Interview: Joe Perry, Aerosmith

Aerosmith are once again back in the saddle with the long awaited follow-up to their quadruple-platinum-seller Pump. Lee Riley squeezes some words of wisdom out of 'Smith's guitar man Joe Perry and gets a hold on Get a Grip.

GRIPPIN' YARNS?!

AEROSMITH's new album Get a Grip is classic 'Smith, except for the first single, "Living On The Edge," which is almost pure SPRINGSTEEN. But keeping it fresh and doing it different is the big challenge for Aerosmith, who have been rocking and rolling for 15 years and more. Now, clean and sober with a new lease on their careers, the "Bad Boys from Boston" have mellowed into elder statesmen of rock n' roll.

Guitarist Joe Perry talks about life, music, and the new record.

Did they expect the comeback to be as enormous as it has been? And to what do they owe the huge amount of success in this revival?

"That's a big question," ponders Perry. "I guess I didn't expect it, but it was like a natural progression, and a lot of it is just because we really got back to basics and did what we set out to do in the beginning, which was to get together and play, and that's all we were shooting for."

Get a Grip was two years in the making, was there anything that held it up in particular?

"Just trying to get it better than the last one, and get it where we thought it was hot," reasons the guitarist. "We recorded a whole bunch of stuff at A&M studios about a year ago. We recorded almost a whole record. We just felt it wasn't strong enough, so we went back to Boston and spent the summer writing again."

BETTER THAN THE REAL THING

There's been a buzz that they turned in a tape that Gaffin thought was a little too hard, that it was just too heavy...

"Well, we all kind of sat around and said, 'Well, it's not happening.' I think there were some things that were harder than others and some things were just okay, not great, you know. We were driving around listening to the U2 record [Achtung Baby] saying, 'This is a great record.' And it's like, 'Are we there yet?' 'No, we're not.' We were in the thick of mixing and it still wasn't going over."

Aerosmith are now planning a world tour in support of Get A Grip, a tour that should see them well into 1994. However, touring for Aerosmith in the 90s is kind of different to what it was in the 70s.

"For us it used to be you tour the States for a couple of months and that would be it," he chuckles, "but now since we are starting to play all the other markets, we are able to cross borders without too much trouble, tours take longer."

They have this record and one more for Geffen. Then they have to go back to Colombia, with whom they had a fairly acrimonious parting [in 1984]. So, how do Aerosmith feel about going back over to Colombia?

"Yeah, but it's turned around. At the time we left there wasn't really a lot to hold on to. They had a lot of bad experience with us. In fact, we owed them a bunch of money. But we're back and it seems to be we're psyched to be going back there, but I still like Geffen."

Geffin, though, having spent all this time, effort, and energy re-establishing them, must be a mite pissed off since its Columbia who will get the fruits of all their hard work.

"Well, they weren't pissed off enough to match Colombia's offer," he says wryly. "There's all this talk in the business about Aerosmith's going to put out a record for Geffen and everybody's expecting all this shit. I think it's just going to work out okay."

It's rumoured that Colombia paid something in the region of $35 million to re-sign them. However, Perry won't be drawn into the figures.

"Now everybody goes around, 'Now that you guys are rich...' It isn't like that. You gotta deliver. It's what it's worth after you've sold some records. It's never what the cash is in the pocket. But it's good to know that they have faith in us over there and they're looking at it for long term because of the catalogue and where we are going to be in five years, still producing records."

GROWING PAINS

How do Aerosmith keep it fresh after all this time? How do they keep 'getting it up'? How do they make it exciting for themselves?

"Well, the whole thing is, if it's getting us off, the audience will come with us," grins Perry. "But I think there's a lot of reasons why it's working for us. A big part of it is a lot of things spiritually and emotionally were on hold for a lot of years, and we were on automatic pilot, and, when we got cleaner, we started growing again."

So many artists get sober and then they have this wonderful revival to their careers. It's like Aerosmith, as Perry said, "start feeling again."

"Like I've been playing this fuckin' Les Paul for 25 years, and, after a while, it gets a little tired, but so then we bring in some outside songwriters. That keeps it exciting. You get in there and someone will go, 'Try this,' and that's what keeps it fresh for us, being open to change, not being in stuck in our ways, not saying to the record company, 'Fuck you we're going to do it our way.' We always listen to everybody's input."

Which is a change from six years ago.

"We were given free rein to run ourselves into the ground," he admits. "I see that happens all the time with other bands, where they get a little success and a little money, and then they think they hung the moon. They forget what they did two years ago, much less 10 years ago. That's why a lot of bands come out and their records aren't so hot. They just stop listening to the people around them."

So is the single "Living On The Edge" something they did with outside people?

"Mark Hudson wrote 'Living On The Edge' with us and he did 'You Gotta Love It.' He's written a few things in his time, he's really talented, and we just got together and had a really good time. Basically, we recorded a demo that we did in my basement studio."

It's absolutely a departure.

"I think it's a little psychedelic," he muses. "It's a real hard rocking song. It's going to be a killer live. Basically our albums are the soundtracks for the live shows, we are always thinking of it in those terms."

On a final note does Perry worry that their fans might just want the patented Aerosmith sound?

"Well, that's why we have 'Eat the Rich" and 'Fever.' I think 'Fever' cuts closer to what we're about than anything we've done before. And Get a Grip... I mean, we've definitely got something on there for our fans."

Lee Riley
Riff Raff
June 1993

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