Rick Allen
On November 1, 1963, drummer and musician Rick Allen was born!
(Photo: https://www.sonicperspectives.com/)
The story of Rick Allen is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most moving tales of heroism, determination and human triumph in the history of popular music. The man who joined the band "Def Leppard" as a 15-year-old prodigy and became the rhythmic engine behind its huge breakthrough, found himself at the age of 21 facing an unimaginable tragedy when he lost his left arm in a horrific car accident. But instead of resigning to fate and retiring, Allen reinvented the art of drumming, harnessed technology for the benefit of willpower, and returned to the stages and the studio to lead the band to the top of the world. Here are 35 interesting facts about the man who deservedly earned the nickname "The God of Thunder."
1. He was born with the full name Richard John Cyril Allen in the town of Dronfield in the county of Derbyshire in England, to his parents Geoffrey Allen and Kathleen Moore, not far from the industrial steel city of Sheffield, which became the melting pot of British rock in the late 1970s.
2. His connection to rhythm began when he was a toddler in his parents' house, when he used to drum with unceasing enthusiasm on tin biscuit tins and his mother's kitchen pots using wooden spoons.
3. At the age of nine, he began taking regular drum lessons, and at the age of ten, after much pleading, his parents bought him his first drum set, a used, simple "Del-Ray" set that cost only £60, on the condition that he pay half of the amount from his pocket money and the small jobs he performed.
4. After only six months of study, he played so well that he joined his first cover band called "Smokey Blue", and later also drummed in other local bands in the Sheffield and Derbyshire area such as "Grad", the band "Rampant" and the band "The Johnny Kalendar Band", in which he was much younger than all the other musicians.
5. In November 1978, shortly before he turned 15, his mother Kathleen noticed a small advertisement in the local Sheffield newspaper under the amusing headline "Leppard Loses Skins", in which a young rock band called "Def Leppard" was looking for a drummer to replace their original drummer, Tony Kenning, who had been fired just before they began recording.
6. It was Alan's mother who called the band's lead singer Joe Elliott and arranged an audition for her young son. When the band members discovered that the boy who came to the audition was only 15 years old and still attending school, they were skeptical, but once he sat down behind the drums and demonstrated extraordinary power, speed and accuracy, he was unanimously accepted on November 27, 1978.
7. Just two months after joining, in January 1979, Allen and his new friends entered Fairview Studios in Hull to record the legendary mini-album "The Def Leppard E.P.", which included three songs, including the early classic "Getcha Rocks Off." The album was independently distributed and catapulted their name across Britain after legendary radio host John Peel began playing it nonstop.
8. Following his rapid success and signing a prestigious recording contract with Phonogram, Alan, with his parents' blessing, made a courageous decision to leave high school at the age of just 15 and a half to devote himself entirely to his musical career, with his parents stating that they preferred him to pursue his dream rather than become another frustrated worker in the Sheffield steel mills.
9. Alan celebrated his 16th birthday, on November 1, 1979, on the stage of the famous Hammersmith Odeon in London, when "Def Leppard" served as the opening act for "AC/DC's" tour with legendary frontman Bon Scott, just three months before Scott's tragic death.
10. In March 1980, when he was only 16 years old, the band's debut album, "On Through the Night," was released, which catapulted the young group into the heart of the new wave of British heavy metal movement, known as "NWOBHM," and reached number 15 on the British Albums Chart.
11. The band's second studio album, "High 'n' Dry," released in July 1981, marked Allen's first collaboration with super-producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, a job that would change his professional life. Lange pushed Allen to the limit in the studio, demanding surgical precision on every snare and bass stroke, and making his drumming the central anchor on hits like "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" and "High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night)".
12. During the recording of the album "High 'n' Dry," an amusing incident occurred that became an internal legend in the band. After a wild night of drinking vodka with friends, young Allen vomited in his sleep on his bed, and since then the band members and stage crew have been given the humorous nickname "Bushead."
13. 1983 made Allen a global rock star on a massive scale with the release of his third album, "Pyromania," which sold over ten million copies in the United States alone and was certified diamond, thanks to huge hits like "Photograph", the song "Foolin'" and the stadium anthem "Rock of Ages".
14. In addition to his impressive drumming skills, Allen was also a co-writer on the album "Pyromania", and received writing credit on two notable tracks on the album, the song "Stagefright" which opens the album in a storm and the track "Comin' Under Fire".
15. During the massive world tour that accompanied "Pyromania," in which the band went from opening acts to playing to packed stadiums in the United States, Allen became a crowd favorite for his energetic playing style while wearing shorts bearing the British flag, aka the "Union Jack."
16. On the afternoon of December 31, 1984, New Year's Eve, 21-year-old Alan's life changed forever. While he was driving his black, left-hand drive Corvette on the A57 country road near Sheffield with his then-Dutch girlfriend Miriam Brandsen, the driver of an Alfa Romeo in front of him deliberately slowed down, preventing him from overtaking for miles.
17. Frustrated by the ongoing roadblock, Alan pressed the accelerator to overtake, but due to the left-hand drive position on the British road, he failed to notice a sharp left turn. The vehicle lost control at high speed, hit a dry stone wall and overturned several times into a nearby field.
18. During the fatal rollover, Allen was thrown out of the car through the sunroof, but the seatbelt, which had not been properly fastened, wrapped around his left arm and completely severed it from his body at the shoulder, leaving the arm inside the mangled car while his body was thrown into the field.
19. Fortunately for Alan, the first two people to stop at the scene of the accident seconds after the crash were an off-duty police officer and a local nurse who lived nearby, who administered life-saving first aid, stopped the massive bleeding, and kept his severed arm on ice until the ambulance arrived.
20. At the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, a team of surgeons led by Dr. David Page worked for long hours on a complex microsurgical operation to reattach Alan's left arm. In the first few days after the operation, it seemed like a miracle and blood flowed back to the hand, but a few days later a serious and life-threatening infection developed, forcing doctors to permanently amputate the arm.
21. When Alan woke up from the amputation surgery and realized he had lost his left arm, he sank into deep despair and depression, refused to see visitors except his parents and brother Robert, and was absolutely convinced that his musical career as a drummer was over forever.
22. The exciting turning point began thanks to his Def Leppard bandmates, vocalist Joe Elliott, bassist Rick Savage, and guitarists Steve Clark and Phil Collen, who immediately and unequivocally announced that they had no intention of ever looking for a replacement drummer, and that the band would wait for Allen for as long as necessary, with the understanding that they were first and foremost family brothers and only then a rock band.
23. Along with the band's support, Allen was inundated with hundreds of thousands of letters of encouragement from fans around the world, including letters from young people with disabilities and amputees telling him how they had overcome their injuries. While lying in his hospital bed listening to music on his headphones, he began drumming in the air with his feet, and suddenly realized that his left foot could perform the functions previously performed by his left hand.
24. The one who immediately mobilized to make this technological vision a reality was Dave Simmons, founder of the pioneering electronic drum company Simmons, along with electronics engineer Pete Hurley. They designed a revolutionary hybrid drum set specifically for Allen that included four electronic pedals for the left foot, which activated the sounds of the snare drum, hi-hat, bass drum and toms previously played with the left hand with the press of a foot.
25. Another key partner in Allen's musical rehabilitation was veteran Status Quo drummer Jeff Rich, who worked alongside Allen during months of grueling training, helped him design the ergonomics of the new system, and served as an additional backup drummer for the band's small, secret warm-up tour of clubs in Ireland in the summer of 1986.
26. One night during that preparatory tour in Ireland, Jeff Rich was late to take the stage for the start of the show, and Allen was forced to play the songs completely alone on stage. When the band members and the audience heard that the sound sounded full, powerful and complete without an additional drummer, Allen knew he was ready to return to performing alone as Def Leppard's sole drummer.
27. On August 16, 1986, one of the most moving and iconic moments in the history of world rock was recorded, when Allen took the stage at the "Monsters of Rock" festival at Castle Donington in England in front of about 70,000 excited spectators. When lead singer Joe Elliott introduced him to the audience, the roar of admiration and the tremendous applause that erupted from the audience caused Allen and the band members to cry on stage, and that day he was given the legendary nickname "The Thunder God" by fans and the media.
28. Exactly one year later, in August 1987, the band's masterpiece album, "Hysteria," was released, featuring Allen playing on an electronic drum kit and samples developed with producer Mutt Lange. The album became one of the best-selling albums of all time, selling over 25 million copies worldwide, and spawning seven chart-topping singles, including "Pour Some Sugar on Me", "Animal", "Love Bites" and the title track "Hysteria".
29. In later interviews, Allen admitted with surprising honesty that, ironically, shortly before the accident in 1984, he had felt burnout and lost some of his passion for drumming, and it was precisely the loss of his arm and the enormous challenge of learning to play again with one hand and two legs that made him a much better, more precise, attentive, and creative drummer than he had been with two hands.
30. In January 1991, the band experienced another severe tragedy when Allen's beloved guitarist and close friend, Steve Clark, passed away at the age of just 30. Allen and the rest of the band decided to continue together as a quartet and record the album "Adrenalize", which was released in 1992, immediately took first place on the American and British Billboard charts, and was dedicated to Clark's memory.
31. In 1996, on the band's sixth studio album, "Slang," Allen took another bold technical and artistic step when he returned to playing for the first time since the accident on a semi-acoustic drum kit combined with the electronic pedals on his left foot, which gave the album a livelier, more organic, and warmer drum sound that continued to accompany him in the following decades with custom Yamaha systems.
32. In 2001, Allen founded the Raven Drum Foundation with his second wife, musician and holistic healer Lauren Monroe, whom he married in 2003. The foundation helps veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, war wounded, and people who have gone through severe crises through therapeutic drumming, music, and art.
33. In addition to drumming, over the past decade Allen has become a successful and highly sought-after painter and pop artist, exhibiting his works in prestigious galleries across the United States. He paints with his right hand and even uses special colors and textures, and in 2018 he launched his famous "Legends Series" of paintings, which includes moving portraits of his late friend Steve Clark and music legends such as David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain and Tom Petty, with a significant portion of the proceeds donated to the rehabilitation of soldiers injured in combat.
34. An amazing trivia fact that few people know is related to Rick's older brother, Robert Allen, who was by his side in the hospital after the accident and previously served as Def Leppard's tour manager, and later became one of the most powerful people in the global music industry as the personal and close tour manager of superstar Taylor Swift, who even collaborated with Def Leppard on the joint television show CMT Crossroads in 2008.
35. Another interesting fact is that during the recordings of Metallica's 1985 album "Master of Puppets", Lars Ulrich was unhappy with the sound of his snare drum, so he asked to borrow the Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum that belonged to Rick Allen (the two bands shared the same management team at the time).
36. In March 2019, Allen had a historic moment of closure when he and his Def Leppard bandmates were inducted into the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame", in a moving ceremony in which Brian May of Queen presented them with the award, and in which Allen received a long standing ovation from all the rock stars in the hall. Also on the band's 12th studio album, "Diamond Star Halos," released in 2022, and on its global stadium tours, he continues to prove every night that there is no limit to the power of the human spirit.
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