DEF LEPPARD Guitarist: MARIAH CAREY's Cover Of 'Heartbreak' Was 'A Huge Compliment'

DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen has told the Montreal Gazette that he's all for MARIAH CAREY's recent revival of the group's "Bringin' On The Heartbreak" (from 1981's "High 'n' Dry") — a cover some fans have considered an act of high treason.

"You get e-mails from fans, and they go, 'It's disgusting, it's terrible,'" he said. "I said, 'No — you've got to realize that she's on our side. Someone's actually out there promoting one of our songs. You should give her all the help she can get.'

"Ultimately, it's just a great honor for us (if) anyone does that — and does a real genuine version, not recording the song and making fun of the band, like the Michael Jackson thing by ALIEN ANT FARM ('Smooth Criminal'). With Mariah it was a genuine version of our song. I actually think that's a huge compliment."

Collen also said that after spending the '90s waiting for the '90s to be over, the band have finally attained respected elder-statesmen status among the new wave of hard-rock groups.

"We just did a festival the other week with GODSMACK and POWERMAN 5000 and all these bands," he explained. "We went down so well — and not just (with) the audience, but all the other bands that were there. They actually came in and shook our hands one guy said, 'You guys are men among boys.' It was really nice to get that back.

"During the '90s that wasn't the case. The reason that the whole alternative scene even started was because of bands — I don't want to say like us, because they weren't. ... These kind of crappy, big-hair bands that had these awful ballads. We didn't really want to be associated with them, but we were." Read more.