Def Leppard: Record Label Didn’t Want ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’
Def Leppard's 1987 smash album Hysteria wielded seven hit singles, none of them bigger than "Pour Some Sugar on Me." The song went on to define an era, but if record executives got their way, the song never would've materialized in the first place.
The band sat down for an interview and performance session on The Howard Stern Show yesterday (March 26, video below) and, before playing "Pour Some Sugar on Me," they explained how the track was the last to be written for the album. "We had actually finished the album; Joe's sitting in the corridor singing and Mutt [Lange, producer] goes, 'What's that?'and he goes, 'I don't know' and 10 days later we had it finished and that was the last song on the album," guitarist Phil Collen recalled.
At that time, Joe Elliott only had one guitar part and the chorus vocal. "It was probably the quickest song we ever recorded," commented bassist Rick Savage as Collen had noted earlier that "Animal" took three years to complete.
"And Mutt says to you, 'I like that' and the album was almost done," Stern followed up as Elliott replied, "It was as far as we were concerned."
"I don't think the record company really wanted us to put it on the record," drummer Rick Allen revealed. Collen further explained that situation, continuing, "They didn't because we'd spent like three million dollars already and we were so in the hole and they were like 'You got to get this thing out, it's ridiculous.'" Elliott conceded that the band felt the same and they they needed to "just get on with it already."
In the end, Mutt Lange realized the potential and told the label he'd need two weeks for the band to get the song tracked. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" wound up being the third single to be released off of Hysteria.
See Def Leppard's Hysteria in the 20 Best Selling Hard Rock + Metal Albums in the U.S.