The Other Golden Savage

Sav (with Joe) on stage in Victoria 2007

Today is Rick Savage’s 53^rd birthday. He’s the bass player for Def Leppard, and while many people might think that the band is Joe Elliott’s, they’re wrong. Originally, it belonged to Sav. Turned out that Atomic Mass was looking for a singer, Joe was looking for a band – he brought the name as well as the voice – and the Leps were (re)born. Sav is the lone original Leppard. 

He was deadly cute when he was younger, and there’s a lingering sweetness to him as he’s aged. I don’t know a lot about him except that he loves to restore old houses, he does a fair bit of charity work for the local children’s hospital, and back in 2002, his look inspired me to write a Castasian character called Jarkko’s Antero. Tero is Analise’s brother, Lucius’s foster brother, a devoted family man, a good neighbour, a better friend … and a dangerous enemy. Turns out the prettiest ones have the darkest secrets and over the years I have learned a great deal about Irfeu’s devil-with-the-angel’s-face. He’s lovable, all right, and he just might be scarier than the Golden Savage himself. 

I’m confident that Sav does not share Tero’s duplicitous nature … but you can never know for sure, can you?