Seems like Def Leppard is bigger than ever these days – but frontman Joe Elliott says he feared the band wouldn’t survive the 90’s.

In an interview with Goldmine, Elliott said he saw his “career flashing before my eyes” when grunge music broke big in 1993.

Elliott figured the band’s lifespan was probably “five to ten years, because there was no 40-year-old band, right?  There was no band in 1977 that formed in 1937.“

45 years later, Def Leppard is selling out stadiums with Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Joan Jett on The Stadium Tour, which wraps up next week.