The Basement Tapes
The Boston Globe
April 29, 2005
In his downstairs studio, Aerosmith's Joe Perry has created a solo CD that's full of surprises
Duxbury -- Joe Perry is taking a visitor down to the Boneyard.
It's the basement studio in his home, where Aerosmith recorded the albums "Just Push Play" and "Honkin' on Bobo." Perry and Steven Tyler also wrote a lot of the "Get a Grip" CD in these cozy confines, where candles and a poster of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page add ambience.
But the CD that Perry pops into the sound system has nothing to do with Aerosmith.
It's his own album, "Joe Perry" -- his first solo effort in 20 years, since the days of the Joe Perry Project, back when he had left Aerosmith before reuniting for the massive success that lay ahead.
Aerosmith took this year off -- and will regroup in September -- but Perry retreated to the Boneyard and started rocking. The result is a record (coming out Tuesday, preceded by a Harpers Ferry show on Monday) that is going to surprise people. It's a slamming, guitar-screaming disc that is old-school without being the stuff of dinosaur rock.
Perry plays all the guitars and the bass, while teaming up with drummer/fellow South Shore friend Paul Caruso, who used to pound the skins for local club faves the Atlantics.
"I pretty much dismissed the whole solo thing because Aerosmith can be a full-time job," says Perry. "But I had leftover riffs, so I decided to start filling in the blanks with some songs. . . . These were things that didn't make it onto Aerosmith records, along with some stuff that I wrote in the last few months."
Perry clicks on the first song, "Shakin' My Cage," and suddenly the walls are shaking.
"Is this loud enough for you?" he says with a smile.
Other booty-shaking songs follow. The tune "Hold on Me" rocks like ZZ Top's "Legs," while "Pray for Me" has a Middle Eastern Zeppelin feel, and another sounds like a whomping pairing of Canned Heat and the Cramps.
"It's not a bunch of ballads," Perry says. "It's not that I'm just mellowing out and don't want to play loud because I don't want to hurt my ears. I love playing with this kind of energy and this kind of fire."
Drummer Caruso, who will be part of the Harpers Ferry band (along with guitarist Audley Freed of Black Crowes renown), is ecstatic that he was asked to participate. Caruso had served as Aerosmith's engineer for a bunch of the band's Boneyard studio sessions.
"Joe could have had anyone in the world play on his record," says Caruso, who lives five minutes away. "But it was great the way we'd work together. He'd try to inspire me by saying, 'OK, we're at Woodstock. The Who just finished and Keith Moon played his [butt] off. What are you going to do?' So he pushes you. I've played more aggressively on this record than on anything that I've ever done."
"I wasn't working steadily at this like you would an Aerosmith record," says Perry. "There's a lot of spontaneity on these songs."
Some are hard-rock love songs with his wife, Billie, in mind, while others have a "party vibe," as he puts it. He adds an instrumental called "Twilight" ("That's a tip of my hat to the Ventures and Les Paul and the guitar instrumentals from the '50s and '60s") and effective covers of the Doors' "Crystal Ship" and Woody Guthrie's "Vigilante Man."
"I put it on there because it still works today," he says of the Guthrie tune. "It's for anybody who still thinks they have a final say in things -- whether it's the Saddam Husseins of the world or whoever -- just because they have a gun in their hands. That doesn't mean they are above the law."
It is Perry's singing, however, that may be the biggest shock. Some people have said that, vocally, he is Keith Richards to Tyler's Mick Jagger, but they'll have to reassess that remark. Perry overdubs some of his vocals to soften them, but he is nowhere near as harsh as Richards.
"I think my voice has just gotten seasoned," Perry says. "It's gotten stronger by singing with Aerosmith through the years."
Come autumn, Perry expects to be back with Aerosmith on the road. He says they may release a live album and might also play the FleetCenter.
"Everybody has just gone and lived their life for a while this year," he says, noting that Tyler has done some fund-raising and acted in the film "Be Cool," while guitarist Brad Whitford has indulged his passion for car racing.
"Aerosmith is lifelong," he says. "I look at it as a legacy or a dynasty. Aerosmith has been around too long to just say, 'Oh, I think we'll break up next year.' We went through all of that already."
For now, the beat goes on in the Boneyard.
April 29, 2005
In his downstairs studio, Aerosmith's Joe Perry has created a solo CD that's full of surprises
Duxbury -- Joe Perry is taking a visitor down to the Boneyard.
It's the basement studio in his home, where Aerosmith recorded the albums "Just Push Play" and "Honkin' on Bobo." Perry and Steven Tyler also wrote a lot of the "Get a Grip" CD in these cozy confines, where candles and a poster of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page add ambience.
But the CD that Perry pops into the sound system has nothing to do with Aerosmith.
It's his own album, "Joe Perry" -- his first solo effort in 20 years, since the days of the Joe Perry Project, back when he had left Aerosmith before reuniting for the massive success that lay ahead.
Aerosmith took this year off -- and will regroup in September -- but Perry retreated to the Boneyard and started rocking. The result is a record (coming out Tuesday, preceded by a Harpers Ferry show on Monday) that is going to surprise people. It's a slamming, guitar-screaming disc that is old-school without being the stuff of dinosaur rock.
Perry plays all the guitars and the bass, while teaming up with drummer/fellow South Shore friend Paul Caruso, who used to pound the skins for local club faves the Atlantics.
"I pretty much dismissed the whole solo thing because Aerosmith can be a full-time job," says Perry. "But I had leftover riffs, so I decided to start filling in the blanks with some songs. . . . These were things that didn't make it onto Aerosmith records, along with some stuff that I wrote in the last few months."
Perry clicks on the first song, "Shakin' My Cage," and suddenly the walls are shaking.
"Is this loud enough for you?" he says with a smile.
Other booty-shaking songs follow. The tune "Hold on Me" rocks like ZZ Top's "Legs," while "Pray for Me" has a Middle Eastern Zeppelin feel, and another sounds like a whomping pairing of Canned Heat and the Cramps.
"It's not a bunch of ballads," Perry says. "It's not that I'm just mellowing out and don't want to play loud because I don't want to hurt my ears. I love playing with this kind of energy and this kind of fire."
Drummer Caruso, who will be part of the Harpers Ferry band (along with guitarist Audley Freed of Black Crowes renown), is ecstatic that he was asked to participate. Caruso had served as Aerosmith's engineer for a bunch of the band's Boneyard studio sessions.
"Joe could have had anyone in the world play on his record," says Caruso, who lives five minutes away. "But it was great the way we'd work together. He'd try to inspire me by saying, 'OK, we're at Woodstock. The Who just finished and Keith Moon played his [butt] off. What are you going to do?' So he pushes you. I've played more aggressively on this record than on anything that I've ever done."
"I wasn't working steadily at this like you would an Aerosmith record," says Perry. "There's a lot of spontaneity on these songs."
Some are hard-rock love songs with his wife, Billie, in mind, while others have a "party vibe," as he puts it. He adds an instrumental called "Twilight" ("That's a tip of my hat to the Ventures and Les Paul and the guitar instrumentals from the '50s and '60s") and effective covers of the Doors' "Crystal Ship" and Woody Guthrie's "Vigilante Man."
"I put it on there because it still works today," he says of the Guthrie tune. "It's for anybody who still thinks they have a final say in things -- whether it's the Saddam Husseins of the world or whoever -- just because they have a gun in their hands. That doesn't mean they are above the law."
It is Perry's singing, however, that may be the biggest shock. Some people have said that, vocally, he is Keith Richards to Tyler's Mick Jagger, but they'll have to reassess that remark. Perry overdubs some of his vocals to soften them, but he is nowhere near as harsh as Richards.
"I think my voice has just gotten seasoned," Perry says. "It's gotten stronger by singing with Aerosmith through the years."
Come autumn, Perry expects to be back with Aerosmith on the road. He says they may release a live album and might also play the FleetCenter.
"Everybody has just gone and lived their life for a while this year," he says, noting that Tyler has done some fund-raising and acted in the film "Be Cool," while guitarist Brad Whitford has indulged his passion for car racing.
"Aerosmith is lifelong," he says. "I look at it as a legacy or a dynasty. Aerosmith has been around too long to just say, 'Oh, I think we'll break up next year.' We went through all of that already."
For now, the beat goes on in the Boneyard.
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