[rock music playing]
MIKE: Is that it?
It certainly looks like it.
[cheering]
Oh, my goodness gracious.
Yeah, man.
We found Aeromith's van.
It's history, baby.
Raymond's boots on the ground.
He's animated.
He's excited.
This is cool.
I'm afraid to say how long it is,
but it's like 40 years has we've been in this thing.
I just flashed back to when we first
started the band because it was an amazing thing.
All of a sudden, here's the thing that we lived in.
It was like our dressing room.
It was like a rolling hotel.
I'll tell you right now, I have a picture of the inside
of this van with me in it. - Really?
- Get out of here. - Yes I do.
Yes I do. - Do you really?
I have a picture of me inside this van.
It was-- it-- it was in the "Draw The Line" book.
There's a picture of me and Steven Tyler, and Joey Kramer,
and Joe Perry inside-- MIKE: Yeah, from the back door.
Inside the van from the back door.
FRANK: But in the windows--
That's cool.
MIKE: Which one are you?
RAYMOND: That's me with the long hair.
MIKE: Oh, that's you right there.
RAY: Yeah, that's me all right.
[laughing]
Back when my hair was brown.
RAYMOND: We put the band together originally in 1970.
I was around until about almost 1972.
And then I left the band, and I moved up to Maine.
I wanted to be a hippie.
And then about a year later, Steven called me up.
He said, we just signed our first album.
Dude, I want you to come back to work for the band.
So I came back to work for the band, not as a musician,
but as one of the guys in that organization.
I decided, listen, I have a good idea.
Why don't we start a merchandise company.
I redesigned the Aerosmith logo to the one that we use today,
and I went into the merchandise business with them.
And that's what I did for about eight years.
So I was with them altogether until about 1979.
Yeah.
Look, look, look, look, look, the rug.
That's the rug. Look, it's the rug.
This is it, baby.
Cool. Cool.
Get out of here.
This is it.
This is the Aerosmith van from 1970.
MIKE: Raymond is so excited and so jacked up,
that he's like, dude, take a picture
of me in this same spot.
Get the rug in.
There it is, right there, man.
RAYMOND: All right, man.
I mean, you couldn't even write this kind of stuff.
It's taken me back, because I remember the van just the way
it is like this.
There was like six of us.
There are five guys in the band and Mark Lehman,
who owned the van.
And we would play jobs up in New Hampshire.
We'd drive from Boston up to New Hampshire for $125,
that after a gas, and the tolls, and the food,
and back, we'd all make like about $3 a piece.
And it just reminded me of the humble beginnings,
and I look at where they've gone today.
It's just amazing. - Look at the paint.
So who painted this?
RAYMOND: Mark Lehman, who was the guy who owned the van,
had a friend in Boston, that was like an artist.
So he decided to do it all chrome version of himself.
And he came up.
FRANK: That's like the keep on trucking dude or something.
Oh, that's him. That's Mark.
FRANK: It's him? MIKE: That's the guy that drove?
RAYMOND: That's what he looked like.
Yeah.
MIKE: Oh, that's what he looked like?
RAYMOND: That's what he looked like exactly.
MIKE: Yeah. - No, no, no.
In the song, in the song which says, "bald as an egg at 18,"
that's what he's talking about.
Oh, he was 18 and bald?
RAYMOND: He's talking about that.
FRANK: Yeah.
RAYMOND: That's who he's talking about.
MIKE: Oh, my gosh. FRANK: Wow.
After I left the band, I heard a story that they had
a foreign [inaudible] Mark, and he just
disappeared into nowhere, man.
Raymond's like, Mark took off.
We had no idea where he was, and when he took off,
he took the van. He owned it.
And now, I guess this is where it's been all these years.
The whole thing just disappeared.
Joe and Mark were good friends before we formed the band.
This is definitely the van.
There's no doubt about it.
This is it. MIKE: Congratulations, man.
RAYMOND: You found it, man. FRANK: This is pretty cool.
MIKE: That's all you need to hear, man.
FRANK: Yeah.
A real important thing here is that that
is the first time that Aerosmith was ever written out.
Now, we never wound up using a logo.
I myself designed the logo that we use today,
but that's the first time it was ever written out.
FRANK: Phil's getting awful quiet over there.
I can see his eyes getting big.
The wheels are spinning.
It's hitting him.
How did you guys come up with the name?
Well, Joey Kramer, apparently when he was in high school,
used to scribble names for bands.
And that's one of the names that he came up with.
MIKE: Aerosmith, huh? RAYMOND: Yeah.
So he had a vision of being in a band.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
He was spending his time in class writing names of bands
down.
Exactly, exactly, yeah.
He was destined to be a musician.
Exactly.
It was meant to be.
When Raymond actually confirmed the fact
that it was the real thing, the excitement in him
got me excited.
MIKE: I very much appreciate you coming out
here on such a short notice. - Yeah.
I'm back in 1970 again, and I felt
like, you know what, I had a lot of good times in this van.
And I'm glad that we found it.