Joe Elliott and Taylor Swift once sang together, but Elliott’s kids didn’t believe it until they saw the clip.
In an interview with Rock City, the rocker recalled working with Swift. He referred to the event as ‘strange’ and recalled his children’s reaction when he first told them about it:
“It’s a strange thing. My kids, who are 14, 7 and 4, have never seen me with Taylor Swift. And I’ve told them. They didn’t believe me. [Laughs] Because my kids are Swifties. And they didn’t believe that daddy had sung with Taylor Swift. So I had to pull the DVD out and put it on. And they were just like this. [Opens his mouth wide]”
16 years later, the rocker could have never imagined Swift would gain such popularity:
“Who knew how big she was gonna be? She was popular then, but now she’s in a different stratosphere to what she’s ever been in before, or most other artists have ever been in. So, we can always look back on that and go, ‘Hey, Def Leppard, little old Def Leppard, once got to play with Taylor Swift.’”
How Swift And Elliott Came Together For A Show
Elliott teamed up with Swift 16 years ago for an episode of CMT’s ‘Crossroads.’ Back then, Swift was just starting her music career with country songs.
The rocker talked about Def Leppard teaming up with Swift in a 2018 chat with Rolling Stone magazine. The frontman explained how it all started and who offered to work as partners first:
“The whole thing came together because somebody walked into our dressing room with a laptop… He goes, ‘It’s Taylor Swift, she’s doing this interview, and she said there was only band that she would ever do a ‘Crossroads’ with, and it was Def Leppard.’ We went, ‘Wow, okay, get in touch with her, see what she thinks.’ Lo and behold, couple of months go by and, all of a sudden, we’re doing this show.”
Elliott said there were some ‘risqué’ parts that Swift didn’t want to sing, but they eventually figured out what to do:
“There were a couple of moments where we sat down, me and Taylor sat down, and she says, ‘I can’t sing that line,’ ’cause it was a bit too risqué, in [‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’]. So we’d swap things around. And the fact that I was actually singing from the male point of view in some of her stuff, like in ‘Love Story.’”
He added:
“As you say, I’m not going to sing something and half-ass it. I’m going to give it my all. Because it doesn’t matter. It’s a one off project and you’ve got to sell yourself in the right light. It makes no difference to me whether it’s a Ramones song or a Taylor Swift. I’m gonna do it the best I can.”
You can watch the interview below.