In a recent interview with Classic Rock, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry spoke about the band’s early days. He reflected on his first meeting with Steven Tyler and the vocalist’s ultimatum to become a part of the group.
The guitarist and his future bandmate crossed paths while Joe’s old band, including bassist Tom Hamilton, was performing at a local bar. Saying that Tyler was in the crowd watching them, Perry recalled:
“That’s when I got formally introduced to Steven. He’d heard that the Jeff Beck Group were looking for a new singer. A friend of ours asked if we’d be his backup band while he did a demo.”
In Perry’s words, the vocalist, who was then a ‘singing drummer,’ later worked with him and Hamilton to record a cover of The Beatles’ ‘I’m Down.’ During this session, he came up with an idea and an ultimatum for the band’s future, as Joe recalled:
“I think that’s when he saw something, and I had. He said: ‘Yeah, I’ll come to Boston. But I don’t want to play drums; I want to be just the singer.’ And I said: ‘That’s good, cos we’ve got this guy from New York called Joey Kramer who is thinking about being in the band…'”
In the years they worked together, the two also had conflicts at some point. A dispute started between them when Perry publicly said the band was looking for a new vocalist following Tyler’s words about focusing on ‘Brand Tyler‘ in 2008.
Speaking of the public spat in another interview with Classic Rock, the guitarist expressed his thoughts:
“I’m not sure how I feel about that [The public feud]. They say all press is good press; I’m not sure I agree with that. Maybe it felt like we had to [say] something to our fans. F*ck, I couldn’t tell you. We were so spread apart, I don’t know. Maybe we were trying to set the record straight and be a little bit more honest and let people know what was going on. I don’t know.”
Things seem to have gotten better for the pair over the years, as they are now getting ready for their farewell with Aerosmith. Their final tour, ‘Peace Out,’ will kick off in September and last until late January.
