Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith

by Joe Perry

  “The old videos are stale.”

  “They’re becoming classics.”

  “We need a new slate of songs—right now—and a new slate of videos.”

  “The band’s health trumps anything else. Don’t forget, Tim—I’ve seen this movie before.”

  “All I can tell you is that the label’s nervous.”

  “Let them be nervous. We’ve been dealing with nervous labels for the past twenty-five years. We’ve never delivered an album on time. So why worry about that now? ” I laughed.

  I hung up on Collins only to get calls an hour or two later from Steven, Tom, and Joey. Collins was telling them I was undermining the band’s enthusiasm. I assured everyone that I was not. I was fine. We were all fine. We had sold a shitload of records and tickets off of Grip. It was time to chill.

  But Tim worked off fear. He knew that practically every rock artist has a fear of being obsolete. And yet at the start of 1995, I wasn’t feeling fearful.

  Adrian had learned bass and started playing on some of the demos we were cutting in the Boneyard. He had grown up into an exemplary student and talented musician. During the summers, he’d come in from California to spend time with Billie, his brothers, and me. Nothing made me happier than seeing all our sons together. As the years went on, the boys grew closer and eventually formed a band—called Dead Boots—of their own.

  As Aerosmith approached our first album for Sony, the initial work was done at the Boneyard. Though Geffen was out, John Kalodner was still in—and so were a host of outside writers who came through to help us facilitate the process. Glen Ballard, who had written hits for Michael Jackson, began working with us. Mark Hudson was also there, as was Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots—all of us looking for the lost chord.

  It turned out, though, that the person most lost was Tim Collins. He wasn’t happy when Steven and I took off Easter vacation to continue our writing down in Florida. We brought our families along, got houses on the beach, and even did a little boar hunting. Even though songs for the new album were not complete, we needed time off to renew our spirits. That’s when Tim fell into a deep depression. It’s also when he started to lose it.

  His manipulations had always been handled with a certain subtlety. Now they became blatant and even desperate.

  “Your relationship with Billie has reached a new level of neuroticism,” he told me. “If we don’t intervene, it could ruin the entire band.”

  Of course, we’d heard this song and dance before. This was the same type of bogus argument that had taken us to Sierra Tucson. This time, though, I ignored Tim and let him rant. When he made his case to the other band members—that my marriage to Billie was a threat to everyone—the guys ignored him. That only made Collins angrier. He felt himself losing power and, in turn, began scrambling for ways to hold on.

  It was strange, for example, that at a big Aerosmith family gathering—a baby shower for Brad’s pregnant wife, Karen, given by Terry Hamilton, Tom’s wife—Collins didn’t show up.

  But he did show up that same summer at a band meeting that included the wives. He called these get-togethers the “Vision Meetings,” yearly events to discuss big ideas. It was his chance to express his vision for the band’s future. The meeting went along as per usual, with Tim and the therapist du jour pontificating to the group, always letting the band and wives give enough input, so we wouldn’t feel manipulated or controlled.

  After the break, instead of pointing to the future, though, he began by saying what was wrong in the present. In front of everyone, he pointed to Billie and me as examples of what had gone wrong. Having whispered these accusations to the other band members and their wives in private, he now delivered them in public, thinking that would win him even greater favor. He leveled the same tired old argument that we’d been hearing for years, using the same tired old phrase.

  “You two are undermining the health of the band,” he said, “by trying to micromanage our every move.”

  To stay grounded, Billie had been going through individual therapy of her own for the past six years. Professional outside opinions helped her understand how the band was caught up in Collins’s cultlike culture games.

  “Give us an example of how we micromanage,” she said.

  Collins was shocked. He wasn’t used to being challenged and didn’t like it. He had no answer.

  Billie went on. “If we ask for a schedule three months in advance, that’s because our kids travel with us and we have to consider their educational needs. That’s not micromanaging. That’s simply being good parents. You’ve been throwing around that term for years. Not only is totally inaccurate, it’s insulting.”

  At this point Tim was white as a sheet. By now it was late in the day. Everyone had been sitting in a circle for hours. Tim saw his big moment to get Billie and me, when everyone, including us, were worn down by the meeting. It hadn’t worked. All he had to say at this point was, “This meeting is over,” before getting up and leaving the room.

  I was wrong to think that all this madness might soon pass, but nonetheless, that’s how I was thinking. I couldn’t face the prospect of attempting to disassemble the management team. Besides, Steven and I needed to write new songs; the huge new Sony deal was in place, and we needed to move forward. We needed to keep working.

  In 1995, once again our drama was heightened by our inability to fashion a new record in a reasonable amount of time. The writing process was as slow-moving as ever. So we decided to shake things up. Since it had been eleven or twelve months since the band had played together, we performed at a Boston club in which the band members were investors—Mama Kin. The gig was great, but it didn’t help us finish the record. For that, Steven and I hit the road to work with other outside writers.

  In Minneapolis, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were warm hosts and good collaborators, but nothing really jelled. We went to Nashville and started a song with Taylor Rhodes that eventually wound up as “Full Circle.” Kalodner also brought Marti Frederiksen into the mix—another major character in the annals of Aerosmith writers.

  Marti and I became fast friends. He was a whiz. In addition to being a great bass player and drummer, he had mastered the Linn drum machine, the magical technological tool at the heart of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. In the music business, producers and musicians grow enamored of certain sounds and the new machines that make them, convinced that those innovations hold the key to commercial success. The Linn was one such innovation. There was a cult around it. But Marti was more than a good technician; he was a real hard rocker, a brilliant cat with whom I loved to jam. When he came to the Boneyard, we’d have a blast building up a large catalogue of riffs.

  In the beginning, Steven didn’t want to work with Marti, who was just starting out. He didn’t see his talent the way I did. He also hadn’t yet realized that Marti could write lyrics. But I kept insisting that Marti come back, and ultimately I prevailed. The three of us wrote “Something’s Gotta Give,” which appeared on the album we eventually called Nine Lives. The completion of that record, though, was still in the far-off future. At that point we didn’t even have a producer.

  That’s when Kalodner brought up Glen Ballard’s name again. Initially, Glen had worked with us as a writer. Now John was saying that he should produce the entire project. Ballard was coming off the success of his work with Alanis Morissette and her Jagged Little Pill project. The story was that Glen did it all with a drum machine, Alanis and himself on guitar. The record sold more than twenty-five million copies—so naturally Kalodner was impressed. Steven was even more impressed with the Ballard-Morissette story. He kept saying how we’d be working with the hottest producer in the world.

  With the world beating down his door, Ballard came off humbly, but you could tell his enormous ego was bubbling under the surface. Capitol was building him his own studio. He was forming a production company that would not only make records but movies as well. All this was happening when Steven and I went to Miami to write for
two months, living at the Marlin Hotel. We’d work all week and then I’d fly home to Billie and the family on weekends. Tyler stayed in South Beach, whose bikini-clad skaters inspired his lyrics. Mark Hudson, Desmond Child, and Richie Supa were also around, helping us put together our material.

  South Beach was a cesspool of rumors. The gossip rags ran a photo of Steven at a party surrounded by three or four girls, implying the worst. But the truth was that we were just writing—or trying to write. Other than Steven’s occasional walk on the beach, our trip was all about work. The scene was a composers’ free-for-all, all the writers wanting Steven to sing their songs and add to their royalties.

  The longer we labored, the crazier Collins became. He had spies who went to the twelve-step meetings that Steven attended. Our attendance was monitored closely. For my part, I stopped going to meetings. As far as I was concerned, Collins had perverted the process. If his spies reported me absent, I no longer gave a shit.

  At this point, Collins had turned over the day-to-day management to our accountant, Burt Goldstein, who was also Brad’s brother-in-law, and our publicist, Wendy Laister. It seemed like Collins was spending all his time fighting with Steven and furiously resolving crises that he—Tim—had created. For example, convinced that Steven was drinking and drugging, he had his guys search Steven’s room for evidence. When no evidence was found, Collins remained adamant. In his mind, Steven was about to go off the deep end. Only Tim could save him and, by extension, once again save the band.

  At the same time, we were hearing alarming news from up north: Joey was having serious problems. It had always been hard for Joey to gear up to go to the studio with Steven. A drummer himself, Steven was unrelenting in his critiques of Joey’s playing. The pattern of verbal assault had been going on for years. Eventually Joey wrote a book, Hit Hard, in which he spoke openly about the abuse he took from Steven.

  Early on, I told Steven, “Lay off this guy. He’s doing the best he can. He busts his ass and practices more than anyone in the band. No amount of yelling is going to make him play like you. You have your style and Joey has his. His style works for the band. Just leave him alone.”

  When Steven hemmed and hawed, I said, “Look, either we fire him or accept the fact that he’s our drummer.”

  I didn’t want to fire him; I just wanted Steven to stop badgering him and let him do his thing. But Steven’s harping never stopped. More than anyone, Joey took the brunt of Tyler’s moods. Whenever we would gear up for a tour or a recording session, Joey would fall into a depression. He knew it meant getting back in the ring with Steven. Over the years, the emotional beatings got worse.

  The passing of Joey’s father a few years earlier had been another blow. The loss was heavy on his heart. A guy who loved to zip around in his sports cars, Joey locked himself up in his home. When Tom, Brad, and a few of Joey’s friends showed up, they came to the obvious conclusion: Joey was suffering a breakdown.

  Joey’s friends helped facilitate his admission to Steps, a rehab north of Malibu, California, run by therapist Steve Chatoff. He’d be there for a while and unable to work on our new record. Joey’s well-being came first. I was glad he was getting help, but we were also facing a deadline for this first Sony record. Our options were to stop everything and wait for Joey or to carry on without him. We didn’t know how long his treatment would continue or, once he completed it, whether he’d come back at all. That’s when we decided to bring in session drummer Steve Ferrone. If Joey returned in a reasonable amount of time, he could redo the tracks laid down by Ferrone. If not, we’d keep Ferrone’s work, which, by virtue of his experience with Average White Band, we knew to be superb. Style-wise, Ferrone could play anything. At the same time, without Joey’s distinct style, the tracks didn’t have the usual Aerosmith fire.

  During the sessions Collins made himself scarce. This was not his way. In the past, he’d been hands-on with practically every project. He’d come to the studio, go on press junkets, and accompany us on tour. It was odd that he showed up in Miami only once. Something strange was afoot.

  Steven took off one day to fly to Washington, D.C., where he met his wife, Wendy Laister, and Tim Collins at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Later, Wendy asked me why Billie and I hadn’t attended.

  “I didn’t know we were invited,” I said.

  “The invitation came to the office,” she said. “Collins didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it was a rough evening. Steven and Teresa kept going off on how you and Billie are codependent on each other to the point that you need to go into rehab.”

  “I’m sure Collins loved hearing that,” I said. “I’m sure he agreed with every word.”

  “He did.”

  I began to see that both Steven and Collins were going crazy in different ways. Many of the problems we blamed Collins for were really caused by Tyler. By carrying out Steven’s crazy schemes, Collins was able to stay in Tyler’s good graces.

  Still certain that we all needed professional help, Tim sent a female psychologist to evaluate the band members and our wives. Tim hoped that she would concur with him and send us back into rehab. But she concluded the opposite. After meeting Billie, the therapist, said, “Why, there’s nothing at all wrong with you and nothing neurotic about your relationship with Joe. You’re as sweet as can be. I wish there were more marriages like this.”

  That wasn’t what Tim wanted to hear. He wanted the psychologist to report that we were sick and needed immediate treatment. When she undercut his theory, he threw a fit. He sent a nasty fax saying that he was firing her and that she could no longer have any contact with anyone associated with Aerosmith or he’d take legal action against her. We learned that because, by accident, Collins sent the fax to our house. Further proof that his crazy control mania was out of control.

  The musical part of the puzzle was equally complicated. We’d demoed up a group of songs and gotten Brad and Tom down to Miami to record with me and Steven—all under the auspices of Glen Ballard, who had become obsessed with the Alesis Digital Audio Tape, known as ADAT, a format that enabled the simultaneous recording of multiple tracks onto a Super VHS tape. At first Glen used three ADAT machines, but he soon expanded to eight. By the time it was over, we were recording on 170 tracks. Not only was Ballard running a ridiculous number of tracks, he wouldn’t make a decision about which take to use. If we wanted a rhythm part, he’d record eight versions and keep them all. “We’ll decide in the mix,” he’d say. In the past, our track sheets—showing what music was on which track—were a couple of pages long. In this instance, our track sheets for each song formed a binder a hundred pages thick. In the past we’d always gone home with rough mixes of what we’d done that day. But with no decisions made on which tracks to use, it was confusing. Without any basic mix, we were lost. We couldn’t get a handle on what the fuckin’ songs were sounding like.

  The recording process left me feeling disassociated from the music. Too much tech, too little blood and guts. There was also the fact that Glen was preparing to produce Van Halen. He was always on the phone and never fully present. Steven gave him a hard time, antagonizing him by claiming that Bruce Fairbairn’s production methods were far superior to Ballard’s. In spite of these nasty fights, the record somehow got done. It was time for the Sony execs to hear it.

  The suits flew down to Miami for a listening party. We played them the album from start to finish. After the last song, dead silence. The silence lasted an uncomfortable thirty seconds. Then one of the suits said the very words that were on my mind: “I don’t like it.”

  “Why not?” asked Ballard.

  “It doesn’t sound like an Aerosmith record.”

  “Why not?” Glen repeated.

  “Because I don’t hear the band. I’m missing the band.”

  Ballard argued but, ironically enough, it was Steven who flipped out in defense of the record. I could understand that, because Steven had sung his ass off
on these songs. He had labored long and hard.

  “It just needs a different mix,” said Steven. “It’ll be fine.”

  “You need to start over,” said the exec. “You need to scrap this and start over.”

  The aftermath was ugly. The attempt to salvage Glen’s production by having Joey—out of rehab and back in shape—replace Steve Ferrone’s drum parts didn’t work. Sony took Ballard off the project. When they gave it to someone else to mix, the man couldn’t make heads or tails out of the tracks. So the only option was to recut the songs.

  Steven was enraged. His wig-out reached unreasonable proportions. Once again, his logical and useful ideas were buried under the uncontrolled anger that he took out on everyone. I sympathized with him. I didn’t want to go through the whole fuckin’ process again either. But what choice did we have? Sony had turned down the tracks. They had a contractual right to demand another record.

  Because I didn’t like the sound of the Ballard record anyway, my attitude was, Let’s give them something different. Let’s move on.

  Steven’s attitude was, I’m not budging.

  Collins’s attitude was, This is the worst crisis we’ve ever had. Steven’s tantrums are about to break up the band.

  No matter the differences in attitude, there was nothing left to do but leave this Miami nightmare behind and go back to Boston and face the next crisis—the final crisis with our manager.

  That breakdown took an especially pernicious turn because it coincided with Steven’s emotional unraveling. The dynamic between Collins and Tyler was complex enough to fill a library on psychology. The essence of it, however, was this: Collins saw that the way to control the band was to control Steven. And for Tim, the best way to control Steven was to stick him in rehab. Or agree with him. There were times some of the things Collins said sounded suspiciously like the things Steven would complain about most: my relationship with Billie and its effect on the band.

  Back in Boston, Collins called a band meeting without Steven. There were therapists in the room. It was a goddamn circus. Emotions were flying high. Tim’s management style of mixing fear and peer pressure had reached a point of no return. He began with a pseudo-psychological rap about how Steven was out of control. He wasn’t sober. He was acting out sexually. He was raging to the point where Collins could not reason with him. Collins pressed our buttons as only he could.