Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott has explained he had to make the difficult decision to cut short a concert because he risked damaging his vocal cords if he’d kept singing.
Fans were left bewildered when Def Lep failed to reappear for their usual encore at Saratoga Springs, New York, earlier this week. Now Elliott has spoken out in an attempt to halt the rumour mill going into overdrive. He says: “After the Boston gig, the first show on the tour where it was actually cold, I caught a hacking cough which just ripped the hell out of my voice.
“Despite all the usual stuff singers do such as lemon tea and steam, it wasn’t going to heal overnight. But I thought, with sufficient rest and plenty of warming up, I might manage to do the show in Saratoga Springs.
“I was ploughing through it as best I could, but by the time we got to Photograph there was barely anything left in the tank and it was starting to hurt. After struggling through Sugar I had to make a decision: do the encore and risk so much damage that we might have to cancel shows, or blow out one song?”
Elliott chose the latter move, then sought medical advice the following day. He was given cortisone injections which cleared up his cough, and says the next show in Bangor, Maine, “was a big improvement, albeit challenging.”
He adds: “In most occupations a cough doesn’t really affect your ability to work – not so for people who use their voice for a living! I’ve had a couple of tough gigs. It’s happened before and no doubt it’ll happen again. Thank you to all of you who have publicly and privately supported me.”
Meanwhile, Papa Roach were forced to cancel a show this week as a result of frontman Jacoby Shaddix’s continuing voice issues. He recently explained: “I have a node forming – it’s like a callus on my vocal cord, and it’s fucking with my top range. I’ve been pretty bummed out. I took some steroids and that’ll help the swelling. But if it doesn’t get better, it’s one of those things where you have to get surgery and do the whole thing.”
Source: www.classicrockmagazine.com
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