If Lauren Monroe and Rick Allen aren’t the oddest musical couple you’ve seen, they would have to be up there. She’s a singer-songwriter, physical therapist and mental health counselor who writes songs to assist in healing. He’s her husband, a former client…and the drummer in arena rock mainstays Def Leppard.
Don’t expect an arena show when the pair plays City Winery (www.citywinery.com) this weekend — but if you come in as a Leppard fan, that’s alright with them. “I personally love that because if people come into the room, they’re here to receive what we’re giving,” Monroe said in a Zoom interview this week. “Some people come because they know Rick, and I’m always happy to have a hard-sell room to start with, Once they get into what we’re doing, they open their hearts to our work. And helping other people is part of our mission as a couple.”
Playing the back room at the Winery will certainly be a different experience for Allen, whose last Boston show was at Fenway Park with Def Leppard. “I actually find that more challenging sometimes because you feel more exposed. When you’re in an arena there is always a buffer between you and the audience. When I play with Lauren I use my acoustic kit, like the one I had growing up — so in a way it’s more challenging, because I’m playing acoustic drums with one arm. So playing with her has helped hone my musical skills.
“But I love playing any venues — especially one like this, when you get to help people through a difficult situation,” he said. “We are both traumatized; everybody is in their own way.”
Allen’s traumas stem partly from a car crash he suffered during Def Leppard’s heyday, causing him to lose his left arm. He learned to drum without it, thanks to an electronic footpad kit. After the 1984 accident, Allen went right back to work on Leppard’s megahit album “Hysteria,” and says he didn’t really deal with the experience until much later. “I didn’t have the vocabulary for what I went through. Some of my experiences were so profound but over the years I feel like I’ve done a lot of processing,” he says.
The couple initially met more than 20 years ago, when Allen was having physical issues and sough a massage therapist. Since marrying they’ve done extensive work with veterans and first responders dealing with PTSD and have set up a charity, the Raven Drum Foundation. Last Christmas the foundation auctioned off a Taylor Swift guitar, among other celebrity items.
Their live shows accordingly contain a lot of audience interaction. “We start the evening in a roomful of strangers and at the end of it, everybody is looking at each other because they went through something together. The energy in the room shifts and everybody is in this unified field of emotion.” Adds Allen, “I’ve seen tears of joy and sadness and everything in between, including in the band. I always go onstage with a box of tissues in hand.”
To ask the devil’s advocate question, what about the rock & roll taboo of playing music with your husband or wife? “I’d say we create our own path and as soon as people know us, they get it,” Monroe says. “And if there’s judgment, so be it.”