Why Offspring used Def Leppard’s ‘Rock of Ages’ intro in ‘Pretty Fly’

If you like Def Leppard and The Offspring, you really don’t know which song will be played on your playlist when the count “Gunter, Glieben, Glauten, Globen” starts. The reason is because that intro was created and recorded by Def Leppard and their producer Mutt Lange in the song “Rock of Ages” from the album “Pyromania” (1983). It’s just a different way created by the producer to say the recording would start, inteast of saying “1, 2, 3, 4”.

That intro really added something cool to the track and then 15 years later, in 1998, The Offspring asked for permission to use that same intro in their song “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy” from their album “Americana”.

Why Offspring used Def Leppard’s “Gunter, Glieben, Glauten, Globen” intro in “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)”

The Offspring decided to sample the Def Leppard “Rock of Ages” intro “Gunter, Glieben, Glauten, Globen” because they wanted an intro that would be a contrast to the song. That’s how the band’s guitarist and singer Dexter Holland explained it in an interview with Carrie Borzillo, from Allstar in 1998. “Yeah, I wanted an intro that would be in direct contrast to the song. It’s just a funny part.”

The musician was then asked if he knew what “Gunter, Glieben, Glauten, Globen” means and he revealed that he was not much into Def Leppard. “I don’t know. I’m not up on my Def Leppard trivia. I should find that out. Def Leppard was when I was in high school. You couldn’t avoid it, so definitely I heard it. I hadn’t bought one of their records or anything. But, well, OK, I have to admit, I did like ‘Photograph,'” Dexter Holland said.

Dexter liked at least the Leppard song “Photograph”, but Offpsring’s guitarist Noodles admited in an interview with Front Magazine that he never liked the British group. However, he noted that they were really nice when they were consulted if the intro could be used.

“We got it from Def’s ‘Rock of Ages’ and to me it really works for the song. I actually thought it was Dexter’s voice. But it is a sample. I never have been a Def Leppard fan though, not at all. I couldn’t stand that whole scene.”

Noodles continued:

“But those guys were really cool when it came to the sample. So now I’m a fan of them at least as human beings if not as musicians (laughs),” Noodles said.

As reported by Kerrang in 2019, the band had to pay an amount of 10.000 dollars to Def Leppard to use the sample in “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).

What was the opinion of the Def Leppard members on “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)”

The Def Leppard members had no problem with The Offspring using the sample of “Gunter, Glieben, Glauten, Globen” and even commented about that. The singer Joe Elliott listed in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2016 the most important songs of his career. One of them was, of course, “Rock of Ages”. He recalled how that count was created and even said that it was well used in The Offspring song.

According to the singer, they were in the studio making backing tracks without any lyrics. So when it was time to add the vocals, they had no idea where anything was supposed to go. To make it easier for the band, the producer Mutt Lange was counting “1, 2, 3, 4” and eventually he got bored.

“So he started saying all these mad things — “Gunter, Glieben, Glauten, Globen” was just one of them. And between cabin fever, stupidity, rock & roll, whatever you want to call it, it became the joke. By the time we got the song finished, we stuck it on the front. Because it was just part of our DNA by then.”

Joe Elliott continued:

“And people got the humor. Over the last 30 years, everyone asks, “Dude, what the hell is that thing you say?” And then the Offspring stole it for “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)”. Well, they didn’t steal it, they asked permission. But it connected,” Joe Elliott said.

The Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen also liked the result of the track from the American band. He praised the track in an interview with Paul Freeman back in 2002. “When we heard the Offspring thing, that was great, really cool. They asked if they could use that,” Collen says. “But in the ’80s and post-’80s, when a lot of the bands were lifting stuff off ‘Hysteria,’ even ‘Pyromania’ stuff, it just sounded kind of cheap.”

“If you steal from another genre and make it your own, then it’s cool. But if you’re blatantly trying to get something to sound like something, it’s not flattering. It’s just unoriginal,” Phil Collen said.

Which track performed better on the charts?

Older Rock and Roll fans know that “Gunter, Glieben, Glauten, Globen” was originally used by Def Leppard in “Rock of Ages”. But many younger fans believe that it’s something created by Offspring. Both songs were extremely successful and curiously, they performed better outside their countries.

The single of “Rock of Ages” peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number 41 on the UK Singles chart. It was the opposite with Offspring’s “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)”, which peaked at number 53 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number 1 on the UK Singles chart.

However the Punk Rock track was a number hit in several countries, which didn’t happen with “Rock of Ages”. Although the Offspring track performed well, Leppard’s album “Pyromania” sold an estimated amount of more than 12 million copies worldwide.

Offspring’s “Americana” almost reached the same level of success, selling an estimated amount of more than 11 million copies worldwide.