WCSX Classic Cuts : Love Bites

WCSX Classic Cuts

Def Leppard: "Love Bites"

The Hook: Phil Collen's mum cried the first time she heard it, and it didn't even have Joe Elliott's final vocal on it.

Album: Hysteria

Year: 1987

Writers: Joe Elliott, Steve Clark, Phil Collen, Rick Savage and Robert John "Mutt" Lange

Stats: Topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week and remains the band's only number-one single to date..

Background: Guitarist Phil Collen remembers that even before the final vocal went on, "Love Bites" had something people responded to. He also recalls Joe Elliott wasn't the only one to lay down a lead vocal track on "Love Bites." Producer Mutt Lange was actually the first to do it.

Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen on producer Mutt Lange singing lead on early versions of “Love Bites.” OC:…number-one single. :26

"Mutt's got the most amazing voice. He kinda sounds like Don Henley. And he sings on all our stuff anyway. You hear him on Bryan Adams, the Shania Twain stuff, you hear his voice. AC/DC, Back In Black, you hear him all the time popping up. It's great when he gets to do a vocal. Anyway, he'd done a guide vocal & it was killer. I remember I played the first version that Joe done, he'd just done a guide on it, my mum started crying. I said, "What?" She said, "Oh, it's so lovely." And I thought, ‘Wow, that's weird.’ And it was our only number-one single.”