Scoring a residency gig at one of Las Vegas' many fine casinos can be a great way to pick up a healthy paycheck -- just ask Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue, and/or Elton John -- but it also offers a combination of steady work without travel that can provide the perfect ingredients for writing and recording new material, and Def Leppard plans to take advantage of that during its own upcoming stint in the desert.

Guitarist Vivian Campbell discussed the band's plans during a recent interview to promote their 'Viva Hysteria!' residency, which will find them performing their blockbuster 1987 album in its entirety. Not content to use the dates simply as a backward-looking cash grab, the members of Def Leppard are looking toward the future. "As much as we are really looking forward to the shows, we're only doing three shows a week -- Wednesday, Friday and Saturday -- so the days off in between, we're actually gonna write," explained Campbell. "So it's different for us. When we're on tour, we don't get in a writing mode, because you're in a bus every night and traveling. It's not very often that the five of us in Def Leppard are in one place together with time on our hands, so we've got a little Pro Tools rig and we're just gonna actually record in our hotel room while we're there -- get some new ideas for some long-overdue new Def Leppard."

The 'Viva Hysteria!' shows are currently scheduled to run between March 22 and April 13 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. And Campbell wasn't kidding about that "long overdue" part, either: Def Leppard's last album of original material, 'Songs from the Sparkle Lounge,' was released in 2008.

More From US 103.1 FM