Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith

by Joe Perry

  “Can you be more specific?” I asked.

  He couldn’t. Despite John’s gift for possessing the ears of the average rock fan, he couldn’t verbalize the problem. This was frustrating as hell. We sat around scratching our heads. We asked our engineer to try another mix. John took it home to L.A. to listen on his own speakers. While we were waiting up in Vancouver, Kalodner called and said, “I know what’s wrong. The songs are great. It’s not recorded right.”

  By then I figured I was too close to the material and decided to go along with John’s suggestion. We decided to have it remixed by someone with fresh ears—Brendan O’Brien, who’d been with the Georgia Satellites and had produced Stone Temple Pilots.

  Steven, Teresa, Billie, and I flew to L.A., where we watched Brendan operate fast and furiously. He was easy to work with and responsive to our ideas. He had the thing mixed down in a few short weeks. It sounded great. Get a Grip was finally—and I mean finally—complete. The fans loved the album and it sold millions. This was our goodbye to Geffen.

  Three years earlier, David Geffen himself had, in his own way, said goodbye by selling his label to MCA. That maneuver ultimately resulted in Geffen becoming a billionaire, largely on the huge success of Guns N’ Roses, Whitesnake, and Aerosmith. It’s always a kick in the butt for artists to watch label owners get rich beyond reason on creative work that those owners were lucky enough to market. If you think they’d give bonuses to the people who helped make them so rich, think again.

  With the release of Grip in the spring of 1993, we would support the marketing of the Aerosmith brand in our tried-and-true manner—by touring constantly. We’d play all over the country and all over the world. We’d sell the record—and ourselves—city by city, market by market, concert by concert.

  But even as the tour wound its way from continent to continent, even as the crowds got bigger and the cheers got louder, a corrosive force was also gathering strength—a force negative enough to do us all in.

  HOW IT WORKED

  While the two-hundred-plus-date tour for Get a Grip was being planned, Billie and I called Tim Collins to ask for a detailed calendar.

  We’d later learn that he, in turn, called Steven to say, “We have a problem. Billie and Joe are micromanaging the band again.”

  When Steven got pissed off, Collins said, “Don’t worry. I can handle them.”

  A few weeks later Collins called us and the other band members to say, “Steven’s sex addiction is out of control again. He’s on the verge of a breakdown. The whole tour might have to be canceled.”

  Naturally Billie and I were alarmed. That is, until we got another call from Collins, saying, “Don’t worry. I was able to get Steven some help. I have him under control. The tour is on.”

  Then Collins called Steven and said, “Billboard is doing a story and they only want to talk to Joe, but I’ll get them to talk to you.”

  Then he called me and said, “Billboard’s talking to Steven, who doesn’t want them to talk to you, but I’ll make sure they do. I’ll handle it.”

  Understandably, Billie lost all patience.

  “This man is controlling our lives,” she said. “I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand living under a microscope. I’m fed up with these wives’ meetings where his therapist is acting as a spy. I’m fed up with watching him manipulate you and Steven. I can’t stand how he turns everyone against everyone else. I’ve had it. I’m thinking about taking the kids and just renting a loft in Boston. It’s not that I want to leave you, Joe. I don’t. But I have to leave Tim Collins.”

  I knew that Billie’s pain was real and her convictions right. This was soul-damaging stuff. We discussed Collins for weeks on end. Yet I couldn’t see myself galvanizing my bandmates to fire him. We were about to go out on a huge world tour and this was no time to overturn the apparatus, all in Collins’s control. Ultimately, for the sake of our young children and the sake of my own sanity, Billie decided to stay. I was greatly relieved. I couldn’t see living my life without her. I promised her that things would change.

  As Billie predicted, Collins’s campaign for power only intensified. If Johnny Appleseed went around planting apple seeds, Tim Collins went around planting bullshit seeds. By asking insidious questions and spreading half-true rumors among the band members, he cultivated instability. Then he’d argue that if we wanted stability, he was our only hope for achieving it. He wanted us to believe that without him the operation would collapse, our deals would disappear, and it would all fall apart.

  The final straw came when we went to the Sony offices to sign our new $30 million contract, a huge milestone for the band. Photographers were brought in. The big execs were all there—Tommy Mottola, Don Ienner, and Michele Anthony. We were ecstatic about being back at our original label home. Everyone was in a great mood. But five minutes before the actual signing took place, Collins said he needed a few minutes alone with his band. That caught us by surprise. We excused ourselves and filed into a nearby conference room. Then another surprise: Collins was accompanied by his lawyer. While the attorney spoke, Tim couldn’t look any of us in the eye.

  “As soon as the contract is signed,” said the lawyer, “Tim wants to be paid his commission on your advances immediately.”

  We were stunned. Our policy was that advances be held in escrow until we delivered on the terms. This applied to all our deals, whether merchandise or records. But now Collins was demanding all his commissions up front. If, God forbid, something happened and we couldn’t fulfill our side on the contract, we’d be responsible for paying back millions of his commission out of our own pockets. It was outrageous, especially given the timing—minutes before the contract signing. We acquiesced because, for all practical purposes, we had to. Otherwise Collins could still kill the Sony deal. But this manipulation opened our eyes. This man, who had once railed against the slimy practices of music business managers, had pulled the slimiest move of all.

  My own psychology was driven by one strong motive—to keep the band together. If it fell apart, I wasn’t sure I had the strength or the means to put it back together. Remembering what happened last time—the confusion and anger, the whole goddamn mess—I desperately didn’t want to repeat that fucked-up scenario. And if the world had taken a number of unexpected turns that had put Collins at the center of Aerosmith power, I’d have to deal with that reality.

  The reality was that Collins continued to cultivate his reputation as both someone who had tamed his own cocaine addiction and the genius who’d gotten Aerosmith sober. This was especially disturbing in light of Tim’s still untreated food addiction. Not only was he dangerously overweight, but after the shows he’d hang around the food platters and slip handfuls of chocolate chip cookies into his pockets.

  These were the psychological subtexts, the eroding forces under the surface. As far as the public went, Aerosmith was still soaring. Thanks to Marty Callner, our presence on MTV was stronger than ever. His videos for the songs on Get a Grip were among his best.

  “Livin’ on the Edge” opens with a naked Steven Tyler, his hand covering his dick, a green demon oozing out of his side. Flying on Rollerblades, schoolgirls destroy cars. Playing my solo on a train track, I’m nearly run over by a speeding locomotive. There’s additional teen rebellion and, in the end, a young man puts on a woman’s wig, smears on lipstick, and is ready to rock.

  The videos for “Crazy” and “Amazing” continue the rebellion theme with strong female characters. We were catering to the young demographics. In “Crazy” two high school girls go crazy and act out a series of go-for-broke romantic/sexual fantasies. “Amazing” is amazing in its extravagant production value, as it focuses on computer projections of far-out fantasies and spacey visual trips. The videos accomplished the goals—they kept us on TV.

  The Grip tour went on for much of 1993 and 1994, and the album sold some twelve million copies. That was satisfying because, as always, critics, arguing that Aerosmith had peaked long ago, had predicted a
downslide. The emergence of grunge was supposed to have made our sound obsolete. In my mind, I thought we’d always been grunge guys. Besides, the Pearl Jam guys, the Soundgarden guys, and the Nirvana guys all talked about being Aerosmith fans. Even Kurt Cobain, the real deal in this new wave, came to our show in Seattle. He and I made small talk in the food room. When he went off to chat with someone else, his wife, Courtney Love, breathlessly told me, “He doesn’t like anyone but he really likes you guys!”

  We tried to get Stone Temple Pilots to open for us but were told they thought it would hurt their alt rocker image to be associated with an eighties hair band. Later, though, the Pilots’ DeLeo brothers told me that they would have played with us in a heartbeat had they known about the offer. It had been a few biased managers who decided we were passé, not the cats themselves. From then on, we found it nearly impossible to get an up-and-coming band to play with us. Most would rather headline clubs that held eight hundred people than open for us at a fifteen-thousand-seat arena. Go figure.

  At the same time, the new bands said they’d been raised on groups like us, Cheap Trick, and Led Zeppelin. We didn’t have to adjust to any changes in music because, in my view, our sound was classic. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have to keep getting better—writing better, playing better, performing better—but only that our brand of blues-rooted rock wasn’t outmoded. I don’t believe it ever will be.

  Although for the most part we enjoyed an easy and respectful relationship with other rock bands—both older and younger than Aerosmith—at the start of the Grip tour, when Megadeth was opening for us, there was a nasty moment. Megadeth leader Dave Mustaine went onstage and bad-mouthed us as being over-the-hill. Not cool. We dropped them from the tour.

  We ran off to Europe, where we added new countries to our schedule—Spain, Finland, and Austria. We were back home to do our traditional Boston Garden New Year’s show, our last time at this beautiful funky old arena slated for demolition, originally built for boxing and filled with old memories and dreams of our youth—that same Garden where, before we made it, Steven and I stretched out on the stage floor and said to the empty arena, “One day . . .”

  We kicked off ’94 with our first tour of Latin America. Stadium-size crowds everywhere we went—Chile, Brazil, Argentina. In Buenos Aires, Jimmy Page hung out backstage. Unbeknownst to us, he met his future wife, Jimena, at our show. The next day Billie and I went to lunch with Jimmy, who asked a question that knocked me out. Would I induct Led Zeppelin into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? As much as I hate giving speeches, this was an honor I couldn’t refuse. Apparently Robert Plant asked Steven as well.

  We made it back to the U.S. in time for Grammy week. That year we got one for “Livin’ on the Edge.” When we did The Late Show with David Letterman, it felt so good to be in New York that I stayed around all week. I was glad to accept an invitation to sit in with Paul Shaffer’s great band every night.

  In early summer, we were out to L.A. for the grand opening of the House of Blues. Aerosmith had a small piece of equity in the club, and we were glad to see it get off the ground. From there we were flying to Japan, where the Grip tour would continue. All was well. Too well. Time for Collins to start stirring the pot.

  Wanting to upgrade the Boneyard, the basement studio I’d built in my home on the South Shore, I decided to buy a Neve recording board. My friend and technical adviser Perry Margouleff found a great one for fifty thousand dollars.

  But when Tim Collins learned of my plans he called and said, “You can’t do that, Joe.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because having that kind of professional-level recording equipment will tip the balance of the band.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When it’s time to record,” said Tim, “you need to go to Vancouver or New York or L.A. You’ll be tempted to do it at home. We can’t have it. That’s the job of professional producers and engineers. That’s their role, not yours.”

  “That’s crazy,” I argued. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “What you’re proposing is disruptive.”

  I disrupted the phone call by hanging up. I’ll do as I damn well please. But Collins didn’t leave it there. He gathered the troops together for a band meeting that turned into an intervention on the afternoon of our House of Blues gig. The point of the intervention was to prevent me from buying the board. Collins pulled out all the guns. He brought the band’s accountant and his therapist du jour, who argued that spending money was our new addiction. The other guys, probably worried that the last car they bought might land them in rehab, didn’t say anything. I argued that this shouldn’t even be a band issue. But for the moment, I let it go. We had a big gig that night and then were off for Japan.

  It was only a few days later that I had time to deal with the board. But by the time I got in touch with Perry to tell him to pull the trigger, he said, “Too late, it’s been sold for sixty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Then let’s look for another Neve,” I said.

  That entailed a worldwide search. There was one in Australia but, ironically, an even better one in Boston owned by PBS Studios and once used to record the Boston Symphony. A great find, a great deal, and a great addition to the Boneyard.

  All this was happening in the margins of our extensive tours to Asia and Europe. Billie and the kids were with me all the way. For the majority of the tour, so were the wives and families of the other guys. We played the Budokan in Tokyo, a huge rush, before headlining festivals in cities we had never seen before: Budapest, Warsaw, and Prague.

  In August we were back in the States to close the big Saturday night show at Woodstock ’94, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the original Woodstock, which both Steven and Joey had attended. The location, Winston Farm in Saugerties, New York, was just down the road from where the first festival had been held. Just like in 1969, it rained like hell.

  There was unbelievable hype around this gig. I resisted the comparisons to the original Woodstock, an event that could never be duplicated. But I was excited nonetheless. I loved playing the traditional European festivals and hoped that this new Woodstock might be the start of an American tradition.

  We started out on Saturday watching it live on TV at home. Late that afternoon Billie and I were driven to the airport some forty minutes from our house, where we met the rest of the band and their wives. We loaded up onto Aeroforce One for the short flight to upstate New York. From the local airport, a fleet of vans took us to a boat landing on the Hudson. A small passenger steamer made the forty-five-minute trek up the river. By now it was dusk. A haze hovered above the water. A dense and mysterious forest hugged the shore. Above the sounds of the water lapping on the sides of the boat we began to hear the rumbling of subwoofers and occasional cheers. But those sounds were faint. As the sky darkened we saw a dim glow ahead. A very Apocalypse Now moment. All was hushed around us, but just beyond the reach of our senses we could detect an energy force that felt out of control. It was only when we drew up to the landing dock that we began to make out actual songs. We began to see barefooted people walking with backpacks. Once off the boat, we loaded up into a fleet of vans that took us down dirt roads. The drive through the forest, filled with pup tents, port-a-potties, and an army of stoner fans, took another forty-five minutes. We finally arrived at the backstage area.

  I noticed a huge presence of product placement, on everything from billboards to buttons to remote-control balloons. The happy sight, though—the overwhelming sight—was that expansive sea of people looking to re-create the original Woodstock. As far as I could tell, they had succeeded. Steven wanted to take his shirt off and dive into the mud to relive his past but bailed at the last minute, wisely saving himself for our show. The backstage chaos was such that it was impossible to find the other performers to say hello.

  When we heard the roar of the crowd that greeted Metallica, we knew we had our work cut out for us as closing act. Metal
lica went well into overtime. By then it had begun to rain. With the rain came technical problems with the power. The delay had us on edge. But when we finally walked out on the slippery stage in front of this muddy ocean of humanity, we were greeted with a thunderous welcome. We blasted through our set. It felt like it was the power of our playing that stopped the rain. With the sky clearing and the stars shining down, we played our hearts out. It was a dreamlike set. As we walked off the stage, a fireworks display exploded above our heads. Strong winds blew and fireworks debris flew everywhere. On our area backstage, the sky was raining fire.

  We made it back to our waiting van and navigated the reverse journey home—through the forest, down the river, and onto the plane for the bumpy flight back to Boston. We stumbled out of the limo at six in the morning. We went inside, turned on the TV, and fell asleep to the next day’s coverage of Woodstock ’94, when Bob Dylan, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Peter Gabriel, and Santana were set to play.

  Before the year’s end, the Tylers and the Perrys spent another family vacation together—this time on the enchanted Caribbean island of Anguilla. It was a beautiful moment of calm that, at least for those few weeks in paradise, lulled us into thinking that the rough weather was behind us.

  It wasn’t. The weather was about to turn into a shit storm.

  THE MELTDOWN

  “You gotta go to L.A. for the TV show to promote the record,” said Collins.

  “I gotta rest,” I said. “We all gotta rest. If we had taken a rest at the end of the seventies, when we were so burned out, we probably wouldn’t have broken up.”

  “This isn’t the seventies. This is the nineties, and you need to promote the new record.”

  “We’ve already promoted the hell out of the record. We just did a huge tour.”

  “That was overseas, Joe. America has a short memory.”

  “If anything, we’re probably overexposed.”