Def Leppard [ tickets ] has lined up a batch of headlining dates in August with support from Billy Idol as the rock veterans pile support behind their new studio set.

Some of the shows on the mid-summer run, which kicks off Aug. 1 in Nashville, are make-up dates for six concerts postponed last month when the band was sidelined while singer Joe Elliot recuperated from an upper respiratory tract infection.

Those shows featured opening support from Styx and REO Speedwagon, both of whom will be on board for the band's Aug. 23 appearance in Detroit. Idol will appear at seven other shows on the outing; details are below.

The August North American tour leg follows an extensive European trek that runs through June and much of July; those dates can be found at Def Leppard's official website.

The group is supporting "Songs From the Sparkle Lounge," its 11th studio album. The set was released late last month, debuting at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and roaring to the top of Billboard's Rock Album and Hard Rock Album charts.

The 11-track offering includes the single "Nine Lives," which is a collaboration with country crooner Tim McGraw. The CD follows 2006's all-covers release "Yeah!" and is the band's first set of newly written material since 2002's "X."

The group kept the lid on the album before its release, refusing to preview any of the new material on the road before the album's appearance in stores. "Nowadays, you play one song and it's gonna be on YouTube two minutes later and everyone will know it six months before the thing comes out," Elliott recently told Billboard.com. "That's just a sad indictment of the way things are."

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