IT was once called the Greatest Hair Metal Song Ever, but rock fans probably don’t realize that Def Leppard’s inspiration for their hit “Rock of Ages” began with an unexpected inspiration–a Bible hymn.
It was forty-three years ago when the English rock band was inspired to do the staple’s famous chorus after a church group recorded it in their studio.
“Rock of Ages” peaked at No. 16 on Billboard and stayed on the charts for 15 weeks. It also inspired a Broadway musical and film adaptation in later years.
But long before it became a defining hit of the hair metal era, the song beloved by many was shaped by an unlikely source 43 years ago.
Def Leppard was recording the second single for their breakthrough LP Pyromania when lead singer and songwriter Joe Elliott found himself in a quandary. He didn’t have a chorus for the song that would eventually become their greatest hair metal hit.
According to Ultimate Classic Rock, the band was chugging through the album’s recording process when they came to a standstill. Despite a push from their producer Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange, there was no link to pull together the soon-to-be hard rock classic.
After the band exited the studio, a local church used it to record some vocals. They left a few of their hymn books behind. Then, inspiration hit.
“We came in the next day and there were a couple of hymn books left behind, and one of them was in the control room,” Elliott recalled.
“I remember picking it up and looking at it, and Mutt must have been playing the chorus. It went past and I looked at this thing, and I went, ‘How about this?’ I started singing “Rock of Ages” and he spins around in his chair, and whoever else was in the room went, ‘(Expletive] yeah! That’s great!’ So that’s how the chorus was born.”
One of the tune’s musicians then was Thomas Dolby, who had a 1982 hit with the song “She Blinded Me With Science” and he was credited under the pseudonym Booker T. Boffin so as not to confuse listeners.
The song was anchored by Lange’s now-iconic count-in for the band. He used a gibberish set of words to catch their attention and begin the recording process, “Gunter, gleiben, glauchen, globen.”
The hard rock smash would peak at No. 16 on the Billboard charts in August 1983 and would remain a chart staple for almost four months and from there, it inspired a hit Broadway musical of the same name in 2009 and was followed by a film adaptation that was created in 2012.
“Rock of Ages” was ranked No. 1 on the list of the 20 Greatest Hair Metal Anthems of All Time in 2015 by Louder.
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