Brad Whitford and Joe Perry recently sat down with Guitar World and talked about Aerosmith’s 1974 album ‘Get Your Wings.’ For selected tracks within the album ‘ghost guitarists’ Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner were hired. Brad shared how he felt when he heard Hunter and Wagner were involved on the record. He recalled:
“At first, you fight, and you’re a little bit angry, and then you get sad to where you’re like really bummed out that you can’t do it. And the thing was that we’d done some good stuff and could play good stuff, but the tracks required some real finesse, you know?”
Although Brad did admit that it was hard to accept that he and Perry weren’t the only guitarists attached to the 1974 album, he also couldn’t help but praise Hunter and Wagner for what they brought to several tracks. He added:
“But I mean… listen to ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’ today; those are some f*cking genius rock leads. That was some great stuff and probably some of the stuff that they were most proud of out of anything they’d done. That solo is blistering.”
Despite initially describing what the band had done to him and Perry as ‘unjust,’ Brad shared that he not only learned a lot with Hunter in the mix but also pushed himself to get better. He expressed:
“I had the unique pleasure of being in the studio when Steve [Tyler] came in to cut the ‘Train’ solo. I listen back to it even today, and it’s still a lesson on guitar. Since then, Steve has had so much influence on me as a player because his playing is very much up my alley. I continue to learn some of the nuances in his playing. And Dick was a bit more like Joe, so it worked out very well.”
Hunter and Wagner have also worked with or filled in for other artists in the industry. For instance, around a similar time frame, they worked with Lou Reed and his solo album ‘Rock N’ Roll Animal’ and brought it back to life.
You can read Brad Whitford and Joe Perry’s interview with Guitar World here and listen to ‘Get Your Wings’ below.
