A BlastEcho First: Def Leppard’s Phil Collen Plays Rockers’ Block on Camera

See and hear the guitarist try to remember songs from Girl to Def Leppard to Manraze

By blastecho on July 12, 2016

Some music artists have released literally hundreds of songs over the years, to say nothing of the ones deemed too garbage-y to release. BlastEcho wondered if those involved in recording so many songs could remember them all. Enter Rockers’ Block.

For each Rockers’ Block contestant, we play five random songs from their catalog (well, for this one we did seven) each song from the beginning, to see how long it takes for them to guess (well, maybe guess isn’t the right word) the correct song. Then once they do (hopefully), they talk a bit about the song.

Phil Collen has been involved in three firsts for BlastEcho. He was the first artist to participate in our Text for Echo interview; on July 2, he became the first artist to sit down for an on-camera Rockers’ Block; and he was the first artist forced to guess seven (instead of five) songs from his past for this “Name That Tune”-like game. Full disclosure: Technically, Frank Hannon from Tesla did his Rockers’ Block before Collen, but we’re posting Collen’s first, so we’ll call it a draw.

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As many know, Collen shredded for the glam-rock group Girl before he joined Def Leppard in time for their 1983 breakthrough masterpiece Pyromania; additionally, he’s recorded music with side projects Manraze and Delta Deep, so finding material to stump him wasn’t an issue. As you’ll soon see and hear he was more than up for the challenge; he wasn’t perfect, but he was pretty damn close. Better still, his stories surrounding the songs we chose will have any Leppard fan clamoring for an encore performance.

Our Rockers’ Block with Collen — as was the forthcoming one with Hannon — was conducted backstage before Def Leppard’s headlining performance at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, Ill. Def Leppard continue on tour through mid-October, and ticket information is available here.

Well, enough of our yappin’, let’s hear (and see!) how he did!