Phil Collen spoke about the family emergency that had him briefly step away from Def Leppard‘s summer tour with Journey. During an interview with Westwood One he revealed that his wife Helen had actually flat-lined while giving birth to their newborn son Jackson: “She actually died and they brought her back to life. (There was) internal bleeding and just craziness… So I was actually on tour and when this happened. I obviously had to go to California (to be with her).”
He shed light on how he came to call on Trixter guitarist Steve Brown, who had previously stepped in for bandmate Viv Campbell when he was battling cancer: “I said, ‘Steve, I know you know Viv’s parts’ — He sings great; he can do all of this stuff. So he learned my parts, and my vocal parts, which is more serious than the guitar parts, I think. In our band, we have backing vocals — it’s an instrument. . . So it was a no-brainer. And I said, ‘Can you step in for me?’ Everyone was cool; they said, ‘Go.’ I went, and everything was fine.”
