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 January 1985 and continued to play with the band, which 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. Early life 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. Car crash and recovery On the afternoon of 31 December 1984, Allen was involved in a car crash, 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; his left arm was severed. Doctors initially reattached the arm, but the arm was later amputated due to an infection. Despite losing his arm, Allen 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 16 August 1986, when Allen was able to return to live drumming at the Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington. He has since re-adopted partially acoustic drum kits depending on the setting. Equipment Allen has used custom-manufactured cable routing by Whirlwind. He uses four electronic pedals for his left foot to play the pieces he used to play with his left arm, which from left to right trigger sounds of a closing hi-hat, bass drum, snare drum, and a tom drum. In 2009, Yamaha announced