Def Leppard has cut ties with executives at their record label, insisting they'll work with them again when they have been properly compensated for digital download sales.
Frontman Joe Elliott and his bandmates are refusing to work with Universal Music Group bosses until they "come up with some kind of arrangement."
The "Pour Some Sugar On Me" singer tells Billboard.com, "When you're at loggerheads with an ex-record label who... is not prepared to pay you a fair amount of money and we have the right to say, 'Well, you're not doing it,' that's the way it's going to be."
"Our contract is such that they can't do anything with our music without our permission, not a thing. So we just sent them a letter saying, 'No matter what you want, you are going to get no as an answer, so don't ask.' That's the way we've left it."
Partly as a result of the stand-off, the band has started re-recording their classic hits, with Elliott explaining, "We'll just replace our back catalogue with brand new, exact same versions of what we did."
But the frontman admits it's not as easy as it sounds: "You just don't go in and say, 'Hey guys, let's record it,' and it's done in three minutes. We had to study those songs, I mean down to the umpteenth degree of detail, and make complete forgeries of them."
"Time-wise it probably took as long to do as the originals, but because of the technology it actually got done quicker as we got going. But trying to find all those sounds... like, where am I gonna find a 22-year-old voice? I had to sing myself into a certain throat shape to be able to sing that way again. It was really hard work, but it was challenging, and we did have a good laugh over it here and there."
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