The Case of Joe Elliot’s Missing Balls

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Confidential Case Report

The office of Dirk Spenser – Rock Detective

Case: Joe Elliot’s Missing Balls
Case Number: 8-02-OICU812

Case Summery:
The trouble started when Canadian sominex rocker Bryan Adams filed an official complaint with the Canadian Royal Mounted Police that a theft had occurred. A short time later, London Police received a complaint from pop singer Michael Bolton. Both claimed that their music and in fact their entire act had been stolen by a group that call themselves Def Leppard. 

After reading the official complaint lodged against Def Leppard and their lead singer Joe Elliot, as well as listening to the evidence, namely Def Leppard’s new CD titled “X” it became clear that both Adams and Bolton had a reason to suspect that they had been ripped off. When interviewed by British authorities Bolton was said to have become hysterical, ranting. “First that bastard Joe Elliot stole my beautiful mullet and now he has taken my whole act! That music was meant for my comeback album and Joe Elliot stole it!” I later discovered that a “mullet” was a style of haircut popular mostly in the southern United States; they are most commonly spotted among 20-something men behind the wheel of 70’s era Camaro’s and Trans Am’s. Once I was on the case, the first thing I did was look at photographs of Bolton and compared it to a press photo of Def Leppard from 1987 and discovered that Elliot’s haircut was in fact very similar to Michael Bolton’s. 

After receiving the initial complaint from Bolton, British Authorities called on Def Leppard frontman, Joe Elliot to conduct an interrogation. The police report had several areas deemed classified and they were not furnished to me but I gathered from conversations with the detectives involved that when asked about Bolton’s accusations, Joe Elliot responded, “I admit to taking the haircut but I haven’t used it years since I stole Simon LeBon’s look. I didn’t steal Michael Bolton’s songs or his act, what happened is I lost my bloody balls!” 

During a grueling four hours of interrogation the entire story came out. Elliot reportedly told the investigators that he had lost his remaining ball sometime in late 1999. Apparently, Elliot lost his first ball in a freak accident in a recording studio in the mid 80’s while preparing music for Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” album. 

Elliot was unsure what happened to his remaining ball. He suspected it was stolen and named his manager as the prime suspect. Apparently, the group’s manager had been trying to get the musicians to make music that would appeal to Celine Dion fans, since younger listeners didn’t seem to care for Def Leppard and their core fanbase had reached the prime adult contemporary demographic age of early to mid 30’s. 

Scotland Yard was called in on the case to help perform a nationwide search for Elliot’s balls. Scotland Yard investigators scoured the British Isle in search of Elliot missing body parts and were having no luck. That is where I came into the picture. Scotland Yard Chief Inspector, Sir Seymour Babbish, hired me to help investigate the case since I had previous experience in researching a pop singer’s lost private parts. 

A few years ago I was hired to search for Goo Goo Dolls vocalist Johnny Rzeznik’s missing balls by the band's bassist Robbie. Rzeznik had apparently lost them when his group had an unexpected hit with a ballad song called, “name”. I was not able to locate Rzeznik’s missing balls or pin the theft on my prime suspect the RIAA but I was the only private investigator experienced in researching testicle larceny, so Scotland Yard had no option but to call upon me to aid in their investigation. 

The first thing I did once I was on the case was fly to the UK to interview possible suspects in the theft. While I had a few promising leads including prime suspects from the band’s record company and record producers Andreas Carlsson and Per Aldeheim. I was able to clear all of them with my master sleuth work. I did however have one rather interesting interview with an individual who claimed to be a former bandmate of Elliot’s. 

I was following a lead and tracked down an individual in a seedy London pub who claimed to be Pete Willis, former guitarist and founding member of Def Leppard. I was never able to verify if this man was indeed Willis or a delusional imposter. When I mentioned the names Joe Elliot and Def Leppard the man grew agitated and shouted out, “bloody wankers, the lot of them!” When I related the story of Elliot’s missing balls, the man gave out a hearty laugh and exclaimed, “I knew it!” 

“That used to be my band! And we rocked hard, when I was writing the music we rocked but then they replaced me with that wanker Phil who had been in a bloody glam rock group called ‘girl’! GIRL! I said!” said the angry man. “When they no longer had me to write the rock songs they became a bloody pop group! It angers me, I mean how in the bloody hell do you go from a song like “Saturday Night” to a wanker song like “Pour Some Bloody Sugar on Me?!?” 

“They said I had to go because I drank too much, but I think they really wanted me out so they could become a bloody pop group!” he yelled, drawing dirty looks from the other patrons of the pub. “I mean those wankers let my mate Steve drink himself to death, didn’t they! They didn’t seem to mind him having a few pints to unwind at the end of the day. But they fired me and I know why, they wanted to be a sodding pop group and I wouldn’t let them. If there is an afterlife and Steve hears the rubbish they are playing now, I know he is spinning in his grave as I speak!” 

He then told me of an experience he had the previous day. After fortifying himself with a fifth of whiskey, he set out to attend a record signing party at a record store and confront his former bandmates. When he arrived at the store the band had not yet shown up but there was a line of about a dozen overweigh women in their early to mid thirties wearing ill fitting spandex and Def Leppard t-shirts. The man who claimed to be Willis told me that he approached these women and told them that he had been the original guitarist for the band. One women, who wore a puzzled look on her face said, “No, you can’t be. The original guitarist is dead and Phil Collin is still in Def Leppard.” This angered the man to no end and he shouted at the women, “Phil, bloody, Collin? I was in the band before that wanker! Go look at the first three albums, that’s me in the credits love!” The women shook her head and said, “Wait I have the first Def Leppard album here”. She pulled out an LP copy of “Hysteria” and showed the man the band credits. He screamed at her, “This isn’t the first bloody album! That’s the sodding pop album they made after I left the group!” The women had a look of surprise on her face and asked, “They had albums out before ‘Hysteria’?”

After relating the story to me, he reached into his coat pocket and took out a photograph that showed a headstone from a Sheffield area cemetery. The inscription read simple:

He then got a serious look on his face and said, “You won’t have any luck finding Joe’s balls mate, he may tell you different but that wanker lost his balls a long time ago.” 

I then left the shabby little pub and returned to my hotel room to look over the evidence I had gathered so far. I first listened to the group’s CDs in chronological order and when I was done I had to admit that the man who called himself Pete Willis may have had a point. I suspected that I would have a hard time finding Elliot’s balls because the trail would be too cold to follow. By deducting from the progression of the music to softer and softer rock, it appears that, although Def Leppard’s new album is by far the softest and the most pop orientated they have ever recorded, that trend appeared first in 1987 with the release of “Hysteria” and since then the group’s decline into a pop music abyss of insipidness had accelerated at an astonishing rate. Previous to that they had been a hard rocking group but after 1987 something dramatic happened and I concluded that maybe the man who called himself Pete Willis was correct, perhaps Joe Elliot really did lose both of his balls all those years ago, and only now with the group’s new album had effect of the loss been fully realized. But Elliot’s story of losing his individual balls at separate times also had merit, when you listen to how wimpy Def Leppard’s new album is, even compared to their last few “pop” albums, the loss of his remaining ball would explain the recent change. 

At this point, I had to call off my investigation because it was at a dead end. The mystery still remains of what became of Joe Elliot’s balls. We may never know, but it is apparent from listening to Def Leppard’s early music and comparing it to their new CD, someone had indeed lost their balls along the way! 

Click here to listen to the audio evidence of Def Leppard's lack of balls on their new album "X"

Fan Speak - Your Turn, What do you think?

Fan Speak:

Posted by Katie Elizabeth Shaver:
I think that Joe Elliott
shouldn't get fired from
the band because he is the greatest singer that
they ever have.

Posted by Universal Records Exec
What really happened was back when the band was preparing to write music for Hysteria we told them they had to make a pop record because the mainstream fans wanted it due to the absence of new material from Duran Duran we had found that our experiment with Bon Jovi going pop worked very well and generated a lot of cash. The band readily agreed because they didn't really care about the music they just wanted to make more money to pay for all of their alcohol and they had seen the large number of groupies at Bon Jovi and Poison concerts and thought that was more important than pleasing their old rock fans. Now when it came time to record the new CD we noticed that the large fan base of Michael Bolton fans were not being serviced so we suggested they hire the Backstreet Boys songswriters and try to tap into that market. We were disappointed in the first week sales of 76,000 and it appears this gamble didn't pay off. We are working on giving away copies of the CD with the purchase of every new minivan, the soccer moms should love this new material. You shouldn't fault the band personally, this is how the game is played. Ture they could have kept their integrity but that doesn't sell records to new fans and you must milk the current demographics if you wish to succeed. We already counciling them on the follow up CD which will be rap-rock.

Posted by Mr Webster
FYI - The next edition of websters will include a photo of Def Leppard under the definition of sell out.

Posted by Angus Young
How dare you compare our real rock to this chick music! But I will say it's nice to see Def Leppards 3 or 4 fans stick up for them.

Posted by Air Supply:
That wasn't funny Dirk Spenser we are much heavier then the new Def Leppard.