It was 1986, and Def Leppard was in Holland working on the album that would become Hysteria. Our manager, Peter Mensch, came over to the studio one day with a cassette and said, “I want you to hear this new band we just signed.” It was Tesla. I remember standing there with Phil Collen, listening, and we look at each other and agree they sound great! I remember thinking, Wow, they even remind me a little bit of us! Then the cassette ends, and it automatically begins playing the B-side. All of a sudden we’re hearing a board tape of an Alice Cooper show, and it sounds absolutely incredible. I mean, at that point we knew we would soon be looking for a sound engineer, and what made this Cooper show so incredible was that the vocals just sounded huge. And Kip Winger’s voice sounded like twenty people! We knew our new album would be a challenge to replicate live, and whoever that sound engineer was, well, we had a feeling he was our guy! So all of a sudden we go from, “Wow, Tesla’s great!” to “Who is the sound engineer?” and “We have to have him!”
Cut to 1987, and Tesla’s name came up as an opening act for us when we were getting ready to tour the UK and Ireland. We thought back to that cassette and thought, “Oh yeah, those guys are really good, yes! Great stuff!” Now, in this book you’re reading right now, Brian says that I ignored him on that tour. Bastard! For the record, I have no memory of that, but I will say I may have had my head up my ass at that point because we finally had a hit album in our own country. After ten years! That’s longer than the Beatles were together! So, yes, maybe I was not paying attention to everybody backstage with all the attention that was on us back then, but honestly, the main reason I hardly ever saw Tesla was because more often than not, when they were on stage playing we would just be arriving to the gig, and by the time we started playing, there were usually gone! It never occurred to me that there was a lack of bonding with Brian and his bandmates. But hey, this is Brian’s book, so I’m going to let his version stand as is!
But I do remember distinctly that our connection started right before the first gig on the American tour in October 1987. We were starting in Glens Falls, in upstate New York. We were staying in this chalet kind of ski resort hotel, and after we finished sound checking at the final rehearsal, we went back to the hotel. Tesla sound checked after us, and so they got back later. Brian was staying in the room next to me, and through the walls I could hear him playing all of these songs by The Beatles and Wings. Now, in Def Leppard, I’m the guy who’s truly the biggest McCartney fan, and as I learned that night, in Tesla, Brian Wheat is the guy who is absolutely the most McCartney-mad. So I knocked on the door to see if I could hang out, and in his room that night, singing songs from Ram, Red Rose Speedway, and other classic McCartney albums, we bonded over our love of all things Macca! Like me, he knew everything, from the bootlegs to the studio recordings and everything in between. That’s the night our friendship was really born. From that point on, we hung out whenever we could. And without fail, we would bust each other’s balls, just having fun and becoming friends. I remember one show in Toronto at a baseball stadium where we would be playing after the baseball game was over. Earlier in the day the stage was wheeled out onto the field where it would be later so we could do a sound check. Out there in that empty stadium I remember first racing model cars with Brian and then, after months of good-natured banter, we finally did a hundred-meter dash because he was convinced he would trounce me…wrong! Yes, it’s Wheaty’s book, but this truth stands!
For Brian and me, it’s more than music; it’s kinship. I know he thinks of me like his big brother, and that’s why we can poke fun at each other, and we do! I never had a little brother, so he’s my pretend little brother, and he takes the brunt of everything I never got to do to a real one. Having said that, though, Brian is somebody I have total respect for because he’s worked very hard for all he has and has contributed so much to why Tesla is still out there playing shows all these years later. Now, back in the ’90s when a lot of us struggled when music changed, he managed to keep both his head and band above water. He never gives up, and I give him lots of credit for that. While we can be very sarcastic with each other, we also trust each other. I have the kind of relationship with him where, if he’s down, I can be brutally honest with him, and he doesn’t fall out with me because of that. He trusts me because he knows I really care about him. That’s why he calls me up in the first place if he needs council. He knows he’s not going to get bullshit from me. I’m going to say, “Listen motherfucker, you need to take care of this, you have to have a really good think about what you just said and what it really means.” We’ve had so many conversations over the years where he would say to me, “I know, I know, I know, but—!” Then I would step in and say, “There’s no buts here!” Whether it involves his health issues or band matters, I’m always going to be forthright and honest with him because of how much I care about him. Brian has shared many dramatic incidents that have happened in this life with me because he knows they’ll be discussed with a lot of humor, love, and respect. He knows that no matter how brutally honest I might be, it’s coming from a good place because, again, I truly care about him. In a way it reminds me of how Def Leppard’s producer, Mutt Lange, was with me when I needed advice, and he always tried to help me. You learn from that. You pass that knowledge along when you make a friend that you care about.
Brian has written an open and very honest book that I think you will thoroughly enjoy. I’m proud of how he has dealt with a lot of the things he struggles with, but I’m equally proud of the great music he and his band have made over the years. Love you, man!
Joe Elliott
May 2020