Def Leppard's Phil Collen has credited producer Robert 'Mutt' Lange for the massive part that he played in helping the English band become one of the biggest rock bands in the world in the 1980s.
The South African-born producer worked with Def Leppard on all but one of their studio albums in the '80s, beginning with 1981's High 'n' Dry, through to 1983's Pyromania, and 1987's Hysteria. On Pyromania and Hysteria, Lange receives a songwriting credit on every song: the two records have combined sales of over 30 million, and have been streaming figures in the billions on Spotify alone.
As reported by Blabbermouth, during an interview with presenter Meltdown on Detroit radio station 101 WRIF, Collen was asked how responsible Lange was for Leppard's success in the 1980s.
"Probably about 99%," the guitarist acknowledged. "He taught us how to sing, he taught us how to play guitar. He sings on every song we've ever done [with him]... He's got the best singing voice out of all of us put together. And he sings on everything he does... He's just got a great voice. It's just amazing.
"He's the best producer in the world," Collen continues, "[and a] songwriter as well. You'd come to him and you go, I've got this chorus, and he'd go, 'Okay, well, that's not strong enough for a chorus. We could use that for a middle eight or a bridge or something, but we need a stronger chorus.' And he'd come and he'd write with us as well. So that was a great thing."
You can watch the full interview below.
Last week, Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell revealed that his cancer has returned.
In June 2025, the 63-year-old Irish guitarist reported that he was "completely in remission" from Hodgkin lymphoma, the blood cancer with which he was diagnosed in 2013. Speaking with Eddie Trunk on his SiriusXM show Trunk Nation, Campbell said "doctors told me really my only chance for [a] cure was to do a donor [stem cell] transplant. And that's exactly what I did."
But in a new interview conducted with Francisco Sigüenza of El Salvador's Radio YSKL FM the former Sweet Savage, Dio and Whitesnake guitarist revealed that the transplant "didn't stick", and that the cancer is back.
"I'll probably have to do another transplant within a few years with another donor to try and see if maybe that would cure me," he admitted. "But in the meantime, I'm certainly not slowing down... Life is for living."
