Def Leppard lead vocalist Joe Elliot called Mutt, "the greatest producer on earth"! His Hysteria and Pyromania releases were smash hits. He even co-wrote song for other Leppard releases that he didn't produce.

One day toward the end of recording Hysteria, producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange left the control room for a few minutes and Def Leppard singer Joe Elliot picked up a guitar and began, he says, "farting around". Nothing unusual about that except that Lange happened to return in time to overhear some of Elliot's 'noodlings'. He said to me "What the hell are you playing?" Elliot reminisces in his adenoidal Sheffield accent, "That's the best 'f---ing' 'ook I've heard in five years"! That 'ook (hook) became the chorus to Pour Some Sugar On Me, the good-times, top-down, sing-along anthem that eventually propelled Hysteria from the decent follow-up to blockbuster royalty. "It became the most important song on the record" says Elliot. "And it was done almost by accident. Had he not gone for a piss..."

Moui (Prodigy Member): "WAS there any one band or rock person who influenced your band when you got started?"

Phil Collen (Speaker): "Not just one- there are many differant elements - Mutt Lange was probably it though."

Joe Elliott, 1983: "Our producer, Mutt Lange, is perfect for us. He doesn't accept what we do and say, 'OK that's great.' He's always pushing us and challenging us. We like to think that we push ourselves, but having someone like Mutt, who you know is going to always give you an honest opinion, is an invaluable help. He's helped make Def Leppard the band it is today."(thanks to Jack -zephyr 102)

Bit from an interview:

Q : This is for Joe: you were quoted in Metal Hammer as saying that Mutt Lange wanted Def Leppard to write "happy" songs. If that kind of restraint hadn't been in place, do you think Slang, or some incarnation thereof, might have occurred prior to 1996?

Joe: The point I was trying to put across was that lyrically, negativity wasn't in Mutt's vocabulary. But, on this album, having not worked with Mutt we took upon ourselves to acknowledge that not all things in life are positive, so we wanted to write about things of a negative nature, because that is mostly what life is like. (thanks to Jack -zephyr 102)

Phil Collen on "Hysteria":

Our most popular album to date. It was Mutt's idea to make a rock version of "Thriller" - rock songs that were hit singles. We were fortunate enough to have seven strong singles from this record, Mutt Lange was very influential here. We seemed to be making a video every few weeks. We were in the top ten all over the world at one time or another. (thanks to Jack -zephyr 102)