They questioned his methods at first. They called him obsessive. But now almost everyone has copied a production trick from the Mutt Lange playbook at one time or another. Lange’s rock and pop productions changed everything.
Recording each note of an electric guitar chord separately then processing and mixing it for maximum effect? Lange was undoubtedly a radical, unquestionably fastidious. But he was ahead of the curve. His attention to detail gave Def Leppard the blockbuster sound they needed, and to this day, guitarist Phil Collen remains in awe of Lange, and not just for how he records a band. As a musician, no one can touch him.
“He’s always the best singer in the room,” says Collen, joining MusicRadar over Zoom from his home in Orange County. “Whoever’s in the room, he’ll come in, it’s all one take, different voices and everything, it’s incredible. He’s like this chameleon with this level of excellence that’s beyond anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s really cool.”
Latest Videos FromMusicRadar
Collen is joined by Tommy Henriksen of the Hollywood Vampires and Alice Cooper’s guitarist/MD. Collen has just guested on Thunder Love, the new single from Henriksen’s band, Crossbone Skully. Henriksen managed to coax Lange out semi-retirement to produce their debut, Evil World Machine, and has somehow got Lange to return for their sophomore album, Condemned To Rock N’ Roll. And he can’t believe his luck. Henriksen and Lange work remotely, sharing tracks over the internet and collaborating on FaceTime, and every day is a school day.
Henriksen describes a typical exchange with Lange: “He’s like, ‘We need to concentrate on the hi-hat.’ I was like, ‘Wow! okay.’ He would take my vocals, and I’d have all of these melodies, and it would just come back chopped. I’d be like, ‘What happened?’ He’s like, ‘Space, you need more space.’ Then he’s like, ‘Figure it out. Now try and tell the story with less words.’”
Henriksen did just that. When Lange gives him a note, he takes it as gospel. Whatever it takes to get the song done, even if it will require take after take.
We go back and we’d do – I’m not exaggerating – 60, 70 versions of the song, dude
Tommy Henriksen
“We go back and we’d do – I’m not exaggerating – 60, 70 versions of the song, dude,” says Henriksen. “And then he doesn’t even say, ‘We’re done.’ He just says, ‘Okay, carry on.’ So, it was never, like, ‘Great job, done!’”
When Henriksen records the band, he is trying to second-guess Lange, to make a recording that he would put his name to.
“I try. Every time I try to do a record I do my best Mutt Lange,” he says. “I go, ‘I think I got it this time.’ Never happens! So I send him it, and he’ll pick it apart, and then he’ll send it back to me, and he’ll be like, ‘Give it a go, tell me what you think. If you don’t like anything, just leave it.’ Everything that he changes, I listen to him, ‘cos everything that Mutt Lange does is always right. I don’t care what anybody says. Any time he changed something, I did it. Because it’s Mutt Lange.”
Lange is credited with many things in rock production. There’s that sense of space, exemplified best on his production jobs for AC/DC’s Highway To Hell and Back In Black, where the guitar seems to dance around the bass and snare drum in the mix.
He knows exactly where the vocal should land, too.
He gets you to do things that you would never, ever do – especially in the vocal department. Stuff that’s physically impossible for you, he makes you do it
Phil Collen
But there is an interpersonal aspect to producing records. Lange also knows his artists better than they know themself, and just how far he can push them. When recording Def Leppard’s 1987 magnum opus Hysteria, Lange pushed them all hard.
“It’s the most amazing thing – he gets you do things you can’t actually do,” says Collen. “The Pour Some Sugar On Me thing, on the chorus, you sing it, you go, ‘Pour some sugar on me!’ But he’s like, ‘No.’ He said, ‘You got to do that voice, that other voice we do.’ We call it Mr Shouty, and it hurts your throat, and it’s really not good. Singers will tell you, ‘Oh, don’t sing like that, that’ll mess you up. But Mutt’s going, ‘Yeah, you could do that.’”
What Lange can’t do is take no for an answer. Because he knows. Collen would protest but Lange would have an answer waiting for him.
Collen recalls: “I said, ‘I can’t hit that note properly!’ He said, ‘Yeah, you can. I’ve heard you do it today. You’ve done it earlier.’ I’m like, ‘Okay…’ So we’d done four tracks on that, and it’s the throat – ‘Pour some sugar on me!’ – it’s that…” Collen’s vocal demonstration is truly disturbing – the noise from his throat has Henriksen is doubled over in hysterics.
“All of that stuff, it actually comes out!” laughs Collen. “I wouldn’t normally have done that. He gets you to do things that you would never, ever do – especially in the vocal department. Stuff that’s physically impossible for you, he makes you do it. It’s very inspiring, I gotta say.”
Lange is just as exacting when it comes to directing guitar players in the studio.
“Same deal with guitar playing,” says Collen. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, you can do it. This is how it goes.’ I’m like, ‘Ehh…’ And you’ve got, like, one bar to do a shred part and that’s it!”
Def Leppard knew what they were doing. Having Mutt Lange in the studio, it would have been crazy not to get him involved with some backing vocals on 1983’s Pyromania and Hysteria. But Henriksen had to ask if Lange would sing on his record.
“It’s cool, because I got songs with him singing,” says Henriksen. “You hear the voice, you go, ‘Oh, my God, dude! It’s like, I said to Mutt, ‘We should be making a Mutt Lange solo record!’ It’d be so good. You hear his voice, and you just go, ‘Oh, my God!’ Because he can do anything. It’s crazy.”
“Anything,” says Collen. “And the cherry on the cake is he’s so humble. He will never say – like I would – ‘Yeah, check that out!’ He is the most humble person I’ve ever met. The most intelligent and talented. It’s crazy.”
It begs the question why Lange never fronted a band. He played in bands at school. He can play. He can write. He knows how to arrange a song and he can perform to. We’ve established he can produce. Why didn’t he play in a band or have his name in lights?
Collen can explain.
“That was never his thing,” says Collen. “He always said – even with interviews – he said, ‘Oh, I ain’t doing that.’ He said, ‘That’s what you’re for. You’re a rock star. You’re the band. That’s not me. I’m not that guy.’”
Everyone has their own idea of what creative fulfilment looks like. Henriksen and Collen come alive under stage lights. Lange is at his best in the control room, in front of the console, calling out the plays. “It was creating these masterpieces,” says Collen, who knows Lange better than most. Those Def Leppard production jobs were seminal. It has been said Hysteria was to do for hard rock what Thriller did for pop. It gave Collen a new perspective on what perfection might look like.
“With everything he does, he always has a level of excellence,” says Collen. “He won’t half-ass anything. It always has to be done to the full extent. So, sometimes it becomes difficult, but I love working with him. It was always totally inspirational, like totally, and you’d learn so much, and what’s cool and what’s not, and timing-wise and space.”
Again, it goes back to the recording of Pour Some Sugar On Me. Lange was more than happy to temporarily ruin Collen’s throat in the search for the perfect backing vocal, so of course he was going to tear his riff apart if it was going to step on that most precious of commodities in his rock arrangements, space.
“When we were first were writing the song, I had this riff that was kind of like a hip-hop thing,” says Collen. “But it was, like [hums riff]. He’s like, ‘No, you gotta have the snare drum poking through. You gotta have space, so chop that up. [hums riff] So, all a sudden, you go, ‘Ohhh, okay.’ It’s all about space, excitement, and context. He’s the best.”
We’ll all hear what Lange has done with Henriksen’s arrangements when Crossbone Skully’s Condemned To Rock N’ Roll drops on January 29, 2027, via earMUSIC. But that promo clip for Thunder Love offers some clues.
With Phil Collen playing the Jackson X-Stroyer that was modelled on his Ibanez Destroyer from the Photograph video, there’s more than a little of Lange’s Def Leppard circa ’83, Pyromania and all that.
In other Phil Collen news, Jackson recently unveiled the PC1-E, a Mexican-made Pro Plus version of his S-style signature guitar, complete with an active Sustainer/Driver, Collen’s DiMarzio pickups and a heavily distressed nitro finish.
