AEROSMITH Explains 'Aero-Vederci Baby!' Tour Name

Last month, AEROSMITH announced what was being billed as the band's "farewell" tour of Europe — with an opening stop in Israel thrown in for good measure. The group announced the 2017 "Aero-Vederci Baby!" European tour on November 14, posting on its Aerosmith.com site: "AEROSMITH will return across the Atlantic with one of the greatest rock shows ever seen and will undoubtedly be the ultimate must see event of 2017 as the band embark upon this, their 'farewell' tour, saying 'Aero-Vederci Baby!'"

Earlier today, AEROSMITH released a series of short video clips in which singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry discuss the meaning of the tour name and talk about the band's four-decade-long career.

"Well, we're always thinking about what to do for a tour," Tyler said. "And so many bands have said that 'this is our last tour,' to generate tickets and all that stuff — bands that have been around as long as we have. So figured, you know, we're going to Europe, we're gonna do whatever we're doing here, and Rock In Rio, and people haven't seen us for a while, so how about throwing that kind of mysticism out? And 'Aero-Vederci' says it, but it doesn't say it. It's like 'hello' [and] 'goodbye' in one beautiful — where Joe and I came from — Italian saying."

In addition to Israel, AEROSMITH's spring and summer dates will hit Georgia, Russia, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, England, Ireland, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. Both Tyler and Perry announced the tour via a fake newscast video featuring "The Toxic Twins" portraying cable TV anchors.

Perry explained that early on he realized that AEROSMITH provided a very specific thing for rock fans. "I always felt after the first generation went around and we started seein' the audience change from being our age to the next, I realized that we had to stick to our guns and it wasn't gonna be any, like, I mean all of a sudden punk is there, or disco, or whatever," he said. "Does that mean we gotta change our whole thing? It was kinda, like, 'We're gonna do our stuff.' I mean the first time was saw KISS, we saw KISS go down in the most amazing way. The audience loved 'em. So, we just stuck to our guns and kept writing songs and turned the guitars up."

The guitarist told The Pulse Of Radio that ultimately, the thrill of what AEROSMITH accomplished musically trumps all the problems that the band has endured due to drugs, women, management and ego issues. "It's really the five of us, y'know, as a band," he said. "And it's still exciting to walk out onstage with these guys. And that, I think, is the glue that keeps us coming back. Sometimes I ask that question myself, y'know, 'Why am I still doin' it?' Well, when I walk out onstage in Moscow and everybody out there is singing words to songs that we wrote in the basement, or, y'know, in some studio somewhere. It's nothin' short of a miracle, y'know? And so we kind of have a lot of respect for that."