Rick Allen carefully studies his hands, which are blistered already, just a few days into Def Leppard’s tour with Billy Squier. “Yeah, I’ve often thought about it,” he says, examining one especially calloused finger, “how playing the drums has totally changed my life.” Were Allen not the drummer for the British hard rock band, he probably would have ended up like so many inhabitants of Sheffield, an industrial city known for its steel production. If you don’t escape, your future is pretty well defined: You leave school and go to work in the steel mills, bring home your pay, and holiday once a year in neighboring Blackpool. Allen, an affable type with curly blond hair and contagious enthusiasm, shudders at the thought. “I think that’d be soul-destroying, working in a steel mill,” he says in a thick accent. “You see, I’ve never had a so called ‘normal’ job; I’ve never […]

November 1983 Issue