Def Leppard singer Joe Elliot hasn’t changed his spots

Joe Elliot’s side project, Down ’n’ Outz, is a sort of tribute to his boyhood heroes, writes Ed Power

JOE Elliot wishes the Bono haters would ease up. “Here’s the thing. U2 did not give their album away,” says the Def Leppard frontman, fairly fuming. “They sold it to Apple — it was Apple that gave it away. For me, that was one of the most astute pieces of business ever done by a rock band. I’m sorry. I don’t care who you are or how credible your music. If someone like Apple says ‘Here’s $70m for your album’, what manager is going to tell a band to turn that down?”

Elliot (55) beat U2 to the punch by several years. In 2010, he and his side-project, Down ’n’ Outz, gifted their debut album, ReGeneration, to fans via Classic Rock magazine. He didn’t conceive of this as an historic gesture or a grand statement about the music industry. Down ’n’ Outz had come together largely by accident and it seemed appropriate to Elliot that their LP should be distributed by similarly unconventional means.