Back in January of this year, Def Leppard vocalist Joe Elliott and Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge released a new version of Ghost's "Spillways" off their Impera LP (2022). But Elliott has been singing the praises of Ghost for quite a bit now. In April, Elliott proclaimed Impera had "been my go-to album for the last couple of weeks. I've got it downloaded onto my Apple Watch so I can march away and listen to it. I've only got a few albums on there, and Ghost are one of them."
Elliott continued, saying "I like the fact that they've got a big intro for the album. It reminds of the beginning of Master Of Puppets, weirdly. It starts off with these flamenco-like guitars, then it gets all heavy and duelling, kind of like Thin Lizzy. It's obviously done as a walk-on for the gigs."
Elliott originally got into Ghost when Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen hipped him to the Impera album. "I played the shit out of Ghost's music on my [Planet Rock] radio show, and then we saw that they had been bigging us up in the press," Elliott recently told the NME.
As for how the collab went down, we should first start with the rich synergy between these bands, even if only by way of admiration. Recently, Forge said "I've always been a [Def Leppard] fan but with [Impera], I really looked at their songwriting. Ihave always been in awe of several Def Leppard records, but especially the big ones like Pyromania and Hysteria. Not only are they great, but they achieved such commercial success that they've become a great example of how a lot of arguments in the pop world are wrong…. We're constantly told we need to get to the chorus quickly, that songs need to be short and to the point but Def Leppard songs are often the complete opposite of that. I wanted to do something similar with Impera."
With all that mushy stuff going on in the press, it was only a matter of time before paths would cross, and indeed they did. "Out of nowhere, I got word Joe would love to collaborate," said Forge. And, as they say, the rest is history.
It took awhile for the track to come together, with Elliott extremely busy with the ongoing Stadium Tour with Motley Crue. But eventually, the pair got down to it, and the result was nothing short of excellent.
"I heard that it was on, but we kept missing each other because of how busy we both were," said Elliott. "So I grabbed the bull by the horns and just went and sang the fucking thing. By the time we finally got to speak, I had already recorded 'Spillways' because I was chomping at the bit."
Elliott continued: "I love that song so much. The keyboard intro blew me away the first time I heard it – with a band like Ghost having the balls to do something so unexpected like recording a hybrid of 'Jane' by Jefferson Starship and ‘Hold The Line' by Toto. I really took a shine to it. It was the flagship moment for me, on what is a fantastic album. As soon as I knew a collab was probably going to happen, I just got on with it."
Meanwhile, Ghost have just announced a spring tour with Amon Amarth, and the aforementioned dates for each respective tour can be found here (Ghost) and here Def Leppard).
