10 Greatest Rock Bands With Two Guitar Players

When Def Leppard first broke onto the scene, there was a lot more edge in their sound than just your average hard rock outfit. Before the Sunset Strip gave birth to hair metal, Leppard were actually being mentioned alongside the likes of Iron Maiden and Scorpions as the new evolution of what metal had to offer. Once they got some more experience under their belt, the introduction of Phil Collen made for just the right combination with Steve Clark.

Though Pete Willis may have been a fine rhythm guitar player at the time, Phil's attention to detail on songs off of Pyromania are almost eerily precise, being much more of a technician behind the fretboard most of the time. On the other side of the stage though, Steve was always aggressive with his guitar playing, being just as influenced by the world of punk as he was from classic rock and always finding ways to twist his sound into something different. What we ended up with was Johnny Thunders by way of Eddie Van Halen, having one guy who could shred and the other having more attitude in his playing.

That's not to say that they couldn't learn from each other either, like the more simplistic solos that Phil would write on Rock of Ages and Steve being much more detailed both live and onstage like on the track Gods of War. They may have gotten lumped in with the thousands of hair metal bands that came out just around the same time, but Def Leppard could probably play circles around anything that Motley Crue could think of.