Iron Maiden: Adrian Smith and the audition for Def Leppard

After the tragic death of guitarist Steve Clark in 1991, Def Leppard was trying to move forward by looking for a new musician as a bandmate. Among those who auditioned for a place in the “Pour some sugar on me” group, there was also Adrian Smith. The guitarist, who already joined Iron Maiden between 1980 and 1990, before returning in 1999, recently spoke about his audition for the Sheffield band, which however was unsuccessful.

After taking a break from Def Leppard to address his alcohol addiction at the end of the “Hysteria World Tour”, Steve Clark died at his home in London on 8 January 1991 from a combination of prescription drugs and alcohol. Smith was one of five guitarists invited to audition while the band searched for a replacement. A recent guest on the “Metal Journal” podcast, Adrian Smith, said: “Phil Collen and photographer Ross Halfin called me and said, ‘Would you like to come here?’ I replied, ‘Yes.’ So I went to Los Angeles. I played with them for a couple of days, sat down with Phil and went through some songs.” Continuing his story, Smith added, “It sounded good. And they’re a great group of people. But it didn’t work out, so… Plus my album ‘Psycho Hotel’ was coming out right around that time, so I was a little on the fence. But who knows?! It was worth a try. They did fine without me.”

A couple of years ago, Phil Collen had already talked about Adrian Smith’s audition for Def Leppard in an interview with “Eonmusic”, revealing why the former Dio and Whitesnake guitarist, Vivian Campbell, established himself as the group’s first choice to replace Clark. “We invited five people we knew, five friends,” Collen said: “And Vivian fit right in; it was like fate. But Adrian is still fantastic, he’s a great singer. It was one of the other things we were looking for: the ability to sing. And there were other people too. We played with John Sykes, who was also an incredible musician, an extraordinary singer. But Vivian’s voice was incredible. And, beyond that, it fit perfectly with the style of what we were doing.”