A steady regimen of touring keeps Def Leppard in shape, guitarist Phil Collen says.

“We’ve been out five years in a row,” Collen says. It’s a switch from the band’s earlier days, with three and four year gaps between tours, much of the time taken up painstakingly recording albums such as 1987’s “Hysteria” and 1992’s “Adrenalize.”

“You’d forget what you were doing as a band,” Collen says.

The past few years, Leppard’s tours have become a regular summer event, with the British quintet sharing the bill with familiar classic rock outfits.

“We went out with Bryan Adams and then with Journey,” Collen says. “We get a lot of their fans as well. Everyone turns up and it ends up being a great time.”

This year Poison and Cheap Trick are along for the ride.

“Poison has been going on for years and we’ve played with Cheap Trick a million times before,” Collen says.

“And we’re fantastic, by the way,” he adds with a laugh.

Def Leppard doesn’t have a new album out, but has just reissued deluxe, two-CD editions of 1983’s “Pyromania” and 1992’s “Adrenalize.”

The two albums were released at very different times in the group’s life.

Collen replaced guitarist Pete Willis during the recording of “Pyromania,” the band’s first blockbuster, which went on to sell 10 million copies.

“We had no idea it would be such a huge album,” Collen says. “It changed everything. We went from opening up empty theaters to having the second biggest selling album that year, after (Michael Jackson’s) “Thriller.””

“Adrenalize” was the follow-up to 1987’s “Hysteria,” which built on the success of “Pyromania” and then some. But the album was released into a new rock world.

“It should have come out earlier,” Collen says. “We spent too much time on it, and it ended up coming out during grunge, when everybody wanted something more raw.”

Worse, guitarist Steve Clark died before the album was recorded.

“We wrote most of the songs with Steve. He died during the writing period,” Collen says, confirming that Clark’s death cast a pall on the recording.

The band “soldiered on,” in Collen’s words, adding former Whitesnake guitarist Vivian Campbell.

Lately, the band has been welcomed into country music fold, working with both Tim McGraw and Taylor Swift.

It caused a bit of culture shock for Collen when the band attended the CMT Awards, but not in the way you might think.

“Real country and Western is becoming a minority thing,” Collen says. “At the CMT Awards there was no real country there. In between acts they were playing this MTV metal, It was a bit weird, really.”

Def Leppard performs Friday (Aug. 14, 2009) at Ford Amphitheatre, 4802 U.S. 301 N. in Tampa. Poison and Cheap trick also are on the bill. Call (813) 740-2446 for more information.