Def Leppard’s long-time drummer Rick Allen was the latest interview guest of Sirius XM’s The Eddie Trunk Podcast this week alongside Heart’s Nancy Wilson, and he talked about ‘Def Leppard And The Stadium Tour’ as well as the tragic accident he had 37 years ago.

As you may already following his long-time career, Rick was the drummer of Def Leppard from 1978 to 1984. Unfortunately, he had a terrible car crash with his girlfriend Miriam Barendsen in Sheffield while trying to pass a car with his Corvette C4. Sometime after the incident, his doctors decided to amputate his left arm because of the uncontrollable infection.

Despite all the issues he had, Allen managed to continue playing drums with the band with a special electronic drum kit he designed with some professional instrument builders. In 1986, he took the stage with Def Leppard for the first time ever after the accident for ‘Monsters of Rock Festival’ at Castle Donington and he’s performing with the band since then.

In his latest ever interview with Eddie Trunk of SiriusXM, Def Leppard drummer unveiled how losing his left arm made him left-footed despite he was right-footed since he’s a kid.

Here is what he said about the post-accident days:

“I used to be really right-footed as a kid, but then after my accident, it was really weird what happened.

A little bit of my left arm went to my right hand, it went to my right leg, it went to my left leg, so it’s almost like the information was in my head, and it naturally just, it was able to go to my other limbs.

And now, it feels natural, it’s almost like it was a natural response. There was something missing, so somewhere in my head, it was able to re-direct that information.

Going between the two kits, it’s not really a big thing, it’s just kind of natural. When I meet people that can play multiple instruments, just to be able to go from the guitar, to mandolin, to a piano or sing, or play drums or whatever, it amazes me that they can do that. But it’s not far-fetched when I compare the acoustic set to the electronic set.”

You can listen to the episode by clicking here and click here for the source of the article.