Rick Allen is an English drummer who has played for the hard rock band Def Leppard since 1978. He overcame the amputation of his left arm in 1984 and continued to play with the band, which subsequently went on to its most commercially successful phase. He is ranked No. 7 on the UK website Gigwise in The Greatest Drummers of All Time list.
Joe Elliot said about Rick’s accident:
“I’d be lying if we didn’t think as human beings that, gone through what he’d just gone through, he probably wouldn’t play the drums again. We all thought that for maybe two or three days until he came out of the coma he was in. Once he was upright, he actually said, ‘I think I figured a way around it.’"
Allen has used custom-manufactured cable routing by Whirlwind. He uses four electronic pedals for his left foot to play the pieces he used to play with his left arm, which from left to right trigger sounds of a closing hi-hat, bass drum, snare drum, and a tom drum.
