Aerosmith’s internal feuds continue even after fans stopped caring.
After reading recent interviews with Joe Perry, as he flogs his sure-to-stiff new solo album venture, you quickly understand why Steven Tyler isn’t taking Perry’s calls anymore… and may never again.
Perry sounds callous, selfish and whiney all at the same time as he moans about Tyler holding up a hypothetical new Aerosmith album in an interview, then coldly acknowledges in another that he made the decision to start promoting his solo junk, Have Guitar, Will Travel, immediately after Tyler’s stage mishap. After Tyler tumbled to a broken shoulder and cancelled the tour, Perry began self-promoting “on the way home.”
How dare Tyler hold up Perry’s plans to make yet another round of concert cash grabs, gouging gullible fans once again for a rote evening of calcified rock. And why isn’t Tyler on board with making another mediocre Aerosmith record that nobody is asking for?
Perry’s sour grapes sound particularly childish when he wonders aloud why Tyler is allegedly working with other songwriters instead of him. Perry tells AP: “I’m down in my studio every day, writing, and for some reason he wants to write with people like (outside songwriter) Mark Hudson and whatever,” he said. “I can’t explain it.”
Witnessing Perry use Tyler’s ambivalence towards Aerosmith as a platform to launch his solo outing, and reading the details of how Perry made Have Guitar, Will Travel, you get the impression someone close to him is whispering terrible career advice in his ear.
The album features a complete unknown German vocalist named Hagen Grohe that Perry’s wife Billie, who apparently also wrote much of the album’s lyrics, discovered on YouTube. After nearly 40 years in the music business the Hall-of-Fame bound guitarist couldn’t find, with all due respect to Grohe (and his Twitter feed), a more noteworthy singer? I’m sure this record is just going to fly off the shelves.
Perhaps Tyler’s South Dakota accident gave the silk scarf-loving singer perspective about the reasons why Aerosmith are even still on the road in the first place. How much is enough? Is it too late to get out with integrity?
The sad state of Aerosmith can be succinctly summed up with the band’s first show since Tyler’s fall, happening this week in clandestine fashion. Despite the obvious internal animosity in the group, the band will perform a private concert in San Francisco for software corporation Oracle.
Not exactly a triumphant comeback for a once-great rock n’ roll band.[rssbreak]
