As the band wings out a new Legendary Edition of its self-titled debut album, Joe Perry is hoping the train will still keep a-rollin’ for Aerosmith. He’s just not sure where it might lead.
“The band is still kind of definitely not in touring mode, but there are certainly other options, so we stay in touch,” the guitarist tells Billboard from his home in Florida, noting that he talks most with frontman Steven Tyler, “my brother from another mother,” with whom he remixed 1973’s Aerosmith album for the reissue. It was a vocal cord injury and a fractured larynx Tyler suffered just three shows during Aerosmith’s 2023 farewell run that led to its cancellation and the band’s announced retirement from touring.
Perry and Tyler have since recorded an Aerosmith EP with Yungblud — last November’s One More Time, which hit No. 9 on the Billboard 200 — while Tyler has made periodic singing appearances, including at the annual Grammy Awards benefits for his Janie’s Fund and at last summer’s Back to the Beginning farewell concert for Black Sabbath and the late Ozzy Osbourne. Perry, meanwhile, has been out with his Joe Perry Project and will make a summer swing in Europe with all-star Hollywood Vampires, while bassist Tom Hamilton has started another band, Close Enemies, which released its debut album last month.
“You just never know,” Perry says about future Aerosmith activities. “It’s just been in the last six months that Steven’s started to get comfortable with singing; he literally had to take a year off before he was able to start stretching his vocal cords, and you’re always worried about reinjuring it. I learned a long time ago that everything we do is fragile… so we just take it day by day. You hope for the best. You just have to have the confidence and have that vision of positive in front of you. You can’t do it unless you envision it.”
Getting Their Wings
Perry was happy to have a look in the rearview for Aerosmith (Legendary Edition), which came out March 20. He and Tyler oversaw a remix from the original tapes with project co-producers Zakk Cervini and Steve Berkowitz, creating a deluxe set that includes the original and remastered albums, plus a March 20, 1973 show at Boston’s Paul Mall that was broadcast on WBCN. A selection of outtakes that includes a pre-Get Your Wings rendition of the Yardbirds’ “Train Kept A Rollin’” and an instrumental “Joined At the Hip (Aerojam)” that features elements that would become part of “Sweet Emotion” two years later on Aerosmith’s third album, Toys in the Attic.
“I was like, ‘Do we need to do this?’,” Perry reveals, “because we’d put out remastered (versions of the album) before, and I never really noticed all that much difference. But this was different; going in and actually getting to listen to the multi-tracks… it was great to hear it on modern equipment. When everything was translated down to the vinyl (in 1973) it didn’t sound the same as when you’re standing in the room with the band. But these remixes sound like that to me. It’s the same record, the same performances, but it opens it up.”
Specifically, he adds, “We never liked the way the drums sounded on that first album. Now it’s like, ‘Holy shit, this is what it sounded like when we were first recording. So I think it’s definitely worth it. And the old one isn’t going anywhere. It’s still there.”
Perry says the immersion “brought back a lot of memories” to recording the Aerosmith album during October of 1972 with producer Adrian Barber at Intermedia studio in Boston. “We were trying to find our place… what our goals were, what our options were,” he recalls. “We were learning how to write together and play together. We were listening to all of the incredible second wave English bands; there wasn’t much going on in America at the time, for our ears. All the power was coming from the English bands, so we were drawing on that.
“Considering everything, I think that the record pretty much does what it’s supposed to do. I can remember putting the (headphones) on and listening to the first song, and I took ’em off and I shook my head. When you’re in the middle of it you do it piece-by-piece. Then when you start to hear it finished, it’s like…’Holy shit! I’m glad we did this.”
Aerosmith was, of course, the home of “Dream On,” which was released as a single in June of 1973 and reached No. 59 on the Billboard Hot 100, eventually growing into a rock radio staple that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.
Not bad for a song that wasn’t Perry’s favorite at the time.
“If it didn’t rock out I didn’t have any use for it in general,” he confesses. “I always like the ‘Train Kept A-Rollin” and the upbeat, the energy, the excitement. To me, ballads were just kind of, ‘Eh, time to take a break.’ But there’s something about it. Steven was working on it from the day I met him, and it just grew on us. Now I still love playing it, ’cause I see what it does to the fans. It really stands the test of time.”
More Where That Came From
Perry hopes to take the Legendary Edition approach to more of Aerosmith’s albums and already has his sights set on what’s next.
“I think Toys is the next one, ’cause on that one we were definitely getting our studio legs together,” he says of Aerosmith’s third album, a breakthrough that reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200, has been certified nine-times platinum and gave the band its first top 40 hit with “Sweet Emotion.” “It was definitely a state of mind and we were learning, I was learning everything I could about the recording part of it, like, ‘How come this know does that?’ and that kind of thing. I read about Jimmy Page; at 19 he was one of the most sought-after studio musicians, and he knew what he was doing when he went in to do (Led) Zeppelin. I, on the other hand, just know you put a mic in front of the amp and prayed.
“So Toys is when we started to become recording artists, I think, started to learn how to do that. We wrote some of those songs on the spot, and we were touring all the time, so the band was playing great and finding our own slot.”
The “Joined At the Hip (Aerojam)” outtake, meanwhile, gives fans a listen to both the gestation of “Sweet Emotion” as well as Aerosmith’s creative process in general. “We were pretty much on the road all the time; if we weren’t gigging we were looking for gigs,” Perry says. “When it came time for another record we would slot a month and go into the studio and we’d have maybe two or three songs finished and a batch of riffs we could play, and we would right in the studio. That riff of Tom’s we played it and we jammed on it, and it turned into ‘Sweet Emotion.’ That’s how most of those songs came out in the ’70s.”
Walking His Way
Perry acknowledges that having Aerosmith off the road has opened up space for his other musical adventures. “My solo stuff, I’ve always done it around Aerosmith,” he explains. “I’d put a record out, play one (solo) gig, then be on the road with Aerosmith for six months. So (his albums) never got the kind of push I think they could have. So it feels really good to not have to think about packing my bags tomorrow; I lived like that since I was 15.”
Perry is mulling some sort of compilation of his solo work. “I myself would like to hear 15, 18 of my favorites of my songs, all in one place,” he says. His Joe Perry Project last played dates during the fall of 2025 in conjunction whit his Sweetzerland Manifesto MK II album. Now, however, he, Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Tommy Henriksen are gearing up for the Hollywood Vampires tour, which kicks off Aug. 12 in London, with 19 U.K. and European shows through Sept. 12.
“It’s been awhile since we last toured (2023),” Perry says, “so I think that the set’s going to be maybe two-thirds some of the same songs we played last time, and some new ones.” The Vampires last studio album, Rise, came out during 2019. “It’s more about the vibe, and to just get a kick out of playing together. I’m just hoping we can get a run in the States after this European one.
“So that’s really what’s on the board for me. I know nothing’s going to happen between now and the Vampires tour, but I know next year is wide open, so… we’ll see.”
