Steven Tyler: The Biography

by Laura Jackson

  On the back of the blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy, Liv was now not so much labelled as the daughter of Aerosmith’s once wild-living frontman, but more as a gifted actress with the film world at her feet. Liv herself declared: ‘I don’t live a very posh life. There are no drivers waiting or people doing everything for me. I pretty much live like a normal person. It’s not good to have a life without responsibilities.’ Soon after her wedding to British frontman Royston Langdon she had expressed a desire to have a family. In summer 2004 she revealed that she was pregnant. ‘Roy and I are both overjoyed and looking forward to the arrival of our child,’ she said. Steven so anticipated this baby’s arrival that he had an added spring in his step as Aerosmith took off for a two-week tour of Japan, which got under way at the Sapporo Dome. Between appearances in Osaka and Nagoya, a gig at the Green Arena in Hiroshima had to be cancelled due to Steven picking up an injury. Then, after a tumultuous night at the Tokyo Dome, Aerosmith brought an end to the tour by headlining at the Rock Odyssey Festival, which climaxed on 25 July at the Osaka Dome. Over two evenings, the festival had also featured performances from The Who and Paul Weller.

  Back home near Boston, Steven had to rest up. His vocal cords were in a fragile condition and he had suffered badly with his throat behind the scenes on tour. In addition to coping with his own health problems, Tyler continued to do what he could to advise people dealing with addiction. He devoted time to a variety of causes, and not always in the full glare of the media. Steven was involved at this time with the Musicians Assistance Program, which offered help to artists struggling with substance abuse problems. He also lends a hand to those aiding addicts in the street who are battling the same demons. In November, Tyler went to the Women’s Hope facility in Boston, which deals with treating substance abuse. There, he helped to serve up a traditional turkey dinner for Thanksgiving Day and afterwards spent time listening to and talking with the residents about addiction. While Steven still does not set himself up as a crusader hell-bent on reforming addicts, he is passionate about giving hope to those who are at rock bottom and desperate to get clean. He is the first to admit to being a prime example of someone who could scarcely have sunk any lower but lived to claw his way back to sobriety. His emphasis to the women at this treatment centre was that it can be done. The star’s visit had been strictly under the radar, and the struggling addicts appreciated it.

  In a broader sense, Steven was in the mood to take stock of the rollercoaster nature of his colourful life to date; having once lost everything, he spoke publicly about the perils of now having too much money. Having left the days of his drug and alcohol addictions long behind him he was, nevertheless, conscious of having to keep a rein on the compulsive element of his nature. One valuable aspect about being wealthy and having his wits was that he could target the best use of his money; right then this translated into purchasing extra acres around his existing property in order to increase his privacy. He keeps a small amount of poultry and other birds, and he enjoys taking long walks around his land accompanied by a couple of pet dogs. He stated: ‘Being in the limelight, I can’t go out for an hour. I can’t really go anywhere any more. So my home is my refuge.’

  While on tour, when keeping up with the family news from back home, Steven had heard that Liv had been an expectant mother who glowed throughout the pregnancy, and he knew how much his daughter and her husband were looking forward to their first baby’s arrival. On 14 December 2004, in the early hours of the morning, at a hospital in Manhattan, New York, Liv gave birth to an eight-pound baby boy whom she and Royston named Milo William Langdon. According to People magazine, Liv delightedly told a friend: ‘My baby is so handsome. He also has full lips!’

  Steven was over the moon to be a grandfather and was thrilled for Liv and Royston, but his delight in this new addition to the family was seriously counter-balanced by the deep, private pain that his marriage to Teresa was in trouble. He had managed remarkably well to mask in public that his domestic situation had been crumbling; as he would later reveal, his marriage was falling apart at an extremely bad time for him in another way. He and Teresa had been married for seventeen years, which in show business circles is an enviably long time, and their children, Chelsea and Taj, were sixteen and thirteen years old respectively.

  Steven and Teresa, however, split up, and on 20 February 2005 Aerosmith’s publicist, Mitch Schneider, released a press statement on Steven’s behalf which said: ‘Before the tabloid media makes more of this than it is, I am announcing that my wife, Teresa, and I are currently separated. We are just a family trying to work through a difficult time. A little privacy and sensitivity - for Teresa, my children and myself - would be nice.’

  News of this split was widely reported across the media and raised a few eyebrows, for despite Steven’s overtly salacious public persona, the Tylers’ marriage was thought to have been as solid as a rock. That said, Roger Friedman for FOX News appeared to feel that he had the inside track. He stated: ‘No reason was given for what seemed like surprising news, but I have known that all was not well in the Tyler household.’ Inevitably, speculation surfaced as to who was to blame for the split, but although some commentators expressed views, no one was privy to the truth, and Steven and Teresa preferred to keep a lid on their private business.

  Teresa had played a massive part in helping Steven through one of the worst phases of his life and it must have been heart-breaking for them to be parting company. Steven found solace in spending time with his first grandchild, Milo, and his public life went on as before. With his ties to Boston, he had recorded a tape for a city tour called ‘Boston: City of Rebels and Dreamers’. He lent lead vocals to Carlos Santana’s hit single, ‘Just Feel Better’, and in April he appeared in a cameo role as himself in the feature film Be Cool, a comedy directed by F. Gary Gray starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel and James Woods. In the film, Steven is seen performing a duet of ‘Cryin’ with a would-be vocalist played by Christina Milian.

  On 3 June, Steven collected his second honorary doctorate - this time from the University of Massachusetts in Boston. It was in recognition not only of his music, but also for his support of philanthropic causes from literacy and homelessness, to rehabilitation for alcoholism and for his support for families of soldiers killed in Iraq. Over two thousand students attended the commencement day ceremony, held on the lawn at the university’s Dorchester campus. In graduation garb and dark glasses, Steven received his scroll from Jack M. Wilson, the president of the University of Massachusetts, and J. Keith Motley, the interim Chancellor.

  That summer there were sporadic rumours that Steven was working on a solo album, but it was Joe Perry who released his fourth such effort, titled simply Joe Perry. It had been twenty-one years since Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker, and on this new album, which had been recorded at his home studio, Joe had handled everything himself (including the vocals) except the drum work, for which he had enlisted the services of his co-producer, Paul Caruso. At the 2006 Grammy Awards, Joe was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for the track ‘Mercy’. Joe Perry releasing solo work was not a sign that there was trouble in the band; indeed, Aerosmith was said to be lining up rehearsal sessions in preparation for an autumn tour.

  Steven continued to have his reasons for lying low. He also needed to spend time with his son and three daughters. He wanted to do all he could to help Chelsea and Taj come to terms with their parents’ split. It warmed him to see Liv so happy and settled, but he was concerned for Mia, for her marriage to Papa Roach drummer Dave Buckner had foundered. Hitched so publicly, on stage during an Aerosmith gig in Las Vegas, two years on Mia and Dave had filed for divorce.

  Mia’s professional profile was developing. She now revealed that her late mother, Cyrinda, had given her a few modelling tips, advising her always to remember to keep her chin up, to wear nude underwear and be sure to work her strong eyes to the best advantage. In 2005, Mia took part in the US reality television series,
Celebrity Fit Club, when she shed eighteen pounds. It was not Mia’s first experience of subjecting herself to this sort of regime. In the early 1990s, she had attended a camp to help overweight children to slim, and it had been a trying ordeal for her. She lost thirty pounds in six weeks, but had felt so miserable throughout those weeks that when it was over she regained all the weight she had shed and more besides. Although her experience of the Celebrity Fit Club series was appreciably better, in general terms she felt that she could never recommend anyone to undertake such regimes.

  With her father’s and her half-sister’s stardom it could be easy to feel overshadowed, but Mia does not. She is independent, with her own reservoir of self-confidence, and she can come away with telling quips about her rascally, unorthodox father, often remarking on the fact that there are two Steven Tylers - the private man, who is Dad, and the larger-than-life rock icon. Said Mia recently: ‘He is a family man. Then he puts on his tights and make-up and goes on stage. He’s totally cute, like a little boy in an old man’s skin. I can see him rocking out when he’s eighty, with scarves tied around his walker!’

  As the leaves were turning brown around Boston, with Aerosmith rehearsing, news emerged that no studio album was forthcoming. Instead, in October, the band was releasing the live album, Rockin’ the Joint, comprising tracks culled from a performance during the Just Push Play tour three years earlier at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. Rockin’ the Joint peaked at number twenty-four on Billboard, while Steven and his bandmates hit the live circuit yet again.

  With the Brooklyn-born singer Lenny Kravitz as support act, Aerosmith opened the Rockin’ the Joint tour at the end of October 2005 with a gig at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. About a month into the tour, it was reported that after an Aerosmith gig in Pittsburgh, Steven and Joe Perry were to take a swift detour to New York to perform at a bar mitzvah party.

  This private bash, to be held in The Rainbow Room, was thrown by the multi-millionaire David H. Brooks for his daughter, Elizabeth. Brooks apparently had Tyler and Perry ferried from Pittsburgh to New York by chartered jet. At this extravagant celebration, other star performers were reported to include drummer Don Henley and lead guitarist Joe Walsh of the Eagles, the rocker Tom Petty, 50 Cent and Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks. According to the press, David H. Brooks shelled out a total of $10 million to hire this stellar line-up of entertainment; one report broke down how much each performer was earning for the gig. But the multi-millionaire disputed this, telling the New York Daily News: ‘All dollar figures are vastly exaggerated. This was a private event and we do not wish to comment on details of the party.’

  From late November to mid-December, Aerosmith rolled through seven US states, then Steven packed away his microphone after a show at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It could not hope to be the same holiday period for Steven without Teresa to come home to, and perhaps it was as well that the ticker tape and streamers had barely been brushed away after the celebrations in New York’s Times Square that rang in 2006, when the Rockin’ the Joint tour resumed on 5 January in Orlando, Florida, again backed by Lenny Kravitz.

  A handful of gigs later, having returned to Florida for a show in Tampa, at one point Tyler was joined at the microphone by Robin Zander, lead vocalist of Cheap Trick; days later came an announcement that Aerosmith planned to extend their tour by adding a third leg, starting in early March, and to be opened by the 1980s band. In the meantime, Lenny Kravitz continued to hold down the warm-up duties.

  While Steven dedicated his energies to whipping up a frenzy of excitement, on a personal note, his and Teresa’s divorce became official in January 2006. The powerhouse band behind Steven ensured that Aerosmith fans left each venue soaked in delirium, and despite the fact that the band members were each well into their fifties, they still attracted the new teenage generation into the arenas. Aerosmith had specifically set out to reaffirm its standing as a premier hard rock band. Their success in recent years with romantic power ballads had, for some, diluted that, and there was a keener edge than ever to each performance.

  The band was also talking about beginning work later in the year on the follow-up to Honkin’ on Bobo, and they had a clear direction in mind. Tyler told Rolling Stone: ‘It’s going to be just like what White Stripes are doing, like a couple of songs on Sheryl Crow’s new album. You’ll listen to it and be like: “I’ve heard that before,” but you never did.’

  Behind the high-energy stage performances and plans for a new studio album, however, Steven was in trouble. His zest in live performance means that during any gig he literally loses several pounds from his already skeletal frame, and he comes off stage drenched in sweat and almost dehydrated. Getting sufficient rest while on tour is virtually impossible, and because he takes a relentless interest in every aspect of Aerosmith’s business and performances he is practically never off duty. Giving each song the full throttle treatment had also been stacking up problems. He managed to conceal them until the second leg of the Rockin’ the Joint tour ended at Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim, California - but that was about to change.

  With Cheap Trick taking over from Lenny Kravitz, just six days later, on 2 March, leg three kicked off at the Seminole Hard Rock Live venue in Hollywood, Florida. Eighteen gigs were planned to take Aerosmith through to a performance on 9 April at the General Motors Place in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada, but after the first gig Steven’s throat problems forced cancellations to kick in. Eight gigs from Pensacola in Florida, to London, Ontario, were called off to see if the rest would be enough to help him, but his condition showed no sign of improvement and after another examination by doctors it became patently obvious that the remainder of the tour would have to be axed. Steven needed surgery.

  A band press release on 22 March 2006 stated: ‘Despite Aerosmith’s desire to keep the tour going as long as possible, Steven’s doctors advised him not to continue performing to give his voice time to recover.’ News that Tyler would undergo surgery for ‘an undisclosed medical condition’ quickly gave rise to rumours that he was battling throat cancer. Publicist Marcee Rondan moved swiftly to scotch these. She told MTV News that rumours claiming that Steven had throat cancer were ‘completely untrue’. When pressed, she was not prepared to elaborate on what the problem actually was. It was then said by some that Steven required surgery to correct a popped blood vessel in his throat.

  At the time, Steven and his representatives preferred not to detail why he was going under the knife, but eighteen months later the procedure he underwent to repair his right vocal cord featured in the television programme Incredible Human Machine, which aired in the US on the National Geographic channel. The leading laryngologist who had operated on Steven was Dr Steven Zeitels, a director at Massachusetts General Hospital, who had dealt with opera stars and other celebrity singers. Dr Zeitels said: ‘Singers are the athletes of the performing arts but the stress on the vocal cords eventually creates problems like nodules, polyps and, in Steven Tyler’s case, haemorrhaging from a blood vessel that was abnormal from years of singing.’

  Steven was on the operating table for less than thirty minutes and Dr Zeitels described him as an exemplary patient. Impressed by the star’s determination to understand exactly what had been happening to the blood vessels in his throat, Dr Zeitels said of Steven: ‘He’s an algorithmic thinker, amazingly bright.’ The upshot of the surgery and subsequent post-op vocal therapy was that Steven would not be able to sing for some months to come.

  His situation that spring was pretty bleak. He had had surgery twice (for his knee, now his throat), Aerosmith was thrown into an indefinite limbo because of his temporary inability to sing for prolonged periods, and his second marriage had been dissolved. All of these problems were public knowledge. But what only a very select few people knew was that Steven - who had already survived so much in his life - had for a couple of years already been waging a secret battle.

  CHAPTER 16

  T
he Vagabond Prince

  NOT YET ready to publicly divulge the secret he harboured, with remarkable resilience Steven decided in late spring 2006 that he was sufficiently recovered from the throat surgery to join the rest of Aerosmith in knuckling down to work on the follow-up studio album to Honkin’ on Bobo. Tyler was happy to consider once again collaborating with outside songwriters but, always stimulated by earthy hard rock, his leanings were strongly towards revisiting a sound more redolent of the 1970s. Kicking about with material in the studio, of course, meant testing his vocal cords. As throat surgery can alter a singer’s voice, Steven was a shade apprehensive, but a swift glance in his lead guitarist’s direction put his mind at rest. Said Joe Perry that summer: ‘Steven is sounding better than ever. Even just listening to him talk, his voice has this timbre that I haven’t heard for years.’

  Proof that Tyler was truly back in harness came in June when Aerosmith announced that they were to hit the road again in just over two months’ time. Aerosmith and Motley Crue would co-headline on the so-called Route of All Evil tour. In the old days of drink, drugs and debauchery, these two bad lad bands touring together would have provided an incendiary mix. Even in 2006, it was a pairing that sparked the music media’s imagination. Rehearsals got under way for the tour, but Steven’s first major public appearance since his throat surgery came when he and Joe Perry performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra at a Fourth of July spectacular concert staged on the city’s Charles River Esplanade. During this event, which was broadcast live nationally on CBS television, Steven sang ‘I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing’, ‘Walk This Way’ and ‘Dream On’ - the audience rewarding the star with cheers and resounding applause when he nailed his famous scream towards the end of this power ballad. Tyler’s other appearance that summer was a cameo role in the US television sitcom Two and a Half Men. During the episode titled ‘Who’s Vod Kanockers?’ Steven played himself as an obnoxious neighbour from hell.