Steven Tyler: The Biography

by Laura Jackson

  In the nine months since Steven revealed that he had undergone chemotherapy to conquer hepatitis C, he had received even keener attention, but the star was just as frenetically untamed on stage as ever, still displaying his trademark long flowing locks, and just as hairpin-thin due to constant dieting and working out. He confessed: ‘I do two hundred and fifty press-ups religiously every night before I get into bed.’

  Tyler put his natural youthfulness down to his lineage. ‘My Italian grandfather on my mother’s side had a full head of hair in his old age and my paternal grandfather was a wiry Portuguese sailor,’ he said. He did not shrink from questions about his former wild child days, but preferred to move on. He did want, however, to continue to stress that for addicts sunk in the mire the only way to sobriety was to go through the rigours of rehab, and he maintained that it was being clean of drugs that enabled him once more to hit the high notes in songs.

  Aerosmith made their mark at Marley Park in Dublin, Ireland, before returning to eastern Europe. They wove gigs in Germany, the Netherlands and Finland around the remainder of their groundbreaking appearances in this corner of the world, which saw them entertain audiences at the Skonto Stadium in Riga, Latvia, the A Le Coq Arena in Tallinn, Estonia, and during performances in Russia at the SKK Arena in St Petersburg and the Moscow Olimpijsky Arena.

  Jetting across the Atlantic, they were committed to participating in two Canadian events - the Sarnia Bayfest in Ontario and the Blast at the Beach in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island - before heading to sunny California, where an appearance at the Mid State Fair in Paso Robles preceded wrapping up this leg on 27 July with a gig at the Konocti Harbour Resort in Kelseyville.

  Taking August off to catch their breath, Aerosmith was one of the acts to perform at the star-studded yearly extravaganza, Fashion Rocks. Recorded at Radio City Music Hall in New York on 6 September, it aired nationally as a two-hour special the following night on CBS television.

  On 8 September, Aerosmith embarked on the fourth leg of their 2007 world tour, opening at Clarkston in Michigan. With Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as support act, only nine gigs were scheduled; concentrated in an eighteen-day period, the pace was brisk. Six days into this leg, they turned up in Mansfield, Massachusetts, to play the Tweeter Center. The last time they had been there, Steven had just dropped the bombshell news of his secret battle with hepatitis C, which had stunned and worried his fans. Of this night the Boston Globe’s Joan Anderman was moved to write next day: ‘The stage was sleek and uncluttered, a clean palette for Steven Tyler’s star power. Tyler strutted the catwalk, a model rock god, scarves flowing from his hat, his neck and his mike stand, gripping fans by the wrists, dipping his fingers into a woman’s drink and rubbing it behind his ear.’

  Because Aerosmith had been so much on the road since getting their second wind, they inevitably revisited venues fairly frequently and were concerned that they could become stale to the fans. It seemed unlikely, if for no other reason than the basic psyche in the band. As Joe Perry put it: ‘This band has always felt like the underdog. We come from a time when you earned your bones by playing better than the other guy and there is always a “competing with ourselves” kind of thing. We are forever saying: “What did we do last time we were here? We gotta kick some ass this time.”’ The tour ground to a halt in late September in Illinois.

  To add to Steven’s contentment with how the tour had gone, he was privately pleased in early October, when Mia, who had suffered the loss of her mother and the demise of her first marriage, found happiness again with a guitarist named Brian Harrah. They had newly become engaged and Mia was thrilled with her father’s reaction. She told the media: ‘We went over to my dad’s hotel to show off the ring. He grabbed Brian and hugged him and was like: “Good job, son!” My dad absolutely loves him.’

  On 5 November at the 2007 Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards, held at London’s Landmark Hotel, Aerosmith’s headlining performance at that summer’s Hyde Park Calling Festival won the trophy for Event of the Year. During these awards, Jimmy Page received the Living Legend Award, which Steven presented.

  In his spare time, Tyler was able to indulge in one of his strongest passions outside music - motorcycling. Despite a serious motorbike accident years earlier that landed him in hospital, he retained a love of these powerful machines. So much so that in 2007 he had teamed up with an engineer, Mark Dirico, and A.C. Custom Motorcycles based in Manchester, New Hampshire, to launch a new line of custom-built bikes called the Red Wing motorcycle. Steven had designed the sleek motorbike, which its makers claimed had thirty-five per cent more horsepower than a stock Harley Davidson motorcycle. The flashy, glamorous Red Wing had been unveiled at the New Hampshire International Speedway that September. Said Steven: ‘You get on one of these bikes and you can ride for days. These bikes are damn cool and just amazing to look at!’

  Completely at home with the biker fraternity, Steven travelled to Hollywood, Florida, in early December to attend an annual Bikers Bash shindig held in the Pangaea Lounge, a nightclub inside the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino situated in a Seminole Reservation. A small disturbance in the club’s VIP room made the national newspapers when it was reported that Steven’s girlfriend Erin Brady got into a dispute with a Seminole Indian woman. One witness told the New York Post: ‘A woman from the tribe was trying to take a picture of Steven Tyler. Steven’s girlfriend was coming back from the restroom. Apparently Erin got in the way of the picture or something and words were exchanged. Next thing everyone knows, the two girls are going at it - scratching, hair pulling, hitting. It lasted about six seconds, then security broke it up.’

  After the club’s security people calmed matters down, a spokesman for the establishment quipped to journalists: ‘There’s nothing like a catfight and an ageing rock legend to make an evening entertaining.’ Newspaper headlines said that Steven and all involved in the fracas waited at the club to be questioned by officers from the Seminole police department. Steven was questioned as a witness to the spat but no charges were laid and around dawn everyone was free to go.

  Those taking an interest in Tyler’s love life wondered if there would ever be a Mrs Tyler mark III. Asked directly about his views on wedlock, the twice-divorced Steven mused: ‘I guess I’m just not the marrying type. It’s been proven time and again. It’s not that I am not capable of loving another person. I am. But, spending our lives together? That’s where I run into trouble.’

  On 26 March 2008, Steven turned sixty. There may have been bleak days in his distant past when he had wondered if he would ever reach this milestone birthday, but when specifically asked once what he envisaged himself being like at that age he had inimitably responded: ‘I’m always going to love Jimi Hendrix. “Purple Haze” will still give me a hard-on when I’m hooked up to a life support machine.’

  Nothing like infirm, at sixty Steven looked forward to the release of Aerosmith’s fifteenth studio album, and talk of a tour quickly surfaced. Impressively, the band’s average earnings on tour are one million dollars a show. Having sold around 150 million albums worldwide, Aerosmith ranks as the second bestselling American group - the Eagles hold the top slot - and has inspired a new generation of rock artists to follow in their wake.

  Over the course of almost four decades in the business, Steven has branded his unique stamp on rock’s firmament. His strong survival instinct has seen him beat addictions for heroin, cocaine and alcohol. Tasting the heady heights of moneyed stardom, he lost it all and descended into squalid penury, only to rise again to become a bone fide living rock icon, battling hepatitis C along the way. Tyler is the best kind of reformed addict - not a sermonising preacher, rather a man who, having sunk to the darkest depths of drug addiction, knows what that hell looks like and so can speak the language that struggling addicts can truly relate to.

  Steven has a fascinating personality. With a hilarious sense of humour and utterly irreverent, he can be highly entertaining company, but he is also a smart cookie. Stron
g-willed, yet he runs full tilt at life and has been reckless near to destruction; this curious blend of traits is what makes him a larger than life star. He has stated that he would not go back and change a thing in his colourful rollercoaster life - not because he believes that he has always done what was right for himself or for others, but rather through an unwillingness to tamper with the tapestry of his life. Although he has mellowed in many ways, there is no sign of his light bulb getting dim, and with his boundless energy he is far from ready to pack away his microphone. Unfazed by the plethora of fresh-faced boy and girl bands swamping today’s music scene, Tyler irrepressibly declared: ‘I don’t buy into this idea that you’re not supposed to rock after a certain age. I’m looking to be the lounge act on the space shuttle so that I can sing “Walk This Way” on the ceiling.’ It is hard to escape the feeling that if it’s possible for any rock star to achieve such an ambitious aim - Steven Tyler will.