Rick Allen quotes:

I think my perception of my own life is different and the fact that Lauren and myself are together. I've never felt this free or happy and so that permeates onto my onstage persona and to my working environment.

Chasing the sensation. Whether it was drugs or sex or whatever. Those things had become my main focus in life.

Thinking about what songs are coming next instead of just relaxing, breathing and playing from my heart. Sometimes it can get to be almost like the enemy.

I was happy in Dublin because it is very cosmopolitan.

Some people say that practice makes perfect but I just feel that the repetition works against me and I start thinking too far ahead during a show.

But the irony is that because the band isn't the focus any more, it allows me the chance to enjoy being a member of Def Leppard much more.

I really don't feel any strong allegiance to any country.

My situation should have been a lot worse. By rights I shouldn't have survived the crash.

I prefer the rather old and battered, things with character, to the brand new.

I have never been one for the over-the-top.

But unfortunately, in my unrelenting drive to get back on that drum stool, the major casualty in all of it was that I really forgot about me.

Cause I felt I didn't have anything else to prove as a musician... and boy was I wrong about that one.

America feels like home as much as it does here. Although it's a strange situation as I feel almost like I'm in no-man's land some of the time, because although I'm a resident, I still can't vote so I don't really have a say in what goes on where I live.

At the end of the day, they're happy if you do the obvious songs towards the end of the set and you've got to try and make yourself happy by doing certain songs at the front end of the set.

But it's funny that now I'm in such a happy situation, I look more objectively at my own past and see what others have seen for a long time and I'm just so glad I've been able to get to this point.

Before my accident I was a little too... selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed.

We're probably doing better business than we thought we would do especially considering the disappointing way the record company has handled the album.

I think all of those things, but certainly the booze really brought out the really unreasonable side of me, and I just didn't want to revisit that place again.

If we had loads of money as a family, things would be different and they'd come to visit more and I'd get to spend more time here. But I'm laying down roots in America so when I'm there, just being at home, it's harder to break away from that.

I wanted to be as far away from everybody as I could be. I found it difficult to be close to anybody, not just the guys in the band.

And more importantly, I wouldn't be the person I am today, I wouldn't be where I am now and I may not even have been here if it wasn't for the accident.

Just the same way I'd say a prayer before going onstage, taking that even further and using the drum to inspire people. And using that as a vehicle for the intention.

And more importantly, I wouldnt be the person I am today, I wouldnt be where I am now and I may not even have been here if it wasnt for the accident.

If I couldn't play drums it would have destroyed me. If you're thrown in the deep end you swim, and that's basically what I did. I had to do it and with the rest of the band behind me and the encouragement I got from people from all over the world, I knew that I was going to play