THE HYSTERIA ALBUM SOUND: MAKING HYSTERIA – CREATING HISTORY

Hysteria was (and still is) the ultimate modern people-friendly hard-rock album that Steve and co. sweated blood over to achieve what they had always hoped to achieve. It’s unique because to this day there is no other hard rock record that sounds anything like it or has been written, recorded, arranged and produced in such a way to my knowledge. It is a stand-alone record of it’s own kind that doesn’t really compare to anything else. The album was released in 1987 after being pieced together using the latest studio equipment and technical gadgets around at the time in the mid 1980’s. To this day it still sounds kind of state-of-the-art. It has a very distinct sound.

Whether you like it or not, it is a modern musical masterpiece.

The structure, composition and arrangement of the music is different to any other rock album I know of and this I believe, is primarily down to the musical genius and knowledge of Steve Clark and Robert  John ‘Mutt’ Lange’s studio wizardry. When you listen to the songs, it’s wonderful to try and pick out all the different guitar parts each time you listen. When Steve was asked once what the band’s approach to this album was musically, he replied with: “We approach things more like a classical orchestra…”

Hysteria is what is it because of Steve Clark… it was his idea to orchestrate the guitars which is why he answered the question above with the answer he gave. After Pyromania, Steve wanted to write the next album in a completely different way and create something that went to the next compositional level.

Steve Clark: “Before we even started recording Hysteria, we were very conscious that we wanted to approach the album differently, and eh, even though we wrote the songs, they were constructed on there [in] sort of a different way to how we recorded Pyromania so, it was intentional that.” ~ KNOP radio interview, Las Vegas, November 1987.

Steve Clark: “When Mutt [Lange] is in the studio with Def Leppard he almost becomes a member of the group, almost like what George Martin was to The Beatles. But all the ideas originally come from the group obviously. But Mutt will arrange them in a different way perhaps. It depends on what the song demands.” ~ Metal Machine magazine, 1988.

Phil Collen recalled in an interview with Rock Candy magazine in 2019 about working with Steve on Hysteria: “We also had this thing about making the two guitars different to what any other band did. This really came from Steve. He said, ‘Let’s make it orchestrated.’ We’d have melodies and counter melodies, so we had a goal, a plan.”

In a separate interview Collen did with Guitarist magazine in 2017 he explains: “Gods Of War had five different sections and hit every note on the fretboard. On the song Hysteria, there’s probably eight guitar parts going off at the same time on the chorus. Maybe even more. Not to be gratuitous, but to add something to it.” 

Each of the four albums that Steve Clark wrote on was a progression in his development as a musician and composer. For each one he wanted to bring something different or something new into the compositions. This is why he was the band’s main writer during his time. He had been classically trained as a young lad, learnt how to read and write music and understand music theory. This type of musical education only serves to enhance your creative output and allow you to be more experimental and more knowledgeable with how to create pieces of music. As one journalist put it in 1983, “it’s unheard of to find this sort of sophistication in such a young band.” Which is why between Steve Clark and the producer “Mutt” Lange you have what you have with Pyromania and Hysteria.

Phil Collen: “His [Steve Clark’s] whole thing was that he wasn’t a standard player. He’d come up with ideas that other guys wouldn’t do. Like the solo in the title track [Hysteria]. We actually both played that together live, at the same time, plugged into a Rockman each. But he came up with the whole melody and it almost reminded you of a Japanese garden. It had these weird note choices, really beautiful. The middle section of Pour Some Sugar On Me; Mutt said, ‘Do you remember that thing Steve was playing in the studio a year ago?’ We just pulled it up on one of the demos and played it into the song.”

Also from Phil Collen in 2004: “All of his [Steve’s] song writing things, really, just the way he done the versions of chords and stuff, it was not typical of all the other rock guitarists – it was defiantly unique to see. It was different things, it was very different. I have played with a lot of different guitar players, go and jam, there’s a certain amount of thing they all kinda blend in. But Steve had something that was different, and that was really cool. That you can really hear in the songs, especially, more then anything, Pyromania and Hysteria. I remember when I joined the band, I was like, they said go have a listen to this and learn this stuff. I was like WOW, I never heard anything like that.” ~ From a Q & A session with Brooks Guitar World, 2004.