Persevering Beat: How Rick Allen learned to drum again for Def Leppard.

In March 2026, Def Leppard finally land in India—Shillong (Mar 25), Mumbai (Mar 27), Bengaluru (Mar 29). Their biggest story, though, begins on New Year’s Eve 1984. Fresh off Pyromania and a rapid rise, drummer Rick Allen crashed on the A57 outside Sheffield and lost his left arm. Doctors briefly reattached it, then infection forced an amputation. He was 21, and the band were suddenly staring at the obvious question: how do you keep a machine like this moving?


Rock history has plenty of moments where a band swaps a member and moves on. Def Leppard did the opposite: they rebuilt the job. Allen committed to relearning the instrument through a new physical method. Engineers and manufacturers helped design a custom electronic setup—pads, triggers, and extra pedals—so rhythm could be distributed across one arm and both feet. The early versions were closer to a control station than a traditional kit: footwork handling voices that used to live in the left hand.

By 1986 he was back on stage, and soon after, back inside the studio grind that would become Hysteria. With Mutt Lange pushing for absolute precision, the songs demanded control, repeatability, and ruthless timing. Allen’s re-mapped technique emphasized consistency and structural precision, sitting perfectly inside the album’s stacked guitars and layered vocals. Rhythm stopped being “showy” and became the framework that held the whole illusion together.

Released in 1987, Hysteria turned into a slow-burn takeover: seven hit singles, a run to No. 1 in the US a year later, and a sound that pushed hard rock into pop-scale detail. It has since crossed 25 million copies worldwide—proof that meticulous craft can still feel huge. One of its biggest moments, “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” was written late in the process and still ended up powering the album’s final surge.

Decades on, Allen’s comeback remains the point. It reframed technology as a musical partner, not a shortcut, and set a new bar for what “returning to the band” can mean. If you’re getting ready for India, start with the records—check TRC’s Def Leppard collection