfect. |
| Steve's parents helped to instill an apreciation of a wide range of music. When he was growing up he was exposed to a wide spectrum of musical styles, anything from The Shadows (who Steve saw at his first ever concert which Beryl took him to) to classical music. In general Steve's parents were very supportive of his musical endeavours and only started to waver a little when he was on the verge of giving up his job to turn to music full time. |
| Steve left school at 16 after completing his 'O' level exams and went on to an apprenticeship at GEC Traction in Sheffield. Here he worked as a lathe operator, producing parts for electric train motors. It was during this time that Steve would bump into Pete Willis on one winter Wednesday at the nearby Stannington College's library. |
| Steve spotted Pete flicking through a guitar effects manual and they got talking. Pete told him about his band, Def Leppard, and Steve asked if they were in need of a second guitarist. Pete suggested he drop by when the band next rehearsed. Steve didn't show. A few days later he ran into Pete again at a Judas Priest gig and Pete's suggestion was repeated. |  |
| Steve fulfilled his promise and turned up for their session on January 29th, 1978. He wasn't particularly impressed with place (previously an old spoon factory off Bramall Lane). The outdoor stairs leading to their practice room were perilously rickety, not to mention the smell of stale milk that always seemed to linger about the place, but Steve knew it was better than nothing and plugged his guitar in. |
| That evening Def Leppard became five after Steve proceeded to amaze them with a stunning, note-perfect rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird, including that famous lengthy solo. |
| Steve had been in bands before but it was nothing serious. About his first ever group, Steve recalled: "I played for a scout troup in Sheffield, to about 12 kids. It was only cover versions. I was young, about 14. The band was called Electric Chickie." |
| When he joined Pete, Joe Elliott (vocals), Rick Savage (bass) and Tony Kenning (drums), Steve was already ambitious but even he would later be amazed at the success that Def Leppard would achieve. Steve was very impressed with Def Leppard the moment he found out they had been writing their own material; they played two songs for him that they had penned themselves. All the bands he'd been in previously had never even attempted such a thing, and with this group Steve knew he had found bandmates as ambitious as he was. |
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It wouldn't be long before Def Leppard realised just how lucky
they were to have Steve. Sav remembered the time Steve was late for a rehearsal one evening:
"The door burst open and Steve raced across the room. He picked up his guitar where he'd
left it the day before and started playing this riff that he later said had come to him on the
bus on the way down. It was a brilliant riff, but he had more than just the riff. He'd put the
chords after it for
the bridge, and he had an idea for the middle section. He walked off that bus with an instant
song!" ...and that is the story of how the track 'Wasted' came into existance.
With Steve now firmly established in the group, songwriting accelerated to remarkable speed and within the first six months of his joining Def Leppard, over half of the material for the band's self-financed E.P. and their debut L.P - On Through The Night - was written. That was in addition to material that was unreleased. |
| All this was achieved despite the tough conditions Def Leppard were working under; day jobs were putting strain on rehearsal times. It was toughest for Steve who was working one week of day shifts followed by one week of nights, but perseverance would pay off in the end and the Leppards would soon be able to leave their day jobs behind. |
| First, however, there was the issue of them having spent a solid 9 months writing and rehearsing without a live performance; something that was beginning to annoy Steve more than a little as he was itching to get out and play to a real live audience... |
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