Premetto che l'ho trovata tradotta cosi a casaccio e mezza
pazienza e che Sole mi perdoni
da Phil Alexander
"Hey! What's with the body language!" yawlps Steven Tyler. "Aren't you pleased to see me? Don't you like what you see?"
Aerosmith's lizard like frontman is stripped to the waist, sporting little more than circulation-threatening tailored jeans and a pair of gold pixie boots, and is in mid-shoot as MOJO arrives at a London photographic studio. Rather than interrupt the photo session, your correspondent slinks to one side and stands there, arms folded, and is castigated for such defensive posturing.
The bare-chested Tyler, freshly bronzed from a two-week "shorts and a thong" sojourn in Hawaii, saunters over, extends a vociferous greeting and begins a conversational avalanche that sweeps through MOJO's last Dylan cover to the tragic loss of James Brown and on to the time he met Thom Yorke in a clothing store. Then he pauses...
"Aha! I've got something you haven't got!" he sing-songs with playground-like glee, pointing at a huge leather-bound tome that sits on his dressing table. Embossed with the word STU, the book is a limited edition tribute to Ian Stewart, The Rolling Stones' keyboard player, road manager, and all-around "sixth member", and features the big man's candid photography. Over the years the Stones have cast a long shadow over Tyler and his band, with Aerosmith enduring endless unjust and unfavorable critical comparisons to Dartford's most famous sons, a point due in part to their singer's lippy resemblance to Mick Jagger. While this has rankled with Tyler in the past, today is different. "Mick Jagger is still God to me!" he enthuses, and, in a split second the yappy 58-year-old father of four is off onto another one of his heroes.
"I wore one of John Lennon's jackets at the Hard Rock last night! Can you believe that?!?" he gushes with excitement.
Tyler is in town to announce Aerosmith's appearance at the Hard Rock Cafe sponsored Hyde Park Calling festival on June 24. Tomorrow night the five-piece of Tyler, sparring partner/guitarist Joe Perry, along with guitarist Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton, and drummer Joey Kramer (the latter triumvirate self-deprecatingly dubbing themselves as "the less interesting three") will play an invite-only show at the celebrated eatery. The set will showcase their formative influences via Rufus Thomas's Walking the Dog and their take on the Yardbirds' Train Kept A' Rollin', their '70's heyday (Sweet Emotion, Walk this Way, Draw the Line), and more recent MTV-friendly hits I Don't Want To Miss A Thing, Cryin', and Living on the Edge, summing up Aerosmith's remarkable 37-year journey.
It is that journey - from rags to riches via Olympian feats of self-abuse and destruction and on to glory again - that we are here to discuss in more personal terms. As we repair to a candlelit suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Steven Tyler invites us on what will soon become an emotional rollercoaster. We start on relatively safe ground by discussing Aerosmith's most famous track.
Walk this Way - a song you once described as "a fantasy about older girls getting in your pants" - has just been covered by Sugababes and Girls Aloud in the UK. It's a strange choice, wouldn't you say?
Ha! Yeah. It's interesting that they've veered from the lyrics again. Even Run-DMC did that. They couldn't work them out. But I suppose a lot of my lyrics are train of thought and, as I used to like to say, my train stopped at every station! Actually, to be honest, unfortunately it didn't! (laughs) It only stopped at one station called WII-FM - which stands for What's In It For Me! Omigod! Did I really just say? (laughs)
Anyway, WII-FM was genuinely a sexual thing for me, that's what I wrote about..."Backstroke lover (makes hand appropriate gesture)/Always hidin' 'neat the covers/Till I talked to your daddy, he say/He said, "You ain't seen nothin' till you're down on a muffin/Then you're sure to be a-changin' your ways/I met a cheerleader, was a real young bleeder..." obviously the girls couldn't sing that so they changed it around a bit. Joe and I wrote it when we were on tour soundchecking in Hawaii at the HIC, which I think is still there. I used to be a drummer and Joe was playing the riff and I came up with the rhythm. The words came later. It's proved over the years that you can't keep a good song down! I'm not going to criticise the new version because it's for Comic Relief. At the end of the day, that's what counts.
Of course. But sex has always inspired your lyrical vocabulary. At one point weren't you worried about being a sex addict?
I wasn't worried about it. I got coined that. Look, I had nine years sobriety and I was sick and f**king tired of arguing with the band all the time. How many bands from our generation are still around? Does zero ring a bell? Do you know why? Because they either say "f*ck you!" or they fight. It's like The Kinks when Dave punched Ray. I've given Joe the finger more times than I can remember. But it's about dialogue now. It's even like that with government now. Even if Idi Amin chopped a million babies' heads off, you've got to go over and talk to him now. Keep f**king dialogue open, that's the way it is.
So the band [and I] were always fighting and I couldn't find out why. Turns out, the fuckers are just jealous! You know, I go out into the street and everyone comes over and asks me for my autograph, but they don't go over to Tom [Hamilton]. And his wife hates me, and so forth. What the f*ck up's with that? It's not my fault! I've got Lead Singer Disorder - LSD as Jimmy Page puts it! So I went away to find out how I could attract the flies with more honey than vinegar. I swear to f*ck, I went to a place called Sierra Tucson for a month. There was a wonderful guy there who was my mentor and I was reading a lot of Maya Angelou and getting back into the spiritual world because, to be honest with you, heroin and drugs, the reason I got off them is because I'm a lyricist and the f**king sh*t steals from you. It takes away your memory and you can't remember anything, rhyme scheme or have fun any more. You become a mere shell of yourself.
So, anyway, I went away to this place. While I was there they started asking me things like "What are you all about?" And I said, "What do you mean?" And they said, "Were you there when a key member of your family passed away?" And I said, "I was on the road when my grandma passed." And they went, "Grief group!" So they said, "Have you ever had sex on the road?" I was like, "Duh!" So they went, "Sex addict!" "Have you ever done drugs on the road?" "Drug addict!" By the time I left that room an hour later I had six new monikers - grief addict, sex addict, drug addict and the rest! I was like, "What?" I mean what f**king rock star hasn't had an affair or been with three girls? What heterosexual normal man hasn't dreamed of being with three girls at once? And the one who says he hasn't, well he's a lying motherfucker! And you know it! I mean, what woman hasn't had a fantasy of being with two men? It doesn't take a 58-year-old man on tape to say those words, it's just the way life is. Anyhow, I got a lot of other things out of that place that were interesting, but those things weren't part of that.
So from what you've said I take it there's a spiritual side to you. Does it get lost behind the stereotype of the "sex guy"?
Well, there's always going to be somebody that's going to think that Steven Tyler is the, (shrieks) "What-da-da-da-da!" or that crazy guy that you see on-stage, but if you listen to a song I wrote in 1969, Dream On, you might get a different view. I don't even know where I came up with that sh*t! (semi-sings) "Every time that I look in the mirror/All these lines in my face getting clearer/The past is gone/It went by like dusk till dawn/Isn't that the way/Everybody's got their dues in life to pay." I was just a teenager when I wrote that, smoking as much pot as everyone else at the time. I went to church, I had a sister, I'm Italian and I've probably seen the sun set and rise as much as you have...But let me tell you, I like cutting the umbilical cord ant my son Taj's birth when my ex-wife gave birth. I like smelling placenta. I like the act of making love rather than saying "I fucked you!" I was in Hawaii for two weeks recently and (said almost incredulously) I watched the sun rise and the sun set! So if anybody wants to see the spiritual side of Steven Tyler, well, yes, it's f**king there! They can just listen to my lyrics.
Let's go back to the beginning. Your father Victor Tallarico led a society band and taught music. What did you learn from him while you were growing up?
I learnt that you could and should practise every day. We lived in a small apartment at 5610 Neverland Avenue in the Bronx. If you ever read the comic books, Archie, that's where he lived. We lived on the sixth floor in an apartment. I've been back there since and it isn't very big but in the corner there was a grand piano. A Steinway grand! It was an apartment in the Bronx. He practised every day - Beethoven, Bach, Chopin. He went to Julliard. So I listened to him, listened to the classics (sings a classical air, and then scales). That was drummed into my head. If you watch early films of Aerosmith from about '71 or '72 I was forever tuning Joe, Tom, and Brad's guitars because they couldn't but I had the ear and that was a gift. It came from God first, of course, and then from my father.
You started singing at the age of three and performing at Trow-Rico, a holiday lodge your family owned didn't you?
Well, my grandfather came over from Italy, from Calabria, and lived in the Bronx. All the brothers got together - it was a family thing - they got about five grand together, bought a place in Sunapee, New Hampshire and opened a small [camp] of housekeeping cottages. Every summer of my life I lived up there. My Aunt Phyllis, the wife of my father's brother Ernie, would encourage me to perform. All the families that came up had kids and every Friday night she'd get everyone together and we would sing John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. She would put together little skits in the barn downstairs where she had a little stage. There was just a curtain and a few chairs in front of it. So I started there. That was the beginning of it. Then came The Beatles, The Kinks, The Hullabaloos and all that stuff. Watching them as I grew up, I realised that I could sing. The next thing was that I wanted to write a song. I could do that too so it all went from there.
So you grew up around classical music, and then you heard rock 'n roll. What did it do to you when you first heard it?
What did it do to me? (pauses) God...Before I had sex, it was sex! When I heard The Everly Brothers do (sings) "I wonder if I care as much" and those double harmonies...wow! I started off listening to them and then at nine or 10 I got a little AM radio and put a wire up in the apple tree to get WOWO Fort Wayne, Indiana [the dominant Easy Coast station of the '50's]. But listening to music done like that with that freedom and the harmonies, the fifths...I think that in the year 2100 teaching children will be like that. Right now it's like, "One-and-one-is-two". That's ridiculous. Take a class room of kids - 20 kids - and teach them the names of the planets. How? I'll tell you. (sings) "Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars/These are the planets that dwell in the stars/Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus too/Mercury, Venus I know them do you." They have a laugh and they sing. That's how the brain works. That's what music can do. It can teach you.
Since you're talking about education, you were busted at High School by and undercover narcotics officer and expelled in 1966. That must've scarred you...
(laughs) Well, that's just the way it was. I'm 58 so when I went to school it was 1963, '64, '65, '66. I started coming alive at the age of 14, 15, 16. I was noticing other people. It was just something that happened - marijuana and the [Vietnam] war. The war was terrible, but peace was put together with smoking pot (flashes the peace sign). It's something that we don't have today. It's all f**king ecstasy in clubs and, er, f**king. Back then you were 13, you passed the joint and it was "Make Love, Not War". Everybody was your friend. [Today] I could see people in the street and not know if they were going to mug you or not. Back then, you looked at somebody (makes smoking gesture) and you'd go and smoke a joint with them. You started talking. It was sweet and beautiful. The narc in school was just a thing that happened. We were going to the Canopy Music, watching the English Invasion and taking acid and sh*t. But, yeah, it was a bust, but actually it got me a YO - which stands for Youthful Offender. That kept me out of the war, so I could've been dead and I wouldn't have been sitting here.
Good of you to look on the bright side. You joined your first bands in 1963, started playing and got your first glimpse into the proper world of rock 'n roll when you opened for such acts as The Beach Boys and The Lovin' Spoonful. What did it mean to you?
(Pauses, looks down and his eyes well up) You're gonna make me cry...It was f**king everything to me...I used to sit at home and listen to those bands, bands like The Beach Boys. I don't know how to say it any other way and I don't want to get heavy on you, but life was explained to me through song and music.
When I was even younger - like six or seven - I went to church, we sang hymns and there was a table with candles on it. I thought God lived under that table. I thought that through the power of song, God was there. It was that energy was always in song. So when I would listen to those bands and then I got a chance to play with them. (looks incredulous, falls silent again)...God, The Beach Boys...When The Beach Boys played Iona College, this was a college of 6000 kids that were all singing along with every word. This was before The Beatles! I had not seen them at the Shea Stadium by that point. I had not had a religious experience that big until that point. All of us singing together, (sings) "I wish they all could be California Girls!" Omigod! And we opened up for them!? And The Byrds...Ahhh...
So that would have been in March '66 when you were in The Strangeurs. You also did a TV show with the Shangri-Las a few months later.
(Interrupting) Well, The Shangri-Las was the earliest 'on' that I really recall. That lead singer girl, Mary Weiss...I was in the bathroom before the show. I thought my drummer was in the stall next to me but he wasn't. I looked over and that girl was in there peeing! I tell that story because I don't have any other story. It's not like Johnny Thunders, who would hold a needle up and squirt it up to the ceiling. I hear people's stories today and I think I can't really throw in like that.
There is the legendary "Thank you and goodnight" story when you supposedly walked off stage because the set list was changed around and you played your usual final song second. Did that really happen?
Never! After the second song?!? Of course not. We might have played the same song twice, but that's about it.
OK, let's talk about the moment when you met Joe Perry in 1969. What were your first impressions of him?
(Disregarding the question) It's funny, you know, with all that you hear about Aerosmith and the drug history, you tend to believe that it was all buzz and blur. It really wasn't. That happened before that! Between 1964 and 1969 I was in bands. I played everywhere in New York. From Steve Paul's Scene to every f**king place you name, I literally played them all. I was in The Strangeurs, The Chain Reaction, and you name any club in Greenwich Village that Dylan played, well I hit them all too. I remember being at a club in Central Square in early '66 and turning around and seeing Mick Jagger and Brian Jones were sitting there. I was so taken aback, I couldn't talk! These were my f**king heroes! I once went and saw Janis Joplin way before, back when Cain was Able, way before the stable, so to speak! Everybody used to think that Mick was my [idol] but what happened was that actually I saw Janis first, then I saw Mick. And yes, he was my f**king hero. There was actually a six or seven year period where I was afraid to tell the press that. I was all like, "No he isn't." And then, of course, I came out of the closet and went "f**kin' A he is!" To this day, to this minute, to this second, Mick Jagger is still my hero. I get so pissed off at Howard Stern because he says "At least you're still relevant and he's not! Well, f*ck you! He's Mick Jagger! Yeah, I'm pissed off at him cutting his hair and I'd tell him that, but that's about it.
But back to meeting Joe and giving up the drum stool for good...
I'm going on a bit, aren't I? Sorry, it's the coffee. I've drunk so much of it today! OK. In all those bands from '64 to when I met Joe, we would do speed, we would play every club in New York, but I wanted that f**kin' Dave Davies/Ray Davies, Mick and Keith thing, and I never had that. I wanted a brother, someone who was so special. I never had that.
Finally, we wrung out the rag in New York until there was nowhere left to play. We ended up in Long Island. I was in this band called William Proud. I got into a fight with the guys, so I left my drums there and hitched all the way back to New Hampshire with my tail between my legs. I'd said, "Mom, I'm going to make it so big, fans are going to be all over the house so we're going to have to move." But I went home a beaten child.
So I started mowing lawns. And then one day Joe Perry pulled up in his MG. I can actually show the spot where that happened. He was wearing black horn-rimmed specs and he said, "Yeah, we're in a band and we're playing The Barn. You know Elyssa, right?" I said, "Oh yeah." I did because I played with my father's band (sings a jazz styled tune), I used to slick my hair back and play drums with him up in Sunapee when I was 16, 17 and Elyssa's father Nick Jerrett was in the band. His daughter was a skinny little fox who was Joe Perry's girlfriend. He told me she was going and I should too. So I did, and...they sucked! The lead singer would tape a copy of Playboy to the stage and look at the girls and he didn't give a sh*t. Kind of like that singer in Oasis. I guess that's his thing but I don't know...
Anyway, Joe was playing and there was this one moment where they just nailed it. (sings a James Brown-styled rhythm and guitar riff). Did you see that moment in movie Miracle Worker about Helen Keller and her nanny? For 19 years they do the hand signal thing. Nineteen years! Then one day out by the pump she goes (signs) W-A-T-E-R. At that moment the sky opened up! It was like that!
I knew it was going to be a nut-f**king-pole. I gave it a month. We moved to Boston two weeks later and we used to have to carry our gear from the apartment down to the truck, drive the truck to West Campus One, unload the gear and set it up in the hall underneath the girls' dorm in the basement and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Then I realised that we were waxing the dog. I said to the guys, "We gotta take a lesson from this band. A three-piece with a singer. The bass player is playing the same thing as the guitar player and the drummer's foot is following the bass player's. They're called L-L-Led Z-Z-Z-eppelin." We started doing that and Aerosmith was born.
Two years after Aerosmith formed, you changed your name from Steven Tallarico to Steven Tyler. Are they two different guys...
(interrupts) Not really. I got that sh*t in rehab. "I want you to keep Tyler out of here." Well, "f*ck you! I am that guy"...I am that guy! They love to do that stuff. Steven Tyler and Steven Tallarico are the same guy. The Dream On guy is the same guy who sat there and learnt things from my father. I just changed my name, but I am the same person.
I wasn't just relating to your change of name. It was more of a case of trying to find out whether there is a difference between you as a person and you as a performer.
Yeah, I can be sweet and look at the sunrise, but it's like if you play really fast music to a bunch of five-year-olds they dance around like this (makes frantic dance moves). If you take two human beings that are sexually active, a teenage girl and a teenage boy, and you play sexy music to them then they'll f*ck. It's the same thing. Music is like a drug. I become a certain way with it. I don't think Mick Jagger when he was doing that (does Jagger pouty clap) was pretending, the music just made him feel that way. Even Liam [Gallagher] does a dance to whatever he's feeling. When he gets home he doesn't continue to kick the imaginary wires on the floor does he?
Anyhow, I just wanted to make that clear...all my life I've had that. But I am the same person. I love celebrating, I love getting up and I think there's an old saying that goes, "Dance like you would when no one's looking."
Look, what I meant is that you've been in a band for most of your life so you don't have normal things happen to you, like weekends. Time when you can stop being the guy on the lip of the stage.
Oh...I see what you mean. (Pauses and stays silent for a second) That's a crying shame too. I don't have that. It's really fucked up. Believe it or not, it's only been the last five years where I've given it some serious though. And I learnt a big lesson from Joe Perry. I'd call over there and he doesn't get up until one o'clock. He'd go, "I'm a rock star, did you forget who you are?" But I would go to bed early because I thought I had to get up early. And I'd stay up late because I'm alive late. I got up this morning and went to a photo shoot with Ross Halfin at 11 o'clock. Not any more. I'll never do it again. I can do it but I've got to drink f**kin' 16 gallons of coffee to find my f**kin' personality whereas if I'm up for five hours beforehand it's like going to the gym. I'm not a morning person.
It's like with my dad, "Yeah, I know, dad, it's fucked up! I should mow my own lawn." I used to go home and feel ashamed because there's a guy mowing my lawn! I mean, f*ck! Did you see me today without a shirt?
Yes I did...
Do you know why my body looks so good? Because for 21 years I mowed the lawn. I mowed 14 acres. From eight in the morning until one in the afternoon I was out mowing the lower 40 and digging ditches and mowing the tennis court. That's where I got this from (points at his arm muscle). So if I do 10 push-ups every morning, the muscle memory is right back. Thank the Lord above. I hated my parents when I was growing up for that because I didn't have a good summer. They'd be going to the beach and I'd be going, "Can I..." "No! Go and mow down." Now, I accept that I am just different. I am a rock star. I love being a rock star. I love entertaining you. I love that I can sing. I love...you have no idea how much I love that you love who and what I am. You have no idea.
I thank God at night in my prayers that I, that I belong...you know the Make A Wish Foundation? People that have cancer that are going to die, little kids...I can walk into a room and go over to them and show them my dressing room or sing to them and it makes their f**kin' whole life just because of what I can do. My God, my God! Holy sh*t! Holy sh*t! (emotionally) It's only been lately that I've thought about those kinds of things. It's God's gift that I sing. It's Joe's gift too. (With an almost incredulous tone) All this stuff, right, it's like...Er, how did we get here?
I was just saying that rock stars don't get weekends...But let's move on the early days of Aerosmith. It's like a lot of bands: live in the same house, play, drink, drug school, steal to eat. What did it all teach you?
That I'm a little more crazed than most people! Back then I stuffed meat down my pants to survive. I'd go to the store and get some ground beef to throw in with some rice and make that gravy train sh*t that I could put on some bread and then the six of us ate. What I learnt from it...was that I wanted it more than anybody. That the dream, or whatever it was, that I saw in Brian Jones...did he just die in a pool? (shakes his head) Did Mick just let a bunch of butterflies go? (shakes his head) Is (sings) "Are you going to Scarborough Fair" just a song? Or is more than that? Is it just a song? Or is it life itself?
That's the fundamental question about music and it's role in society as a whole...
Yeah! When I went to Woodstock, I was tripping my brains out to the point where I didn't know where I was or anything. I walked over to the hog farm and I looked up in the sky and the helicopters came over and they dropped in these giants nets - "Get out of the way!"...My brain was on LSD, not just one tab because I'd snorted another. I was in this tent and the tent was (makes warping noise). These helicopters are coming to drop 500 pounds of frankfurters because the place was declared a disaster area. Then they dropped tons of pots and pans to cook the sh*t in. So I went over and I picked up a pot and I went (beats drum patterns on the table) Then another guy came over and did the same. And that went on and on. Even Ken Kesey was banging on a pot! This was never gotten on film but my whole life has been that...
What? Banging on pots?
(laughs) Yeah! It's not just about cutting the umbilical cord or writing songs like Dream On or being in Aerosmith, but it's all of that. It's so deep and meaningless! (laughs) I've seen the sun go down and be put out by the ocean! I've seen the end of the Earth! I've also seen it be round! I've seen babies die and cry and be born and dogs talk! I've seen it all! It's funny! I've had a chance to write about it all! And be in bands, I mean, I may wake up dead tomorrow...A bit of an oxymoron, but hey! And I still get to be onstage with Joe Perry. Whoever the f*ck he thinks he is or I think I am, we're in the same band and we still make music.
Which brings us back to Aerosmith. You got signed to Columbia in 1972 by Clive Davis...
Yes we did. We played a set for him which we ended because we'd run out of songs with (sings a vaudeville-styled piece of instrumentation punctuated by a final drum roll on his knees) and we said, "Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take a short break!" We walked off and our manger said, "Get back up there! Do another song! Jam anything! Tell them you're going to do a song called We Don't Want To f*ck You Lady, We Just Wanna Eat Your Sandwiches." So I did. We played f*ck all and then there was (mimes applause). When we walked off-stage I walked back to the back of the club, and this guy comes over. He put his arm around me and he said, "Son, you're going to be a big, big f**kin' star." And that was Clive Davis. To him it was nothing. He just saw the talent as you could argue both you or I would, because the band did have it, how-f**king-ever, we got signed and went and did our first record.
After a year didn't he did try to drop you?
Not Clive! But that guy who worked with Alice Cooper...Bob Ezrin! He thought we weren't ready yet. But someone else went, "I'll take that!" And it was [producer] Jack Douglas. This is all true and to me it means everything just thinking about it again...If you could go back in time, would you? If God came down and you saw him and he was everything we read about and he said, "I'm going to take you right now..." You have a wife and kids and sh*t?
Yes...
And God said, "I'm going to take you back to 1941 before it became known that Hitler was killing the Jews. I'm going to put you before him.' He puts a gun in your hand and he says, "You're going to shoot him and then you're going to shoot yourself." Would you do it or not?
Yes...
So would I! (Euphoric, then puzzled) You know, I don't know why I just said that! But that's how my mind works! Just as that's an epiphanous thought, that's what Jack Douglas did with us! Bob Ezrin said we weren't good enough but Jack Douglas saw something in the future and reacted quickly. And guess what? That second album was pretty f**king good! And by the way Bob-motherfucking-Ezrin...oh, Jesus! I'm gonna get into all sorts of sh*t! Actually, I don't give a sh*t because that's the way I feel right now! Gee, Bob! There was a song on that first album called...Dream...Dream...Dream On and it did pretty f**king good!
So your first album came out in 1973. By '76 you've gone from being nobodies to being a multi-platinum band in the space of four albums in three years. You had addictions to match. What shape were you in?
In the early days we were seen as a cash cow. We were worked to death. We did three shows a week and we were kept on blow. No one ever once said, "You guys had better take a break" and when I looked back at that I would say, in front of Jesus Christ at Heaven's gate, "Thank you and f*ck you!" At any time I could've had a heart attack and people would've looked away and said, "Well, we didn't know what they were doing." Bullshit! Everybody knew what we were doing and we were a mess. It was tour-album-tour-album-tour-album. There were no breaks.
The same thing seemed to happen the second time around between 1985, when Done with Mirrors came out and flopped, and Permanent Vacation in 1987, in terms of substance abuse...
It wasn't that. The second time we did it, we got sober and we did it on steam and strength. It wasn't blow and, er, blow. Or blow and heroin. We did it on passion and strength. We never did three shows in a row, we did two instead. It's funny. I look at my gym and we were given by our accountants a framed present of all the tickets. And we must have grossed about 140 mill. But we must have walked away with no more than three mil each. It's always been that way and it just plain sucks. Right now, this band would make more money selling 100,000 albums on the Internet than we would selling a million on Sony. It's sad the way it works.
It's sad that the Sex Pistols would write a song but those that make the vinyl and the cover reap all the rewards. Right now, the guy you're looking at, the only thing I'm worth is a hard ticket. Everything else is taken or has been taken from us. The managers of the past have made sure that they've got enough. May they roll over in their graves a billion million years from now. That's all I have to say. I have no hard feelings. I look back and I think, "God, man, all we were doing was writing some songs."
Cash aside, the myth of Aerosmith was built on the glamour of self-destruction. As the man who actually went though that, it can't have been much fun...
It was fun. You've got to understand that. But it's like saying you got laid. If somebody knew you well enough and looked at the first time you got laid, they'd be able to say, "Bullshit! The first time you got laid wasn't good, I was there. You were blind f**king drunk." And then you'd have to admit, "I was, wasn't I? So everything I've said is full of sh*t, isn't it?" Nobody wants to go there.
Regardless of (bellows Sweet Emotion as if stoned) "STANDING IN FRONT JUST SHAKING YO' ASS/TAKE YOU BACKSTAGE YOU CAND DRINK FROM MY GLASS!" Regardless of whether that was a f**king blind drunk ramble or whether that was from God in Heaven above, it doesn't matter. I was having a good time, it was rock'n'roll and it's all about that. If you could come back in time for four hours, you would have had a blast too. But all in all, you looking back, and somebody was sucking...somebody had a straw in Joe's jugular sucking the blood out the whole f**king time. There was something premeditated and evil about that whole thing. And that's why someone, like me, who sticks around long enough who, at the end of the day, will go, "Wow! That's fucked up!"
I mean, what manager that took 100 percent of any black artist's publishing can rest in peace? That's like stealing somebody's f**king soul! The guy that wrote the song, you're taking his flow of money! Like Elvis, he gave a black artist a car! Hmmm, right on. That was really noble of you. He gave black artists a car. He was famous for giving them Cadillac's. It would've been a lot better if they had a little taste of the song that made Elvis famous. Everybody in the industry knows it but the public don't know it. Myths have to be lived and nobody wants to hear the truth.
So, knowing what you know now...
(Interrupting) That Tyler! He was better off drunk and stoned. By the way, I used to know this sh*t when I was drunk and stoned and we used to go off on it! (shrieks) I used to talk to some of the guys in The Everly Brothers about it, behind closed doors...
There's that side to the Aerosmith story that is half Tin-Pan Alley and half West Side Story in a knife-wielding way...
I still carry a knife. I'll show you my permits too...
I'd rather you didn't. Let's talk about fatherhood instead. July 1, 1977, your first-born Liv arrives, but you weren't fully aware that she was yours. But ultimately has fatherhood changed you?
Of course it has. For the first eight years I wasn't sure if I was [Liv's] father. Bebe [Buell] was my girlfriend and we had a baby out of love at the time, there was no doubt about that. Then she went off and had the child and Todd [Rundgren] took on Liv. And then there was Mia. I married Cyrinda. I was the hard sell, still on drugs, still just one eye on marriage, one on the band. You've got to remember that the guy you're looking at right now is still in a band. It's less than one tenth of on percent of anybody that's still in a band that was a big band 35 years ago that's in one now. I'm proud of it. I've had to work hard for it, but I've lost many a marriage because of it. This last marriage was because she didn't want to deal with my fame. "Why don't you want to come on the road?" "It's bullshit, the road. It's frivolous, it's nothing." "OK, but it's my life, I like being a troubadour, I like moving from town to town singing for people. I'm sorry, it's what I am. It was OK when we first got married, wasn't it?"
Well, people change. How did fatherhood change you?
It changes you because you realise that you've got to be there a little bit more often than not. You've got to turn it off when you'd like to leave it on. Sometimes I wish I could just stay home and give the love, you know. But they understand. It's actually more about the gift of love that they give to me. It's a gift that I gave myself having children. I look at my daughter Chelsea and she was writing a song the other night! Incredible! I call up Liv and she's got another four movies under her belt. She had a year off, had a baby and is now back in the game and has four movies done. I called her during Christmas, and she's got blood in her hair and she's black and blue from being dragged across the room by her feet across the floor and getting tied up in a chair with some complete stranger that she's co-starring with! She was holding the phone with two fingers because she's got fake blood all over her! Isn't that just amazing, huh? It really is. But sometimes it's a struggle. Children, touring, Hepatitis f**kin' C!
I heard you'd caught that but at least you're alive...
Yeah, but I had it. It's called the silent killer. You can get it and you wouldn't even know it. That's why I went and got a test for it. But I'm a survivor and I'm lucky. I'm not sure if you've come to any conclusions of your own about heaven or hell yet. Have you?
No, I can't say I have.
Well, go and get a book about the gorilla they taught sign language to and see what he says about it. It's very interesting. The book's called Koko The Gorilla. They taught him sign language and it's the first time it's crossed over to an animal that's not given free will to learn. They asked him about it (makes monkey noise, and then points heavenwards then earthwards). He said light and darkness. It doesn't take a f**king genius, does it?
So gorillas aside, what have you learnt from your journey through life and music.
That to know you is to find me...Wait! What have I said there?
Edited by DemondSlayer - 4/8/2008, 14:05
