by Joe Perry
The Project carried on, and there were some strong musical moments. For many dates we opened for ZZ Top, whose Eliminator, one of the great rock records of all time, was tearing up the charts. It was always a lot of fun to play with Billy Gibbons and company. Their backstage was always a happy, mellow party—so different from Aerosmith.
The Project released Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker. I was a coproducer, along with Michael Golub, who understood just how raw I wanted this record to sound. We cut it at Blue Jay Recording Studio in Carlisle, outside Boston. The bulk of the lyrics for the song “Adriana” came from Cowboy and concerned our guide and road manager during our tour in Venezuela, who became my girlfriend for the trip. We recorded T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong,” something we’d been playing live. Another track, “Women in Chains,” was something from a band in Tennessee that I heard as a women’s protest song. It was an antidote to all the misogynistic songs being written by some of the heavy metal bands. I wrote another song, “Black Velvet Pants,” which rearranged my reality more profoundly than anything I’ve ever written. You’ll see why in a minute.
Before the record was released, I wrote a line on the back cover to express my attitude about the changing musical technology so pervasive in 1983: “There are no synthesizers on this album.” This was my last stab at denying the fast-changing technology.
During the making of Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker, I was living with a woman named Glenda, who had been introduced to me by Cowboy. The idea was that I’d sleep in her spare bedroom, but by the second night I was sharing Glenda’s bed. Glenda was a hairstylist who did my hair for the cover of my album. That shot is all about my hair. It’s not my favorite photo, but that’s what happens when your roommate-girlfriend is in the hair business and you’re drinking way too much Jack Daniel’s.
The label gave me a little money to do a video. They thought that “Black Velvet Pants” was the most commercial thing on the record. I liked the song and saw it as nothing more than fun. The lyrics said:
I love the way they look
I love the way they feel
Come on, babe, I’m not made out of steel. . . .
Your black velvet pants are all I need
The main job became choosing the woman who would appear in the video in black velvet pants. Collins had a bunch of books sent over from talent agencies. I thumbed through halfheartedly until I came to a picture that stopped me in my tracks—a headshot of a beautiful blonde named Billie Montgomery. There was a look in her eyes that got to me, heart and soul. I had to meet her. Ironically, Cowboy had mentioned that Billie was a friend of his girlfriend. He’d told me she was the hottest chick in town, but at the time, I was preoccupied with the band and never pursued his suggestion to seek her out.
A few days passed. I was in Collins’s office when Billie arrived. The second she walked in, I thought of the old cliché that, until this moment, had never applied to me: Love at first sight. I had met some good-looking women in Boston before, but most of the real knockouts were in New York or L.A. Billie was a real knockout.
For a few seconds I was speechless. When we did get to the business of talking about the video, I fell into her blue-gray eyes. She spoke with humility—not at all like someone stuck on her own beauty. She had an easygoing, down-to-earth, and caring demeanor. At the end of our brief conversation, she thanked me for my time, shook my hand, and left. It felt like the office had emptied out. She carried an aura and expressed an energy I’d never felt before. I was in a daze. I wanted more.
“She’ll be really good in the video,” said Collins.
“The hell with the video,” I said. “I think I’m in love.” I know it’s a cliché, but when I said it, I was dead serious.
It took me a while to remember that this was the same Billie Montgomery who Cowboy had been wanting me to meet. He had also told me that she was in the middle of a separation and had a young son. Right off the bat we had an important thing in common.
I came up with the self-serving idea that it’d be really important for the video if Billie came to see the Project live. She accepted my invitation to our gig in a quaint New England village in New Hampshire. After our sound check, she and I walked across the street to a small country fair. Riding the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round, we spent the afternoon together. The more I got to know Billie, the more my feelings grew.
There were hundreds of fans at the show that night, but I saw only one member of the audience. All my concentration was on Billie. And you can bet that I burned up the stage with everything I had.
Billie said she enjoyed the show. In the van on the way home we shared a few swigs from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. The mood was easy and light—lots of laughs. A song came on the radio. I asked the driver to turn it up.
“Who is this?” asked Billie
“Cheap Trick,” I said. “One of my favorite bands.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” said Billie, “but I like the song.”
I was surprised that Billie didn’t know about Cheap Trick, who were all over the radio. She explained that she was into alternative college radio, new wave, and punk and didn’t listen to much mainstream rock. I didn’t say anything about my previous band. After all, that had been nearly five years ago. Besides, I didn’t walk around with a big A on my forehead.
We talked a little more about the kind of music that Billie liked. She described her mom as a hip lady who played Elvis, Ray Charles, and Patsy Cline downstairs while her older sister blasted Motown upstairs. When Billie was old enough to buy records of her own, her first were Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention along with the Doors and the Beatles’ White Album. She spoke about her childhood in a little town in southern Indiana. Unlike my background, Billie’s family had been in America many years, on both sides, going back to the early 1670s. On her mother’s side she’s related to Davy Crockett. When she left, she never looked back. From a young age, she took care of herself. Billie lived with her eleven-year-old son, Aaron, of whom she had full custody. She spoke about her separation from her second husband, Willie Alexander, who, in the world of Boston bohemia, was known as the godfather of dada punk. He was fifteen years older than Billie. Although I know she loved Willie, I think he was also her mentor. He is a killer piano player, painter, and poet, and he encouraged her own pursuit of painting and poetry. For all her creative gifts, Billie was also practical. She’d finished high school and attended the Massachusetts College of Art and Design for three years but had given it up in order to support herself and Aaron. She had a talent agent—Maggie Inc., on Newbury Street—and took night classes at Emerson College and sometimes traveled to New York for acting and modeling work. In Boston she had a good job selling advertising for WBOS, the country radio station.
When the evening ended, we both felt strongly connected to each other. The spiritual attraction was there—and so was the physical allure. But sensing this was going to be a deeply serious relationship, we understood the importance, before anything else, of developing a solid friendship.
I couldn’t wait to see Billie again and was excited when the day of the video shoot arrived. The premise of “Black Velvet Pants”—a straight-up rocker—was simple enough: In her black velvet pants, Billie comes to the theater where the Project is playing. She comes onstage, picks up a sax, and pretends to play as I wail away on my guitar.
We were in perfect sync. Everyone at the shoot could feel what was happening between us. But Glenda, who had been watching the whole thing, flipped out. As Billie headed back to her dressing room during a break, Glenda jumped out of a corner and attacked her. Billie didn’t know what was happening. There was no way she was going to get into some fight. After all, this was just another paying gig for her. So she just dropped to the floor and covered her head. Collins and I rushed over and got Glenda off Billie, who walked to her dressing room without saying a word while Glenda was screaming, “Stay away from Joe! He’s mine! I’m going to marry him!” Well, that was news to me.
The fight freaked me out. My first concern was Billie. On my way to the dressing room to make sure she was okay I thought about the bullshit that Glenda had just pulled: We were nothing more than roommates who slept together. She had her friends and I had mine. There had never been talk of any long-term relationship. Our understanding was that every time we left the apartment, we did so with no strings attached.
When I got to the dressing room, I was relieved to see Billie was calm and composed.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I know my days at Glenda’s apartment are numbered. I’m sorry this happened.”
“Don’t worry about it, Joe. It wasn’t your fault.”
A couple of weeks later I asked her out again. All I could think about was getting her in the sack. But I knew that would be the wrong move. I also knew that she was winding down her relationship with Willie Alexander, and I wanted to give her the time and space she needed.
We spent a beautiful evening in an outdoor Japanese restaurant where we sat under colorful lanterns and, for the first time, Billie had a taste of sake. Our talk deepened. I learned that Billie, having been abandoned by her dad at an alarmingly young age, had a low tolerance for unreliable men. She was all about responsibility.
The video shoot for “Black Velvet Pants” took place in June. That summer and fall I was mostly out of town promoting my new record. My dates with Billie were few. But with each one, the attraction intensified. After six months of the hottest platonic relationship imaginable, I was more than ready to take it to the next level. And yet Billie, always reasonable and caring, remained cautious and concerned about my family. I’d been separated from Elyssa for more than two years but was not yet divorced.
“Before we commit to each other,” said Billie, “I think it’s important that you’re a hundred percent sure about your feelings about your marriage. I think it’s a good idea for you to spend Christmas with your wife and son and see what happens.”
I hit the roof. What! Are you kidding? I was baffled by her suggestion. It was the last thing I wanted to do. Even though I understood Billie’s attitude, I had no doubt that my marriage was over. Still, I called Elyssa to say that I would be there on Christmas Eve to see Adrian. It was great being with my son, but after a cold night on the edge of my side of the bed, I couldn’t wait to get out of that apartment. I went from there to a party, where I nursed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and thought back over the last six months. I knew what I wanted.
At 2 A.M. on that freezing December night, I asked a friend to drive me over to Billie’s apartment, on Broadway near Harvard Square in Cambridge.
I rang the buzzer.
“Who is it?” asked Billie in a sleepy voice.
“Joe. Can I come up?”
Long pause. I could tell she wasn’t happy about being awoken in the middle of the night. I felt like Marlon Brando yelling “Stella!” in A Streetcar Named Desire. I hoped and prayed that she’d let me in.
She finally hit the buzzer. My friend and I went upstairs. Billie was alone. Her son, Aaron, was at his dad’s for the Christmas break. After a while, sensing he was a third wheel, my pal split. Billie played her favorite music for me while I told her about my experience at Elyssa’s the night before.
Finally, I said, “I got a couple of Quaaludes. Do you want one?”
She laughed and said, “Are you trying to drug me and get me into bed with you, Joe? No thanks. Let’s just go to sleep.”
We went to bed together—my dream for the past six months—but ironically, I fell fast asleep without fulfilling that dream. But as soon as the rooster crowed, that dream was realized. Words can’t describe the overwhelming intensity of what I felt. I’d finally found my true soul mate. I knew that I wanted this woman—forever.
That morning I asked if I could come back that night and stay.
“Yes,” said Billie.
And the night after that?
“We’ll see,” she said with a sparkle in her eye.
I never left.
A few weeks later, we were driving to a party in Billie’s white Chevette when an Aerosmith song—I can’t remember which one—came on the radio. I pulled over to the median strip and said, “That’s the band I was with.”
I’d mentioned Aerosmith to Billie—just in passing. The name never registered. She lived a different lifestyle, more arty, and listened to alternative music and punk rock, so the name didn’t mean anything to her. Now I mentioned the name again. “We were pretty successful in the seventies,” I added.
“I don’t really know that group,” Billie admitted.
I was secretly thrilled. It was miraculous to have found a woman who was interested in me, not a guy in a supergroup carrying the promise of money, glamour, and glory. I took it as further proof that Billie was the one and only woman I would need for the rest of my life.
One morning after making love, we were in bed when I put my thick gold chain around her neck and announced, “I’m going to marry you.”
She laughed and said, “You’re crazy!”
Tim Collins had been negative about my relationship with Billie from the start. He didn’t like the idea of my forging an alliance with an independent, strong-minded woman and explained to Billie that she could not, under any circumstances, go on tour with me. He said that I had a record to promote and that nothing was going to stand in the way of that. I couldn’t have cared less about Collins’s views on my love life. This was sacred ground. Because she had a good job and a son to raise, Billie had no interest in going on tour anyway—and she told Collins that in no uncertain terms.
While I was falling in love with Billie, there were still demons at my door. The thrill of the Project was starting to wear thin. Collins was still able to hustle up gigs, but the failure of the MCA album to make a dent in the marketplace was a blow. I was still drowning in debt. My soon-to-be ex-wife and her lawyers were taking me to the cleaners. For years we had needed to sell Villa Elyssa, but Elyssa wouldn’t let a real estate agent through the door. Consequently, the IRS was about to foreclose. She had sold off our furnishings and antiques, as well as my guitars, and kept the money for herself. Meanwhile, she’d gotten her driver’s license and was driving around town in a brand-new VW Jetta. Her attorney made me out as a deadbeat dad to the point where a judge instructed me to get a real job—an especially humiliating moment for a musician who had been working continuously for the past fifteen years.
In contrast, I saw the harmonious relationship between Billie and Aaron’s dad. For the good of their son, they went out of their way to keep their relationship civil. They were more like cousins than ex-spouses.
As badly as I needed money, I had no thoughts of returning to Aerosmith. I had heard they were having their own problems making gigs and presumed that drugs were putting the final nails in their coffin. I was still determined to make it on my own and pay my own way.
“I don’t want to live here rent-free,” I told Billie. “I’ll pay half your rent.”
“It’ll be great when you can pay it all,” she said. “Until then, I’m in a better financial position than you to cover the costs.”
In the following months, things began to change inside my head and heart. The most important change was my relationship with Billie. I wanted to protect it at any cost. I had found a deep and luminous love that helped me see the future from a different perspective. I was no longer a single entity wandering through the world on my own. I had a partner for whom I wanted to provide.
That was the personal side of things. On the professional side, there was and would always be music. I wanted, I needed, I had no choice but to keep making music. That’s all I knew. That’s who I was. But now the urgent questions were right in my face:
What is the way forward?
Do I keep the Project alive?
Or do I reconsider the pledge I made when I walked away from Aerosmith, swearing never to return to that madness?
Is it that madness that is calling me?
Or, beneath the madness, is it the power of Aerosmith’s blistering rock and roll that won’t leave me alone?
PART 5
THE SECOND RISE AND FALL (AND RISE AGAIN)
BACK
I had put the drugs away, but there were still days when, while living with Billie, I found myself drifting out to the bars to break the boredom of a weekday afternoon. On one such afternoon Billie came home early from work to find me passed out in bed, an open gallon jug of wine on the kitchen counter.
“Look, Joe,” she said. “I get up every morning at seven to make breakfast for Aaron and get him off to school. We’re out the door by eight. You see that I’m basically working two jobs. If I get a call from my agency, the radio station gives me the time off from my sales gig, but that’s time I have to make up. My advertising clients require constant follow-up. So to come home and see you in this condition isn’t going to fly. What the hell are you doing with yourself?”
“I got up late,” I said. “I took a walk and stopped in a pub for a couple of drinks.”
“And then got a gallon of wine? I didn’t know that they made bottles that big.”
Not knowing what to say, I stayed silent.
“This isn’t going to work, Joe. If you want to live your life this way, I want you to leave. Because I’m not having it. It has nothing to do with how much I love you. It has to do with my own sanity. I don’t want to be around you in this condition, and I certainly don’t want you to be around Aaron. So it all comes down to a simple choice on your part. You can go or you can stay. But I’m not living with a drunk.”
I heard what Billie said, and I didn’t hesitate in replying.
“You’ll never see me like that again,” I said. “I’ll get it under control.”
And I did.