Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?

by Tyler, Steven

  I was in the middle of the room with my headphones on (which we called “cans”) and a live mic in front of me, because I loved singing live vocals as the band tracked. It always seemed to incite a little riot inside of everyone. Right before the band came in on the downbeat, the union engineer from Columbia marked his presence for all time by opening the door right in the middle of that sweet silence. He had a clarinet in his hand that wound up on the front of “Pandora’s Box,” but that’s another story. You can actually hear the door opening in “Nobody’s Fault” to this day and it somehow seems to get louder and louder with each play, only ’cause you know it’s there now. Joe and I always loved to leave in spontaneous mistakes—that was our credo. Jack loved them, too.

  While you were making an album you’d find out things the Beatles had done on their records, sound effects and distortions, and how they got those effects by slamming a trunk or playing tracks backward. Jack and I were really into that. We put our amps in the hallway for “Train Kept a-Rollin’ ” and “Seasons of Wither” and stole the audience sound from The Concert at Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden.

  For “Back in the Saddle,” the first track on Rocks, I had a bunch of ideas. Jack and I thought of marching boots on a big-ass piece of plywood. I wanted to bring in the cowboy boots I used to wear with the buttons on the side from high school. We got the plywood and I was about to put the tambourine on my boots for that extra-added special effect when David Johansen appeared and proceeded to help me gaffer-tape the tambourine to my boots, and I became “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Thank you, Bob. David was cool, but I couldn’t help sitting there thinking, God, your wife is as fine as wine!

  You can hear the stomping after the verse . . .

  Riding into town by the light of the moon (stomp, stomp, stomp)

  Looking for ol’ Sukie Jones, she crazy horse saloon (stomp, stomp, stomp)

  After those lines I would stomp with my feet on the plywood.

  In the prechorus you’ll hear “I’m BACK in the saddle a-gai-ain” with the sound of my tambourine boots on the plywood. Jack and engineer Jay Messina double-tracked it, then triple-tracked it so it sounded like an army marching . . .

  Peelin’ off my boots and chaps, I’m saddle sore

  Four bits gets you time in the racks, they scream for more

  The next line went “Fools gold out of their mines.” I figured people would just think it was “Fools go out of their minds.” Then comes . . .

  The girls are soakin’ wet, no tongue’s drier than mine

  I’ll come when I get baaaaaaccckkkkkk . . .

  And then, if you listen really carefully after the next verse, you’ll hear a whip sound . . .

  I’m calling all the shots tonight, I’m like a loaded gun

  Peelin’ off my boots and chaps, I’m saddle sore

  Four bits gets you time in the racks, I scream for more

  The title of the song evoked riding a horse into the sunset, so I wanted the sound of a lariat and a whip. I set up two Neumann U80 mics and placed them twenty feet apart, got in the middle, grabbed a guitar cord, and said, “Turn on the mics,” whereupon I whipped the cord around my head letting it out—ten feet, eleven, twelve, thirteen . . . till it got out as close as it could to the mics without hitting them. So in the mix, Jack panned the whip from the left speaker to the right speaker. I’d call that ear candy.

  Back in the saddle, getting my rocks off on tour for Rocks, 1976. (Ron Pownall for Aerosmith)

  At the end of the song, you hear the clomping sound of horses’ hooves galloping. I used two coconuts I stole off a mermaid’s chest. Actually, they were part of a percussion kit I got from SIR Studios. When we did “Sweet Emotion,” I asked for that same kit but they forgot the maracas. So if you listen to the front of “Sweet E,” you hear that chicka, chicka, chicka? That’s not maracas. Some guy at the studio left a packet of sugar on the console. I took the packet of sugar, held it up to the Neumann, Jack said, “Go ahead,” and I shook the sugar. And that’s the opening of “Sweet E.” That was sweet!

  “Back in the Saddle” I hoped would be nostalgic, hearkening to the spirit of every Spaghetti Western I ever saw. The band played like the gods they were. Jack mixed it with Jay in the way you hear it today.

  I wrote “Rats in the Cellar” as a tip of the hat, or an answer to “Toys in the Attic.” Rat/cellar—toys/attic. Meanwhile, in real life, “Rats” was more like what was actually going on. Things were coming apart, sanity was scurrying south, caution was flung to the winds, and little by little chaos was permanently moving in.

  Goin’ under, rats in the cellar

  Goin’ under, skin’s turnin’ yellow

  Nose is runny, losin’ my connection

  Losin’ money, getting no affection

  New York City blues

  East Side, West Side blues

  Throw me in the slam

  Catch me if you can

  Believe

  That you’re wearing

  Tearing me apart

  Safe complaining, ’cause everything’s rotten

  Go insanin’, and ain’t a thing forgotten

  Feelin’ cozy, rats in the cellar

  Cheeks are rosy, skin’s turning yellow

  Loose and soggy, lookin’ rather lazy

  See my body, pushin’ up the daisies

  As time goes by, everything gets more chaotic: three shows in a row, one meet-and-greet (we called ’em “press the meat”) after another, every night, as the fun of it all came crashing in. It felt like the band was traveling a million miles a year, stopping at every galaxy, leaving our cosmic fingerprint and celestial scent as a little something for everyone to remember us by.

  The stadiums we played were getting bigger. Backstage setups became more elaborate. When we performed at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, there were pinball machines and ridiculously slammin’ naked mannequins that lined the hallways from the stage to our dressing rooms. You could only imagine how the wives loved that. In May ’76 we played to eighty thousand fans at the Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium in Pontiac, Michigan. The drugs were becoming more serious, too, and not just among the band and the crew. We rocked the Motor City for a little over ninety minutes. It seemed about one fan a minute got taken out of the stadium from an OD—Quaaludes and booze mostly.

  June 18, 1976. Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee—the infamous Memphis bust. I’m onstage, going, “Motherfuckin’ this and motherfuckin’ that,” my usual stage rap, but on this particular eve in this particular southern city, the cops didn’t like it one bit. Apparently there was a law against profanity. Who knew?! They told me to stop swearing or else. Or else what? Don’t they know that’s only going to encourage me? I was told, “If you cuss one more time. . . .” I said, “Like what?” And they said, “Well, shit and fuck.” And I said, “But those are lyrics in our songs!” The cop didn’t really like us a whole lot, so I said, “All right, I’ll do my best.” He goes, “Do your best? If you cuss, we’re throwing you in jail. And if you think we’re fucking with ya, try us out. We’ll lock you up for a month. We ain’t like the way they are up north!”

  I couldn’t help myself, so I laid it down and said a few more choice words. . . . Our tour manager came up in between songs and said, “The cops are waiting for you. After the show, you’re gonna get arrested.” I was sufficiently drunk, to say the least. “Okay, no prob . . . tell ’em I’ll meet ’em in my dressing room.” And we went into “Mama Kin,” and before the song was over I told our tour manager to “Give me a blackout at the end of ‘Mama Kin.’ ” I waited for the right moment, and during the blackout I jumped off the front of the stage, ran all the way up the aisle and into the lobby, and they came from everywhere, four directions—here, there, and everywhere. Guns a-blazing . . . all to my head. Knocked me to the ground. “Boy, you’re under arrest! We gon fuck you up. You try to run, we’re gonna . . .” I was frozen in my tracks and scared shitless.


  How we won the war by reaching out, 1976. (Ron Pownall for Aerosmith)

  One of the white cops said, “You ain’t getting away with it like some of the niggers around here.” And I said, “How dare you fuckin’ say that! Don’t you know the word nigger was invented by white folks that hate?” Thrown to my stomach, foot on my neck, and with a gun to my head, he said, “Now you’re gettin’ double for saying the word fuck.” They grabbed me and threw me into the back of the car, and I wound up in a cold, dank cell for three hours. My lawyer called up and found out they set the bail for ten grand. Later, back at the hotel, smokin’ a bone, I thought to myself, Sweet Jesus, I’ll never do that again, then looked in the mirror, smiled, and said to myself, Oh, yes I will.

  After my short-term incarceration, I got back to my room and as usual it was party central. We threw the girls out of the room and the TVs out the window into the pool. If you kept the extension cords on the TVs, when they hit the water they exploded like depth charges. We sent down our security guy to make sure there were no people in the pool who might get fried. No soup for the roadies that night.

  I don’t know if I can remember all the times I was arrested. There was a bust in Philly, there was a bust in Memphis, there was the time Joey and I were busted for setting off firecrackers at the Holiday Inn in Lincoln, Nebraska. And then there was the bust of Bebe Buell. She was a gorgeous model that caught my eye and ear at a club one night in New York City. Her reputation (like mine) preceded her. Mine being a rock star . . . hers, dating rock stars. And what a roster she had. The thought that I could make her Top 10 made my Dick Clark.

  Bebe’s best friend, Liz Derringer (tuning-ax prodigy Rick’s wife), was chewing my ear off at Steve Paul’s Scene. Liz mentioned that Bebe didn’t have a composite sheet—that being an eight-by-ten glossy proof sheet of her beauty that would open doors and hopefully land her in the big time. Overhearing that, I wrote her out a check on the spot for three grand to cover the composite and with hopes a kiss would follow. Liz let us stay at her apartment on a double-sized pullout bed in her living room where we proceeded to cause the first New York blackout. But even that didn’t stop us from sucking the juice out of Manhattan. I had never been in that much love in my life. I didn’t know what to do with it all. But God did. She gave us a love child from heaven above, my beautiful Liv. We were on fire, and I got to tour Germany—with Bebe Buell on my arm.

  In the head on a jet going to England. I guess life’s a pisser when you’re a-peein’, 1975. (Aerosmith)

  I’d been on the exhausting flights to Europe many times before, but because I was with Bebe, I actually arrived before I took off. It was the shortest flight ever, in the sweetest kind of way. When we arrived, the press and the fans were so there, we had to get whisked to a back room to clear immigration. They searched Bebe as if she were Marlene Dietrich. I, on the other hand, a skinny-assed rock star, was the poster child for all orifice checking at every border. I had Bebe draw a W on each of my ass cheeks in red lipstick on the plane prior to landing so when they checked me and asked me to bend over, it would read “WOW” in any language. There I was, finally figuring out I had the power to communicate beyond my music.

  Unfortunately, Marlene and my WOW wound us both up in the interrogation room, surrounded by blue-eyed blondes wearing white rubber gloves. Unbeknownst to them, my hash coffin was stashed in my sock. The border cop said, “Vot eese dees?” I replied, “What the???” Raising his voice, he put it closer to my face. Again, “VOT EESE DEES?” And I fumbled back, “Whatinthewhatthe?” Then, even closer to my face, at which time . . . I blew into the hash coffin as hard as I could, and the hash went flying everywhere! I was grabbed by my scrawny neck and handcuffed, and we wound up in a local slammer but were soon released for fear that we might apply for German citizenship . . . and the promoter’s terror that the festival would break out in riots, because we were headlining—and you can’t headline without a lead singer, no matter what country you’re in.

  Bebe was with us when we saw Paul McCartney and Wings at the famous Hammersmith Odeon in London. Backstage, Paul and Linda are in this tiny dressing room. Bebe walks in and had some nickname for Linda. “Sluggo,” she says. “Sluggett,” fires back Mrs. Beatle. Then they fucking went at each other and started wrestling on the floor. When they finished their friendly skirmish, I went to the bathroom. I’m peeing when I look to my right and eight stalls down is Paul McCartney, who looks at me and goes, “I like your music, man.” I haven’t pissed right since!

  I’d like to think it was because of my Cherubic Behavior that I landed on the cover of Rolling Stone, but I . . . semimodestly digress. WE got on the August 24, 1976, cover of Rolling Stone because Aerosmith had pulled Excalibur out of the stone. I was in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont just below the Sunset Strip. Annie Leibovitz—bigger than big and soon to be bigger—showed up to shoot “moi.” If my daddy could see me now! Well, maybe not. It had to be five in the morning and I was out of dope. I’d had two hours of sleep from the night before. Annie promised that as soon as she got her shot . . . I’d get my shot. I told Annie, “Look, we need to go out and cop some shit right now so I can get straight.” “Okay,” she said, “but look, just take your shirt off and lie down on the bed for a second. Just do this for me. It’ll take five minutes, come on, honey! And then we’ll go get it. I know someone that’s got some really good shit. They know Belushi and they’re right around the corner.” By now, I’m like Pavlov’s dog, salivating with a raging schooner. I leaned back on the bed and she got her shot . . . raw, razzled, and real. She was beyond good. Annie knew what she wanted and got it. And I didn’t. Nope . . . no dope for Stevie. I went home with my tail between my legs.

  Please, I just got to talk to you

  Please, get yo’ head out of the loo

  Please, you long, long way from home

  Please, you’d turn a young man’s heart to stone

  Sick as a dog, what’s your story?

  Sick as a dog, mmm . . . Cat got yer tongue?

  Next stop, Japan . . . Reminiscent of the sixties Beatlemania, we were welcomed with hysteria. As soon as we got off the plane, there were hundreds of screaming fans in the terminal, so many that we had to be lifted over their heads, like Cleopatra’s arrival at the bedside of Marc Antony. Their screams were almost deafening at the airport as at the Budokan where we played four sold-out shows in a row. If only management had had the foresight to tape those shows instead of rolling up dollars and getting laid on our dime, we might have beaten Cheap Trick to their Budokan punch. Which, by the way, was a great record. A live vinyl classic.

  We were terrified to get high in Japan, and drug desperation set in. Elyssa’s mantra was always “Let’s go shopping!” So Joe, Elyssa, and Henry Smith went out to see what was out there and ended up in an antiques store. In the window of the shop was an old clay pipe with a curved stem. Well, that looked promising, ancient drug paraphernalia, and Elyssa said, “I want that!” So Joe bought it for her and brought it back to the hotel. Joe handed it to Henry. “You do it first,” says Henry, because he didn’t know what might be in it. Joe turns the pipe upside down, lights a big bunch of matches all at once, and proceeds to inhale. Holy Edgar Allen POEpium! It was opium.

  He exhaled and the whole neighborhood got high. I even got a buzz and I was six floors above Joe!

  Joe then slams the pipe on the table and, using his instinctive drug-user expertise, he digs out the black residue from inside the pipe. Like the fine artisan he is, he exhumes every smidgen to leave nary a trace of opi-yum in the ancient artifact. The room reeked from the unique, sweet smell of opium. They got a contact high from the countless lips that had kissed that pipe before. Within the hour, they were all projectile vomiting. “That’s some good shit,” Joe said. And they all pipe dreamed till dawn’s early light.

  The drug drought had been severe overseas—people’s eyeballs were squeaking, and if there was any white substance on the corner of anyone’s mout
h it was left over from a week-old Dunkin Donut. It created maniac cravings for everyone; so on the way back we decided to stop in Hawaii and refresh ourselves. Kelly orchestrated with Krebs to accommodate the band’s so-called well-earned needs. We had somebody go to Boston to pick up a slope’s worth of snow and fly it to Hawaii, straight to the room we’d booked at the Holiday Inn. At the airport there was a mountain of bags from the Japanese tour. Somebody’s job was to stay and be on bag duty, but with bag drag and in a coke frenzy . . . it was like, “Fuck the bags.” They made a beeline for the hotel, where Kelly took the mirror off the wall and put it on the bed. We laid out the ounce of blow and with an ace of spades playing card proceeded to chop out the names of everyone in the room. Ed got a weak bump. But Tulio Eppa Galucci can’t feel his nose to this day.

  In the spring of 1977 David Krebs had this bright idea that for our next record we should be insulated from the big, wicked city, away from temptation and drugs. Dream on! A geographical cure? Fuck me! Drugs can be imported, David . . . we have our resources. Dealers deliver! Hiding us away in a three-hundred-room former convent was a prescription for total lunacy. Perhaps it was their plan to drive us crazy. Not a chance.

  Jack and the band designed every nuance for our own type of Deep Purple Smoke on the Water album experience. Rebuild a Studio A inside, out of the Record Plant mobile studio outside. Bring in the Grateful Dead’s culinary entourage—cooks at our beck and call (not that anyone was eating—sniff sniff) and dealers at every doorstep. It was called the Cenacle, an estate near Armonk, New York, and what got the band members into the idea was that it was pitched to us as a castle. But the only thing remotely resembling a medieval castle was the large fieldstone water tower. Other than that the Cenacle was just a big institutional building with lots of tiny rooms, covered in cobwebs, and probably haunted. What a fiendish plan.