The Patriot Ledger, MA
September 22, 2006
Aerosmith Is Too Busy With The Present
To Live In The Past
Aerosmith's flashy frontman,
Steven Tyler Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry says he hears more and more fans say they want the veteran Boston rockers to make a CD that sounds like "Toys in the Attic," "Rocks" or one of the group’s other early records.
Perry and the other members of Aerosmith, many of whom live or have lived on the South Shore, though, can’t oblige that request.
Perry said it’s not that he wouldn’t like to fulfill the wishes of such fans. The reality is that Aerosmith simply can’t go back to its past.
"Sometimes we’ll write something and I think it sounds like that and people will turn around and go, 'Wow, it’s good, but we really like the way the old stuff sounds. Do a record like that,'" Perry said in a recent phone interview. "I’m not really sure what it is. I think it’s more that those records were written and done and they took place at a time. Even though like technically you could put together a song that has all the sound and all the feel, it’s still not that classic song because a classic song is a song that’s 20 or 30 years old. All you can do is just follow your heart and go with what rocks our boat."
That doesn’t mean Perry and his bandmates - drummer Joey Kramer of Marshfield, guitarist Brad Whitford of Norwell, lead singer Steven Tyler of Marshfield and bassist Tom Hamilton of Boston - won’t get closer to the group’s early sound on the next Aerosmith album. On this tour, David Hull of Plymouth is filling in for Hamilton, who is recovering from [treatment for] throat [cancer]...
In fact, Perry said he wants to capture more of the group’s live feel on the next CD, which figures to be recorded this winter.
That’s a recording approach Aerosmith used on the 2004 CD, "Honkin’ on Bobo," a collection of hard-rocking versions of blues songs mixed in with a few original tunes. It was recorded in Perry’s home studio named The Boneyard, when he lived in Duxbury. While well-equipped, the studio was hardly a spacious professional studio, he said. But that was part of the raucous CD’s charm, and the experience of recording the record reinvigorated the band.
"I think the big thing on 'Honking on Bobo' was putting the band elbow to elbow and steamrolling through songs," Perry said. "There was an energy, whether it was a song that we wrote or we were covering an old classic, there was an energy to it that you can’t get by just overdubbing here and there. You just have to have everybody in there doing it."
This live-in-the-studio approach was something Aerosmith had not used since its early albums, Perry said.
"In the ’80s there was this big trend with going back and recutting the track," Perry said. "Looking back at it, I look at it now as kind of an exercise in redundancy or something. We’d go in and get a great basic track with everybody playing great, and then they’d go back in and redo the drums. Then they’d go and redo the guitar and then they’d redo the bass. In the end, what have you got left from the original performance? Probably 50 or 60 percent of the songs we did were like that. But that was kind of how Bruce (Fairbairn) produced the records. He’d kind of get an idea of what the songs were going to be without actually mastering them. It worked for us. But we’re good enough players that we can pretty much cut tracks (live) and have those be the finished tracks."
So it’s no surprise that Perry said the band plans to do a good bit of live-in-the-studio recording. But Perry also said some songs call for more of an instrument-by-instrument approach with a good number of overdubs, so the band is open to that as well.
The band has what Perry said is enough material to form a backbone for the new CD, but more writing is obviously in the group’s plans.
One twist this time is that the group is likely to resurrect some songs that were either recorded and left off previous CDs or complete some older songs that never got finished.
"In the frenzy of the MTV era, certain songs just weren’t meant to be out there," Perry said. "We have been looking back at the old stuff. Some of it’s really exciting because we have a feeling there are going to be some songs we’ve wanted to get at for a long time and had never done for whatever reason."
Perry and the other band members will have to set aside their search of the band’s archives for a few months. That’s because the band will spend the fall on tour, with 1980s pop metal icons Motley Crue opening the shows. They play the Tweeter Center Tuesday and Thursday; the Mohegan Sun on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1; the TD Banknorth Garden Nov. 12; and the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence on Nov. 14.
This tour follows a fall 2005/winter 2006 trek that had to be cut short in March after Tyler developed a throat problem that eventually required surgery. The vocal problems, of course, were a major concern not just for Tyler, but for the rest of the band.
But Perry said the surgery was a success and Tyler is back singing at full roar.
"We were there when it (the surgery) went down. We were crossing our fingers (that) we didn’t hear anything (bad)," Perry said. "There were no signs of anything other than just road wear. But the doctor, you really don’t know until you get in there. We were there in the waiting room when the doctor came out and said everything is fine and if anything, his voice will sound better. That’s indeed what’s happened. His voice is right there. He’s amazing."
The surgery confirmed that Tyler, who with his raw and rangy voice remains one of rock’s most identifiable vocalists, has a special talent.
"The doctor said this guy’s got a pretty unique (vocal structure). He’s pretty much one in a million when it comes to how his throat and voice box is set up," Perry said. "When I first heard him sing, I can remember all I said - I really didn’t know him that well at that point - but when I heard him sing I said, well whatever it takes, I want to be in a band with this guy. I’ve never heard anybody like him."
The relationship between Perry and Tyler - and the band as a whole - has certainly been tested in the years since the group formed in 1970 in Sunapee, N.H. Most notably, after reaching superstar status with the albums "Toys in the Attic," "Rocks" and "Draw the Line," the band, beset by drug and alcohol problems, saw Perry quit in 1979, followed by Whitford two years later.
A revamped version of Aerosmith soldiered on with lackluster results until 1985, when the original lineup regrouped, cleaned up and regained its hitmaking touch with the 1987 CD "Permanent Vacation" and the 1989 release "Pump"
For the first part of the tour with Motley Crue, the band will be without bassist Hamilton, who is recovering from treatment for throat cancer. Plymouth’s Hull, who played in the Joe Perry Project, is filling in.
Perry said the band, with or without Hamilton, will incorporate a new twist into its live sets.
"We’re going to do something we’ve done in the past, but not in the recent past," he said. "Steven and I are going to do a little acoustic set. The band will be playing on, but it’ll be definitely more of an intimate moment. That’s something we’ve done. I remember we used to do that even before the band was signed. It’s just we haven’t done it in a long while."
