The Thunder God

Def Leppard’s one-armed drummer

Eleanor Rager
Jul 20, 2017 · 4 min read
Rick Allen

August 16, 1986. Rick Allen was in his dressing room preparing for his comeback performance at Monsters of Rock. A million thoughts rush through his head as he realizes that he is about to do something that had never been done before.

Will I be able to do this? How will the audience respond? How will the other bands react?

Twenty months before this moment on December 31, 1984, Rick Allen was enjoying a beautiful, albeit, unseasonably warm New Year’s Eve drive to Sheffield with his then girlfriend, Miriam Barendsen. Rick was cruising pretty fast in his sleek, black 1984 Corvette Stingray and decided to try and pass the car in front. Rick Allen, who was driving an American left-sided car on an English left-sided road, misjudged how quickly he was coming up on a left-hand turn and lost control of the vehicle. The Stingray slammed into a brick wall and started to flip. Rick Allen was thrown through the open sunroof due to a faulty seatbelt. His arm remained in the car. The car flipped multiple times before landing on its head and just as quickly as the accident started, it was over.

Luckily, there were some women nearby that witnessed the entire scene and called emergency responders. The women also, in an attempt to save Rick’s arm, put his left arm in a bucket of ice so that it may potentially be reattached later.

Rick Allen was rushed to the hospital and the doctors reattached his arm. He was in the hospital for two days before his body rejected the reattachment and his arm was officially amputated.

“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.” -Rick Allen

Rick Allen began drumming when he was nine years old. Rick dropped out of school when he was fifteen so that he could pursue his music and by the time he turned sixteen, Rick was performing with Def Leppard as a support act for AC/DC. How could he possibly give up drumming after it had been such an integral part of his life for so long?

Just three months after his accident, Rick Allen began practicing for his return to the band.

A few of his friends stop by his dressing room to offer him some words of encouragement and then it is time for his band, Def Leppard, to take the stage. Rick Allen thinks about how supportive the other members of his band were during his road to recovery and how he had to create a brand-new drum set to use. This custom drum set was electric and Allen would be able to us his foot to trigger the sounds that his left arm used to be able to play. Rick Allen was the only drummer at the time using this sort of instrument.

The custom made drum set.

Everything that he had worked towards since his accident was reaching a head at this moment on the stage at Monsters of Rock. If only he knew that the next year the band would come out with “Hysteria”, the most successful and popular album they would ever produce and that he would be named the 7th best drummer of all time. However, even after his return, Rick would have to struggle to get back to the mind-set that he once had.

In August 1996, Rick Allen was arrested and sentenced to a 12-week alcohol’s anonymous course along with public service.

“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.”

Allen Eventually gave up drinking totally in an attempt to get his life back on track and he often sites his decision to stop drinking as the best one he’s ever made.

Later on in his life, Rick Allen would tell ABC news

“I didn’t know what my life would be like after that terrible day. It was the darkest time in my life.”

in an interview about the day that he lost his arm. He worked to channel this fear and uncertainty into something that he could use to help people. In 2001, Rick Allen founded the Raven Drum Foundation. This is an organization dedicated to help teach, assist, and encourage veterans so that they may find their passion again too.

“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. -Rick Allen

Rick Allen’s epic drum solo from Nottingham arena

Rick Allen walks up on to the stage at Monsters of Rock and takes a seat on his throne behind a custom made electric drum set to begin the next chapter of his musical career as the Thunder God, Def Leppard’s one-armed drummer.

Commit to Serve

2017 UGA Freshman College — Service Learning

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Eleanor Rager

Written by

Commit to Serve

2017 UGA Freshman College — Service Learning

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