Rick Allen

In 2009, Yamaha announced the addition of Rick Allen to their artist roster. Allen plays Yamaha Oak Custom drums with a matching subkick. Allen also uses Remo drumheads (usually he has coated Ambassadors on his drums and a clear Powerstroke 3 on his bass drum), Zildjian cymbals (mostly K customs, Z Customs and A customs), and a LP rock cowbell. He previously used Paiste 2002, RUDE and Sound Creation cymbals.

Allen was married to Stacy Lauren Gilbert from 1991 to 2000. In 1995, Allen was arrested for spousal abuse and was sentenced to a work crew and to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He married Lauren Cuggino Monroe in 2003; Monroe is also a musician and Allen has contributed to some of her albums.

On the afternoon of 31 December 1984, Allen was involved in a car accident, with his then-girlfriend Miriam Barendsen, on the A57 road in the countryside a few miles west of Sheffield. While trying to pass another car at a high speed, he lost control of his Corvette C4, which hit a dry stone wall and entered a field. He was thrown from the car because his safety belt had been improperly fastened, causing his left arm to be severed. His girlfriend suffered head, neck and spine injuries from severe whiplash. Doctors initially reattached Allen's arm but, because of an infection, it had to be re-amputated. His right shoulder was also severely broken in the accident. Despite losing his arm, Allen soon decided to continue playing drums with Def Leppard, and adopted a specially-designed electronic drum kit. The band took a hiatus from onstage performances until 1986, when Allen was able to return to live drumming. He has since re-adopted partially-acoustic drum kits depending on the setting.

Richard John Cyril Allen (born 1 November 1963) 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 known as "The Thunder God" by fans. He is ranked No. 7 on the UK website Gigwise in The Greatest Drummers of All Time list.

Rick Allen was born on 1 November 1963 in Dronfield, Derbyshire to Geoffrey Allen and Kathleen Moore, and started playing drums at the age of nine. He performed in the bands Grad, Smokey Blue, Rampant, and the Johnny Kalendar Band. When Allen was 14, his mother replied on his behalf to an advertisement placed by a band called Def Leppard looking for a drummer to replace Tony Kenning ("Leppard loses skins" was the advertisement's headline). He later joined the band on 1 November 1978, which was his 15th birthday. In 1979, he dropped out of school to concentrate on a career in music. Allen celebrated his 16th birthday with a performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, when Def Leppard opened for AC/DC.