Def Leppard has released a high-voltage new song titled “Rejoice.” You can listen to it below.
The stand-alone single is being released to celebrate the band’s upcoming Las Vegas residency, which kicks off Feb. 3 at Caesars Palace.
“This song’s been an amazing journey from concept to conclusion,” singer Joe Elliott explained in a press release for the single. “I said to [guitarist] Phil [Collen] one day, ‘I’ve got this idea for a lyric where the narrator is at absolute rock bottom and wants to rise up to a higher level. Do you have a musical piece that might match with that?’ And he said, ‘As it happens, yes I do.’”
Collen then takes over the story: “I had this riff, this idea for a song a while ago actually, so when Joe came to me I created this drum loop based with a tribal sound and it fit perfectly with this other arrangement I had. I sent it to Joe and it was like magic – he sang straight over the top of it. And that’s how the song was formed.
“Then we gave it to Ronan [McHugh] who’d done a proper drum loop with different sounds. It all started gelling and just sounded like a powerful chant. We love it. It’s hard rock for us. It’s got a bit more of an ‘oomph’ than stuff we’ve been doing for a while. It’s kind of magical.”
READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Def Leppard Album
When Did Def Leppard Last Release New Music?
“Rejoice” follows the January 2025 release of Def Leppard’s cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me,” the proceeds of which benefited victims of the Southern California wildfires. Their last original song arrived in mid-2024, when they released “Just Like ’73” in collaboration with guitarist Tom Morello.
Def Leppard’s most recent studio album, Diamond Star Halos, arrived in 2022 and featured the singles “Kick,” “Take What You Want” and “Fire It Up.” The rockers retooled the title for their 2025 live album Diamond Star Heroes: Live From Sheffield.
Def Leppard’s 2026 Tour Plans
New music aside, Def Leppard is gearing up for a busy year on the road as well. In addition to their Las Vegas residency, they will perform three shows in India in March and tour Europe in the summer.
READ MORE: 2026 Rock Tour Guide
“We’re going to dig a little deeper in the set,” Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott recently told UCR of the band’s upcoming residency. “There’s a lot of people coming that are just there to enjoy Vegas, and we’re just a side show, one of the billions that they could have chosen to go to. So they aren’t going to be that interested in the deep cuts. They want the hits and then the first 10 or 12 rows, they just want the deep cuts. So you got to strike a really fine balance, which is what we’re currently working on now.”
Hear Def Leppard Perform ‘Rejoice’
Def Leppard Albums Ranked
From their metal-edged debut to their pop breakthrough to the recent records, we rank every single LP.
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
