21
Nov
2009
Sweet Emotions…?
I’ve been an Aerosmith fan as long as I can remember. The 70’s just wouldn’t have been the same without Aerosmith, one of the most successful and long-lasting Rock bands in history. But sometimes fame, money, and egos can ruin the most beautiful art form of all and leave five talented musicians bickering at each other as if they were in a 10th grade highschool band fighting over who the band leader is.
If you don’t follow music news you may not have heard of the constant state of drama that Aerosmith has been in. 2009 was set to be a busy year for the rock super-Gods with a new album in the works and an as-usual heavy touring schedule, but as the year wore on so did the tensions between the band, specifically speaking frontman Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry. On the surface, everything seemed fine up until an unfortunate accident in August of 2009. During the Sturgis motorcycle rally, Steven Tyler took an unfortunate fall during “Love in an Elevator” while he was dancing mid-song on a catwalk. The stage was reportedly still wet from rains earlier. This was the last time the band was seen together performing (except for one instance which you’ll see later in the article) as the rest of the tour, including all Canadian dates, had to be canceled due to Tyler’s injuries (a broken shoulder, stitches to the head, and other fall-related injuries).
Roughly a month later, Perry began to publicly express his frustrations with the tour cancellation and about his long-time band mate. In an interview with Perry, he stated that “he [Steven Tyler] and I haven’t written a song together alone in the same room in over 10 years, so there’s been some changes in paradigm of what Aerosmith is.“ It would appear as though there have been issues in the recording studio as well as Perry then added “The bottom line is that every hole that Aerosmith left, I filled.”
As time went on, the distance between the two only grew. By the end of September, the two still hadn’t talked at all or had any contact whatsoever. Rumours began to fly that the band was breaking up, but Perry stayed adamant that the band wouldn’t be split and that they would continue as long as they could. The rumours, however, would not go away, yet Perry continued to publicly state that the band has been through many ups and downs and would not disband.
“I’m an eternal optimist,” he said. “We’ve been though some pretty thin times and some pretty thick times, and there have been periods when Steven and I – for no reason other than just to get some space – have not talked to each other for months. Then we get back together and things mesh.“
Despite his dedication to the band and his fans, Perry was never shy about calling out Steven Tyler and telling him to “get his act together,” which showed to the fans both a desire to continue their work yet also showed a strong resentment that only fueled the break-up rumours. The band was slated to play a few sets in Maui, Hawii in October due to legal obligations (they had canceled shows a few years earlier), yet Tyler skipped rehearsals and didn’t join the band until moments before they were set to go on stage. There was virtually no communication between Tyler and his estranged band, so much so that Joe Perry learned that Steven Tyler was beginning to pursue a solo career and possibly leaving the group until he read it on the Internet.
It wasn’t until November 11 that, at a solo show of Joe Perry’s, that Steven Tyler made a surprise appearance on stage mid-way through the show.
“I just want New York to know, I am not leaving Aerosmith,” Tyler said, before turning to Perry and stating: “And Joe Perry, you are a man of many colours, but I, motherfucker, am the rainbow!“
Perry had no idea that his long-time band mate wouldThe buck didn’t stop there, however. Tyler had stated that he did wish to take a hiatus from Aerosmith, perhaps up to two years, to which Perry replied that the band simply wouldn’t wait around for him. “The band’s too good to let it sit around. We’re not going to wait for Steven,” he said. The band has since began looking for a replacement singer.
So what does this mean for Aerosmith? Well, regardless of whether Tyler actually leaves, Aerosmith as a brand will probably continue. Any musician, whether he/she is successful or just likes to jam with friends will tell you that if there’s no chemistry between members there’s no band. It’s clear that over the last few years, and specifically the last few months, that what little chemistry Steven Tyler and the rest of the group had has left. This probably explains why the band hasn’t released a new album since 2001 and why it’s taken so long for their work-in-progress album to gain ground as well, but only time will tell.
Should Steven Tyler leave, that’ll be it for me personally. The four members of Aerosmith that are still there play together phenomenally, but without the unique vocalizations of Tyler, they’re just a good instrumental band, and that’s not what Aerosmith is (despite the ego of Perry stating that they are indeed a guitar band first and vocal second). Aerosmith has been fraught with trials and tribulations over their fourty year career ranging from personal problems spilling into the band to constant drug battles (Tyler having been put into rehab again just last year), but it seems that there’s just no recovering from something like this. Both men [Perry and Tyler] have egos bigger than their music and they simply just don’t get along. Aerosmith may still exist as a brand name with the same talented fellows playing the instruments, but the band has been splintered and that’s that. It’s been a good few decades, but the elevator has reached the bottom floor and there’s just nowhere left to go.
To keep up on the Aerosmith developments (and to catch up on the recent news and interviews), I suggest you check out Ultimate-Guitar.com’s news pages (filtered for Aerosmith news).
