What do we really know about Boston rock band Aerosmith?
Despite being famous rock stars, the band members haven't really put their lives out
in the open.
So let’s investigate and take a long, hard look at the tragic real-life story of Aerosmith.
Even rich and famous rock stars can face unexpected challenges that pull them right back to the
realm of the mortals.
Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler is no exception.
In 2006, he revealed to Access Hollywood that three years earlier he was diagnosed with
hepatitis C. He'd carried it for years and years without knowing, but then things reached
a point where it had to be dealt with.
Unfortunately, getting rid of an extremely stubborn liver disease is difficult, no matter
how many adoring fans you have.
Tyler's rock star life turned into 11 months of chemotherapy and medication, which he says
almost killed him.
But ultimately, the treatment did manage to clear the virus from his bloodstream.
Illness wasn't the only problem Tyler had at the time.
He was also dealing with some serious marital difficulty with his wife Teresa Barrick.
The two divorced in 2006, just in time for Tyler to enter his next crisis in the form
of a potentially career-ending throat surgery.
If not for all his fortune and fame, you'd almost be tempted to think that some guys
just can't catch a break.
It's easy for a touring rock band to develop favorite cities and venues, as well as those
they'd prefer to avoid.
Aerosmith fits squarely within that tradition.
In fact, at the early stages of their career, the band spent about a year boycotting the
city of Philadelphia.
And they had their reasons.
In 1977, they were playing a concert there when someone in the audience unexpectedly
threw something on the stage.
That something turned out to be a cherry bomb, which promptly exploded, catching Steven Tyler
and guitarist Joe Perry in the blast.
The bomb burned Tyler's cornea and ruptured an artery in Perry's hand so badly that there
was blood shooting from his arm.
The incident forced them to take some time off from the road, and it soured them so badly
that they turned down all offers to play in Philadelphia until 1978.
Their eventual return to the City of Brotherly Love probably didn't do much to warm them
to the place, though, as Tyler was promptly injured again when someone threw a beer bottle
onstage and flying shards of glass bloodied his face.
There are some things in life that all the money in the world can't prevent.
Aerosmith bass player Tom Hamilton found this out the hard way in 2006, when he discovered
he had cancer of the tongue.
This forced him to take a hiatus from touring in order to go through radiotherapy.
While he was soon thereafter declared cancer-free, the disease returned with a vengeance in 2011,
and this time, it had spread to his voice box.
In order to vanquish cancer once and for all, Hamilton decided to undergo a radical laser
surgery procedure, and thankfully, the move turned out to be successful.
"Tom feels Dr. Zeitels' laser procedure saved his voice, and his life."
"Thanks for helping me win the lottery."
After a few check-ups, the doctor finally told him in 2015 that the battle against the
disease was won.
But just to be safe, Hamilton insisted on keeping up with regular check-ups.
Of all the members of Aerosmith, drummer Joey Kramer in particular seems to have led a pretty
rough life, which he described in his aptly named book, Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock
Bottom at the Top.
In a 2009 interview with Billboard, Kramer said that the book is an account of his indulgences
and addictions, and that it also focuses on two particularly difficult relationships in
his life.
That would be the damaging one with his father and a confrontational, "co-dependent" one
with none other than Steven Tyler.
It's pretty telling, then, that the foreword of Hit Hard was written by Mötley Crue's
Nikki Sixx, a man who's famously wrestled with very similar demons regarding familial
and band relationships.
The sum total of Kramer's life has apparently been damaging enough, and his survival of
it all inspiring enough, that he wants to use his story to help others.
As he explained to Billboard,
"Because I've been allowed to do what I've done via Aerosmith, I'd like to be able to
carry it on as I get older, on another level.
Whatever that may be is really unbeknownst to me - maybe some sort of a lecture series
or circuit or whatever - but I know that it will come."
Considering the amount of drugs Steven Tyler and Joe Perry took during the first half of
their careers, it's not exactly shocking that the members of Aerosmith have occasionally
risked running afoul of the law.
In 2017, Tom Hamilton and guitarist Brad Whitford told NME about a particularly close call from
back in the day.
The group was driving to a gig on the New Jersey Turnpike when a police car unexpectedly
pulled them over.
This was a bit of a problem, as they were carrying two bags of marijuana.
The officers suspected as much, and when a cursory search led to the discovery of a pot
seed in the back, all five band members were handcuffed to a roadside railing and then
taken to the police station.
There's no telling what would've happened next if it wasn't for Tyler's quick thinking.
He noticed that the room next to the one where they were being held had its door open and
lights off, so he took the drug-filled bags from Whitford and quickly tossed them in the
dark space.
And that's when the lights flickered on as a detective entered and took the band for
fingerprinting.
The police failed to notice the bags, and they allowed the rockers to go about their
merry way.
They made it to the show, and were rewarded for their troubles with a crowd of only about
a dozen or so people.
The members of Aerosmith have been known to be fairly indulgent, and as such, they haven't
always been the easiest people to tour with.
According to Steven Tyler's memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, their road crew
didn't always care for the band's antics.
So they had their own creative ways to cope with the situation.
"So, what you're saying is, roadies are the bottom-feeders in the great babe food chain?"
Whenever the band made the technical crew's blood boil, the roadies had a stealthy, and
stinky, measure of revenge at their disposal: they would sneak up to the band's catering
and wipe their behinds on the musicians' deli meats.
Tyler says he was completely unaware that some of the bologna slices on their menu had
been spiced in a rather unsanitary way until years later, when one of the roadies confessed
to what went down.
Sadly, we don't know whether this soured the band on those "Aerosmith road crew" shirts
they sell.
In 2009, Joe Perry told Reuters that a string of medical issues among band members was a
big reason why Aerosmith hadn't recorded any new material since 2001's Just Push Play.
However, Perry also revealed that this was just a part of their slump.
Apart from touring, the band members were rarely in contact with each other, and to
top things off, the songwriting partnership between Perry and Steven Tyler was basically
nonexistent.
In fact, they hadn't written a song together in ten years, for reasons even Perry couldn't
quite comprehend.
Perry himself was writing songs on a daily basis, but when those didn't end up on an
Aerosmith album, he decided to pour his creativity through other channels.
He released those songs as an obscure solo record, with vocal duties handled by a random
German singer that his wife found on YouTube.
Meanwhile, his main band didn't release any new music until 2012's Music from Another
Dimension!, which garnered rather mediocre reviews
The members of Aerosmith, as you may have guessed, have been known to be quite liberal
when it comes to drug use.
"How bad was it when the drugs were at their worst?"
"At their worst?"
"Yeah."
"It was bad."
"It was awful."
"It was bad."
Steven Tyler and Joe Perry in particular are quite open about their history of addiction,
with Perry admitting that he was under the influence of heroin during his own wedding
in 1975.
In a 2018 interview with Louder, Tyler reminisced about the days of 1977's Draw the Line, when
he was so out of it from valium and muscle relaxers that he couldn't walk properly and
had trouble uncrossing his eyes.
The singer also estimates that he's spent $6 million on cocaine alone over the years.
Judging by how everyone involved is still alive, it seems that Aerosmith have cleaned
up in their later years.
But it took some effort.
Tyler, for one, had a whopping eight stints in rehab, the last one being in 2009.
But even during their cleaner periods, the Toxic Twins found ways to go overboard.
For instance, during their drug-free tour for 1989's Pump, they drank so much carrot
juice that their palms and the soles of their feet turned orange.
It's easy to assume that Aerosmith is one of those bands that's always had a stable
lineup.
Surely, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry have always been getting on each other's nerves like an
American version of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
But that's not quite the case.
In fact, it turns out that the Toxic Twins did in fact spend a good chunk of what might've
been the most fruitful, or destructive, years of their career apart.
In 1979, an escalating series of on-the-road arguments culminated in a backstage fight
that led to Tyler drunkenly firing Perry from the band.
"I've said many things to all those guys that I should have never said, that I didn't mean."
While everyone involved retrospectively recognizes Perry's ensuing departure as a bad move, the
fans made their feelings clear from the beginning.
While the Night in the Ruts album from that year was a decent success, the band started
spiraling soon afterwards.
They fell out of favor with their label and audiences alike thanks to a dwindling creative
spark that gave the world the underwhelming Rock in a Hard Place in 1982.
It didn't help that Brad Whitford, the band's other guitarist, also quit in 1981, and that
his and Perry's replacements were far from embraced by the fans.
It wasn't until a surprise backstage encounter between Tyler, Perry, and Whitford in 1984
that their wounds started healing, and the old magic was discovered again.
Aerosmith has been around since 1970, so a hiccup or two is only to be expected at this
point in their career.
But when you consider all the various troubles that have derailed the band recently, it's
hard to pass them all off as hiccups.
In 2017, the band's tour had to be cancelled due to a mysterious Steven Tyler health scare
that, according to the man himself, was totally not a heart attack or a seizure.
Then in 2018, Joe Perry collapsed onstage while moonlighting with Billy Joel at Madison
Square Garden.
His health drew concerns again in 2019, thanks to a winded performance during a concert in
Las Vegas.
Also in 2019, Tyler's Loving Mary Band side project had to pull out from a festival that
same year due to unforeseen circumstances.
"Steven Tyler wrote, 'Someone dropped raw meat on a dream catcher.'"
With all these cancellations and troubles, there's been speculation that the Toxic Twins
are finally starting to feel all those decades of living in the fast lane.
Then again, despite their advanced years and the fact that they announced in 2016 that
they'd break up after a final farewell tour in 2017, Perry has since stated that the band
is planning to hit the road again when the band turns 50.
So who knows?
When civilization ends and humanity is extinct, maybe these guys will still be jamming with
cockroaches and Keith Richards.
"We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"
"You're worthy, you're worthy! Get up!"
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