How a missed bus helped create Def Leppard - one of Sheffield’s most iconic bands
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The band described their first gig as having been in front of a group of friends
Def Leppard are undoubtedly one of the world's biggest selling rock bands, having sold more than 100 million records.
Their high-octane live shows are legendary.
Their story being right here in Sheffield - just after a missed bus.
Joe Elliott attended King Edward VII School, while bassist and co-founder Rick Savage went to Tapton School, but it was a chance conversation that occurred when Joe was walking home after missing his bus one autumn afternoon back in 1977.
It was on his walk home that he got talking to a 19-year-old Pete Willis and Joe asked if he could join Willis’ newly formed band, Atomic Mass, which also included drummer Tony Kenning and bassist Rick Savage, and at the time performed covers by the likes of Queen, Slade and Deep Purple.
During Joe’s audition on guitar it was decided that he’d be better suited to being the band’s lead singer – despite him never having sung outside of the shower prior to this.
After his induction into the group, Joe shared his other idea for the band, a name change.
In a video on Instagram, the singer explained how the name first came to him while he was at school in 1975.
"I was in art class and I begged the teacher please, please can we stop drawing fruit and flowers and vases and stuff,” he said. “He said what do you want to do, and I said I want to do posters for rock shows, and he said fine.
"So I started doing posters for real bands like the Beatles and the Stones and Thin Lizzy and stuff. And then eventually I started making names up and 'Deaf Leopard' was one of them.
"It just sounded good. It was spelled correctly when I did it, it was only changed into the misspelling we use these days after the band formed. I had the name two years before."
It had long been believed, wrongly, that their first gig was in the dining hall in A Block in Westfield School in Mosborough, Sheffield. Both Joe and Rick have said that was not the case in a video from a 2018 interview.
The band described their first gig as having been in front of a group of friends at The Portland Works, near Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane stadium. They had been using the former cutlery factory as a rehearsal space.
While revisiting the venue in 2018, Joe and Rick described it as a place where they spent most of their lives when they were not doing their day jobs, playing and hanging out.
Joe added: “We used to call them ‘rent a crowd’ because they were all our mates. We only had four or five songs but we did it like a gig, it was all foot on the monitor and shaking your head about, but it was brilliant fun.”
The original Def Leppard lineup featured Joe Elliot, drummer Tony Kenning, bassist Rick Savage, and guitarist Pete Willis. It was completed by the addition of guitarist Steve Clark in January 1978. The band played their first show on July 18 of that year, before recording their first EP in the autumn with the session drummer Frank Noon after Kenning's departure.
With a drummer position available, a 15-year-old Rick Allen joined the band. In an interview he said how he found out about it in an advert in The Star.
Def Leppard performed a bunch of memorable gigs at Crookes Social Club, on Mulehouse Road, where there is now a plaque. They also performed at The Limit, a legendary lost nightclub on West Street, on the same bill as The Human League on September 11, 1978, it was Def Leppard’s third ever show.
Global success didn’t come immediately. Their first album, ‘On Through the Night’, released in 1980, reached the top 15 in the UK, and their follow-up, ‘High ‘n’ Dry’, made the top 30 in the UK and top 40 in the US.
In 1982, the guitarist Phil Collen replaced Pete Willis, who was fired from the band. This took place during the recording of Def Leppard’s third album, ‘Pyromania’, which was released on January 20, 1983.
The lead single from the album, ‘Photograph’, turned them into a household name – a song made even more famous for ousting Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ as MTV’s most requested video. Pyromania went on to sell six million copies that year, only beaten by Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.
A year later tragedy struck, in 1984, Allen lost his left arm in a car accident after crashing his Corvette Stingray on the A57 near Sheffield. Despite his arm being reattached, an infection meant that it would need to be amputated. The incident changed his life forever, leaving him with post-traumatic stress disorder, but his resilience ultimately helped him continue playing for the band.
After Allen’s return to performing, Def Leppard backed up the performance of Pyromania with their fourth album, Hysteria.
Released in 1987, Hysteria had hit songs like ‘Love Bites’ and ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’, it has since sold more than 30-million copies worldwide and is one of the best-selling albums ever.
With Pyromania and Hysteria, Def Leppard became the first ever band to sell 7-million or more copies of two consecutive albums in the US, something few bands have matched since.
Where are they now?
After achieving chart success the band moved to Ireland for a while, Joe Elliot now splits his time between Dublin and West Hollywood, while Savage resides in the pretty suburb of Dore.
Both Elliot, Savage and their bandmates remain the pride of Sheffield and, despite Elliott no longer living here, he has never forgotten his roots.
The singer has described the city as a ‘great place with great people’, back in May 2023, Def Leppard performed a spectacular homecoming gig before around 30,000 delirious fans at Bramall Lane, a few days after playing a much smaller show at the city’s legendary nightclub, The Leadmill.
Along with the likes of Pulp, the Arctic Monkeys, The Human League and many more big bands, they are a huge part of Sheffield’s musical heritage.
Last year, Def Leppard announced an upcoming UK and EU tour in June and July 2026, including what will be a knock out performance right here in Sheffield.