Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith

by Joe Perry

  But as each day went by, I was realizing that, when it came to music, these guys were only half-serious. They liked music but they didn’t love it—not the way I did. They loved the do-nothing lifestyle of Block Island. I loved that too. It reminded me of the lazy days at Sunapee. I loved that Sally was a great lover and a sweet chick. I loved that the hash was good. I loved the wildflowers and the low-hanging clouds and the breezes coming off the ocean. I loved it all, but I needed more. I needed to know that the music was going someplace. And it wasn’t.

  After a couple of weeks I realized that I needed to get out. When I told Sally I was leaving, she was a little sad but hardly devastated. She was a free-loving chick and would find another free soul to love. The guys were disappointed but they knew I wanted more than them. They didn’t argue. I hired a couple of local kids to help me carry my guitar, suitcase, and amps down to the ferry. I got on the boat on an unseasonably cold and overcast day. Looking at the island slipping off into the distance, it was still a beautiful sight. It was a short chapter but a good one. For the first time, I had tasted real sex and loved it. And just as importantly I had learned that, no matter how intense the physical pleasures of lovemaking and doping, I needed more. I needed to find guys who shared my drive to play rock and roll.

  After Block Island I went back to the factory and Flash. But as spring turned to summer, I quit my job and moved up to the lake, which was by now a tradition. Renewed by the water and the woods, I was revived by my musical friendship with the Jam Band—me, Tom Hamilton, and Pudge Scott. We knew this would probably be one of our last summers to hang out.

  Elyssa was back in the middle of the mix. In fact, she was the one who brought Steven Tallarico to one of our gigs at the Barn. I didn’t know he was there until after the fact. Even if I had known, it wouldn’t have made a difference. The Jam Band’s jams were just that—experimental excursions through Hendrix’s “Red House,” a glimpse of MC5’s “Ramblin’ Rose,” or a taste of Beck’s “Rice Pudding.” John sang, I sang, I played guitar, Tom played bass, Pudge kept us moving along. At that point I was so deep in my learning groove that I had little self-awareness. My concentration had been on the musical and physical moves of Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix. In the only area where I had consistently been a good student, I had paid strict attention to how these men articulated their instruments. I had also borrowed whatever grand gesticulations—Pete Townshend’s sweeping windmills, for example—that were critical to their style. Early on I saw that the entertainment element of rock guitar was essential. Chuck Berry played to please. He put on a show. And if his show hadn’t been as spectacular as it was, he never would have captivated me so completely.

  “Steven Tallarico likes your playing,” Elyssa told me a few days later. “He thinks you’re the real deal.”

  I was happy to hear it. I considered Steven the real deal. His bands were always professional sounding. I loved the raw emotion of his singing voice. Something was drawing us together.

  Not much time passed before Henry Smith, Led Zeppelin’s drum roadie and Steven’s close friend, asked us to make an audition tape backing Steven, who was trying out for Jeff Beck. By then Steven’s many bands—the Strangeurs, Chain Reaction, Fox Chase, William Proud—had split up. He was looking for a gig.

  We all gathered at the Barn, where the owner, John Conrad, always a true supporter, let us do the taping. It was Tom, Pudge, and me backing up Steven.

  Before we started, he and I had a chance to talk. It was the first time we had a chance to say more than hello to each other. We had a few laughs and discussed the song we were going to play. Steven was witty, animated, and all about the music. He lived and breathed the stuff. His energy was manic. He believed in himself. I sensed that he had the same strong self-confidence and drive that I did. At this point I took his manic energy to be part of his drive, like mine.

  Time to get started. Henry ran the tape recorder. We played before just a few of our friends, including the always-present Elyssa. After rehearsing, Henry rolled tape and before long we got a good rock demo of the Beatles’ “I’m Down.”

  We cracked a few beers to celebrate and then decided to play some more—just for the hell of it, this time with Steven on drums. I had never heard him jam before. He really cut loose. He was by far the best I’d ever played with. I’m so rhythm-oriented myself that finding someone whose grooves were so right was thrilling. The interplay between us was something I’d never experienced with another musician. We each had different vocabularies, but we spoke the same musical language. We played songs that we knew in common and blasted through a couple that we didn’t. He had soul and grit and an astounding range. Before the jam, I was a little concerned that Steven might be too pop for me. But when we got together on “Train Kept a-Rollin’,” Yardbirds style, I knew that Steven was no stranger to the blues—or at least the English version of the American blues.

  “We gotta do this again sometime,” he said after it was over.

  “Anytime,” I agreed.

  We talked a little longer about all the bands he’d been in and why he was fed up with the business.

  “These bands keep falling apart,” he told me. “I’m getting tired of trying to keep it together. The music business is fucked up. Man, I’m seriously thinking of quitting.”

  I told him that I was impressed when I saw that the Strangeurs actually had a single, “The Sun,” on the Anchorage jukebox.

  “That record didn’t go anywhere,” he said. “It didn’t make us a dime.”

  “So what are you going to do now?” I asked.

  “Not really sure. I think I’m going to stay up here for the winter.”

  In jamming with Steven, I began to see him in a different light. I liked his energy; I was blown away by the connection we shared during the jam; but I also detected deep insecurity. I began to see that his nonstop stream of talking was a way of covering up. He’d have to keep telling you how good his bands were and how good he was—not to convince you, but to convince himself.

  The Jam Band continued jamming that summer. We even found a girl singer who played keyboards and joined us for several gigs. The Jam Band was always solid, but the Jam Band wasn’t enough.

  Tom Hamilton and I returned to the shade of the oak tree, where we had another discussion about the future. We got high and went into a fantasy about getting our act together and breaking into the music business. It was that recurring fantasy about forming a band that actually had a shot to go big-time.

  I’d been through Chimes of Freedom, Flash, Just Us, the Jam Band, and the crazy cats on Block Island. I wanted more. And I wanted to achieve it with Tom. Over these past summers, we’d become brothers.

  I put it to Tom plainly: “I think we should move to Boston, rent an apartment, and start a band. I think we should just go for it.”

  “I’m with you, man,” he said. “I’m with you all the way. The only problem is that I have another year of high school. I don’t want to miss my senior year. Besides, my parents would flip out if I quit.”

  I wasn’t happy, but I understood. I couldn’t see going to Boston by myself, not without my buddy Tom. I agreed to wait. That meant spending another winter at the factory in Hopedale.

  That winter was one of the longest of my life. Even though I had a little seniority and better pay, I hated the work more than ever. Those dark months went by slowly. The conveyor belt moved slowly. Time stopped. At $2.40 an hour I was still putting away money, but my savings were adding up slowly. The overheated tedium of the conveyor belt got to me. So did the constant harassment from the workers about my faggot hair and my hippie looks. I kept to myself. I stayed sullen. I made up the courses required to get my high school degree. Not that I planned to go to college, but I still wanted to please my parents, who remained baffled over my life as a factory worker.

  I sold my station-wagon-and-trailer vehicle that we had used to lug our gear around. Instead I took my savings and finally bought a used MGB. That sports ca
r represented a break in my thinking. I no longer saw myself as someone who wanted to haul around band gear. I wanted something better. And I didn’t want to wait. I drove down to Boston to hear Jeff Beck make blues magic on a Les Paul. That next week I was out shopping for my own Les Paul.

  I saw less and less of my parents. They were as understanding as they could be. They were steady, they were strong, but at that point my dad had become a virtual stranger. The long winter got to me. Handling the red-hot metal got to me. Breathing the factory’s toxic fumes got to me. The sunless days and freezing cold nights got to me. In the middle of that frozen winter, I broke down. Approaching twenty years old, I felt like I had lost it.

  The grit and the grime, the grind and heat and endless boredom had me half out of my mind until one day I called up my supervisor and said I was sick. I called it the flu, but it wasn’t the flu. It was the blues—the low-down, can’t-get-my-ass-outta-bed blues that had me in my room for two straight weeks, not waking up till four in the afternoon and doing nothing but making model rockets.

  My mom and dad looked in on me, but they were as confused as I was. I had a feeling they thought I was a hopeless cause. I thought the same.

  I broke down completely, only to start slowly building back up. I’m not sure where the motivation came from. It probably had a lot to do with the weather. That gray New England winter sky can definitely get to you. When the cold weather started to thaw, I got it together enough to return to the factory, where my boss seemed glad to see me. The boss was always appreciative of my hard work. I counted the days until summertime. As soon as the warm weather hit, I was off to Sunapee, where the Jam Band would reconvene and Tom and I could solidify our plans to finally get the fuck out of Dodge.

  The summer of 1970.

  Here comes Mark Lehman, rolling into Sunapee in his hippie-ized step van—a UPS-style truck. Mark pictured himself as R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural. He was Mr. Laid-Back, Mr. Cool, Mr. Right on Time. I loved the guy. A couple of years older than us, Mark literally became our way out of town. But he was much more than that. He was a happy spirit. His mood was always upbeat. He dug pot and beer. When he drifted into town and heard the music that Tom and I were making, he decided to stop drifting and hook up with us. He joined our pirate gang. The minute he heard Tom and me talking about moving to Boston and starting a band, he said, “Count me in, brothers. I want to help any way I can.” It turned out that Mark helped in every way possible.

  The plan was for Tom and me to move to Boston and find an apartment big enough to house a band. The hardest part was telling Pudge—the third member of the Jam Band—that we were leaving, but Pudge, still in high school and not about to quit, understood.

  I approached Mom, rather than Dad, because, well, Dad and I still hadn’t learned to speak to each other.

  “How are you going to support yourselves?” she asked.

  “We’ll all get part-time jobs until the band starts making money.”

  “Apartments are expensive. Part-time jobs don’t pay much. And I imagine it’ll take whatever band you form a while to start making money. Are you sure you have enough savings to get an apartment?”

  “I have some, but not enough. I need to borrow some.”

  “How much?”

  “A thousand dollars.”

  “Well, Joe,” she said, “I need to discuss it with your father.”

  At that point I was convinced that Dad had given up on me, but I was wrong. The next day Mom said they’d loan me the money. I was deeply grateful.

  Excited by the prospect of moving, Tom and I took a couple of trips to Boston in August to look for places. The idea was to move in September, when the college kids returned and the city became alive with parties and music.

  Until we left, John Conrad let me live in a deserted old farmhouse next to the Barn. In exchange for helping clean up the Barn, Tom and I could also rehearse there for free. In our pre-Boston life, the Barn was our last stop, John our dear drunk uncle sheltering us during our last days. In fact, I even got free food at the Barn if I could get to the kitchen before noon. Louise, the beloved old lady who really ran the place, would cook me a big breakfast of bacon and eggs that I’d devour in a hurry so I could be gone before John showed up. John’s early-afternoon hangovers were brutal and his behavior less than civilized. Steven Tallarico and Henry Smith once dosed John with acid, thinking that LSD might give John a new outlook on life. But when he came down from the trip he was still the same irascible John.

  This was the same summer that a Sunapee friend named Guy Williams and I had something of a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn moment. We sneaked through a barbed-wire fence into a farmer’s field, where the corn was plentiful. We low-crawled through the dirt, stuffed our shirts with ears of corn, and stealthily made our way out. Just when we thought we were free, we heard the farmer shouting.

  “I got my twelve-gauge loaded with rock salt,” shouted the farmer. “And I ain’t scared to using it. Get off my fuckin’ land!”

  Boom! An ear-shattering blast.

  We managed to escape unharmed and that night we cooked up the corn and went to bed on full bellies.

  All that summer the musical excitement had been building. There was a definite buzz when, sometime in early September, Elyssa showed up at Sunapee after spending a month abroad, where she had found her way into the center of rock-and-roll London. We all gathered around to hear her Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck stories. She also showed up with a boyfriend, a tall lanky Chicago blues guitarist who called himself Joe Jammer and was signed to Led Zeppelin’s manager. If Elyssa had been the coolest chick in Sunapee before, now she was the coolest chick in all New England.

  With summer coming to a close, the countdown had started. In a few weeks we’d be on our way to Boston and a new life. In the deserted house where I was staying, horses roamed freely around the grounds. They made strange sounds—whinnies and screeches—that kept me up at night.

  One night Tom came over with some beer and weak LSD. We climbed onto the roof of the place where I was staying and, flat on our backs, took in the moonscape. The stars were smiling, the sky was laughing, the breeze off the lake sang a song about our future. We were almost there, the fantasy almost realized. After knocking off a six-pack, we heard rock music. It wasn’t imaginary. It echoed up the valley from John Conrad’s Barn. It was one of Steven Tallarico’s last bands playing at the club. They were playing so well you’d swear you were hearing the original record of the latest Beatles hit.

  The countdown to departure day continued. It was a strange, restless summer. Sometimes I was up, sometimes down. One night the gang came over to the deserted house by the Barn to announce that they were going to the sandpits to party. We’d build a bonfire. We’d smoke dope and drink beer. We’d jump off the cliffs and act like crazy fools. On this particular night, though, I just wasn’t in the mood.

  “You guys go ahead,” I said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “You’ve got to come,” said Elyssa. “It’s going to the biggest blast of the summer.”

  “I think I’ll just stay here.”

  Tom, Pudge, and the others tried to convince me otherwise, but I wasn’t moving. I was feeling blue. As the night went on, the blue mood turned even darker. I was used to the blues. They were part of my personality—and always would be. But on this particular night, it was more than that; it was feeling that I needed to be alone. I just wanted to have a few beers and go to bed.

  Next morning the phone rang off the wall. It was my friends saying the cops busted them at the sandpits party. A few of the kids managed to run away, but the cops hauled most everyone off to the station and called their parents to post bail. It was one mess I was able to avoid. Now, more than ever, I couldn’t wait to get to Boston.

  The countdown continued.

  During my last week in Sunapee I was driving my MGB by Trow-Rico and happened to see Steven mowing the lawn. I stopped to say hi.

  “Hey, man, how’s it going?” I asked.


  “Mowing up a storm, brother.”

  “What about the music thing? You still down on the business?”

  “Don’t have any plans,” he said.

  “We got a gig on the Mount Sunapee.” That was the largest boat on the lake that made daily cruises filled with tourists while the captain pointed out historical sights. The night cruises included music. “You can come hear us if you want,” I added. “It’s a booze cruise. It’ll be a blast.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m just lying low. You going back home in September?” asked Steven.

  “Actually, Tom and I are moving to Boston. We’re looking to start a band.”

  “Cool.”

  “What would you think about hooking up with us?”

  “Sounds interesting. Lemme think about it.”

  “Okay. See you around, Steven.”

  “Take it easy, Joe.”

  A few weeks later, Tom and I piled all our stuff into Mark Lehman’s step van, which smelled of skunk weed and stale beer.

  “You guys ready?” asked Mark.

  “Ready.”

  He gunned the engine, the van belched like it was about to explode, and we were off.

  PART 2

  THE BIRTH

  THE COMMONWEALTH

  In September, the college kids came to Boston in droves. Each fall there were nearly three hundred thousand new faces. Tom, Mark, and I arrived with them—not college kids but rock kids prepared to do whatever the fuck it took to make it. Boston might not have the big-time status of New York or L.A., but Boston was practical, Boston was close by, and Boston was happening.

  The month we hit town I turned twenty. That same month Jimi Hendrix died and a few weeks after that Janis Joplin was gone. Confusion was in the air. So was excitement. The week we arrived, Tricky Dick was the prez. His goofball vice prez, Spiro Agnew, was screaming against the evils of the very rock aesthetic we embraced. We mourned the death of our heroes, but these were the culture wars. Then there was the real war in Vietnam. All of these things pointed to the reality that rock and roll was not a career you aspired to if you expected any longevity. To me it was day-to-day survival and a test of will, an attitude that said nothing would stop us from starting a band and getting paying gigs. We were too young and naive to do anything besides play hard.