Hellyeah Vinnie's love for Leppard

Vinnie Paul loosened his grip on production duties for Hellyeah's upcoming fourth album because he wanted to channel Def Leppard's early sound.

The drummer co-produced Hellyeah’s first three albums, but he was happy to hand full control to Kevin Churko on Blood For Blood – released on Monday, June 9.

It was Churko’s history of working with Def Leppard producer Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange that convinced Paul to hand over the reigns.

Churko was Lange’s engineer and programmer from 1999 to 2003, before going on to build a longstanding working relationship with Ozzy Osbourne.

Paul tells Radio.com: “The fact that he worked with Mutt Lange was huge for me, I was always a Def Leppard fan. And Mutt’s records weren’t just records, they were like Star Wars. They were a true production.

“Kevin kind of has that same mindset. The Ozzy records, I think he made a big different in Ozzy’s career.”

Hellyeah have described Blood For Blood as heavier than their usual “party” style.

Meanwhile, Vinnie has once again poured cold water on talk of a Pantera reunion. He tells L’Enorme TV that replacing his late brother Dimebag Darrell with Black Label Society’s Zakk Wylde is not an option.

He says: “People always ask me, ‘is there gonna be a reunion? Are you gonna do something with Zakk Wylde?’ And it’s just, like, no Dimebag Darrell, no Pantera. It just doesn’t fly. It’s not gonna work.”

Hellyeah: Blood For Blood album stream

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.