Joe Elliott Says Def Leppard Would ‘Politely Refuse’ Rock Hall Induction
For something that's supposed to be a huge honor, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction sure does get a lot of artists riled up.
You can now add Def Leppard to the list of acts that say they aren't interested in being enshrined in Cleveland — at least according to singer Joe Elliott, who suggested during a recent appearance on Huffington Post Live that if they're ever given the opportunity, the band will turn it down.
As you can see in the clip above, Elliott shrugs off the Hall of Fame as "nice but not that important," and went on to explain that in his eyes, the only thing that really matters is what the fans think — and that since fans aren't really involved in deciding who gets in, the whole thing is really sort of meaningless.
Saying the "biggest compliment" he's ever received was Def Leppard's first platinum album, Elliott continued, "It's a representation of one million people who've bought your album, and those million mean a lot more to me than some people that decide whether you fit for the Hall of Fame. In fact, we've kind of all decided that even if we get asked we're just going to — how can I put this? — politely refuse, like the Sex Pistols did. Unless there was some sort of online campaign by our fans 'cause they were annoyed with us."
As we recalled in our piece on artists who have refused their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, the Pistols were less than polite when they turned down the Hall, calling it a "piss stain" and sneering, "We’re not your monkeys, we’re not coming. You’re not paying attention." Somehow we can't see those nice boys in Def Leppard being quite as harsh, but the message is clear: They'd rather be playing to the fans than applauding at a banquet table.
Seems pretty reasonable to us, and anyway, the band has already been inducted into the Ultimate Classic Rock Hall of Fame — and that is 100 percent reader-voted.
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