Def Leppard will re-record a portion of hits from their back catalogue, no easy feat, to prevent Universal from doing anything with their current catalogue.
Billboard.com reports that all is not well with the relationship between Universal and the band over compensation for royalties and digital downloads in particular. Frontman Joe Elliott has stated that Def Leppard have "wrestled control of our career back".
The band has already re-recorded "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and "Rock of Ages", but 25 songs seems like a big ask. Especially when you think about aging voices and changes to the way music is recorded. Elliot admits it won't be easy, "Trying to find all those sounds . . . like, where am I gonna find a 22-year-old voice?" Elliott added. "I had to sing myself into a certain throat shape to be able to sing that way again. It was really hard work, but it was challenging, and we did have a good laugh over it here and there."
And where does Universal stand? Elliot tells Billboard "Our contract is such that they can't do anything with our music without our permission, not a thing. So we just sent them a letter saying;
''No matter what you want, you are going to get "no" as an answer, so don't ask.' That's the way we've left it. We'll just replace our back catalog with brand new, exact same versions of what we did."
