AEROSMITH's JOE PERRY: 'Is This The Last Tour? I Don't Think So'

AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry has told The Arizona Republic in a new interview that what is being billed as the band's "farewell" tour is "not officially" the last chance for fans to see the group perform live.

"When we were talking at the end of last year, taking a break and thinking about the next go-round, you know, it's closer to the end than the beginning," he explained. "So we talked about ‘Let's call it a farewell tour.' And it sounded like a good idea when we were just sitting around, but when we started doing interviews, actually having to verbalize it, if you're saying farewell tour, that means you have to have a last gig — at least theoretically. And we couldn't wrap our minds around actually saying this is gonna be our last gig. We've been doing it for too long and none of us could picture that. I mean, I play every show like it's the last one, because I don't know what's gonna happen the next day. But we tried and couldn't do it. We can obviously sling some bull at an interview but that was one piece we couldn't get over and honestly say, 'Yeah, this is the final show of our farewell tour.'"

Asked point blank if the upcoming run of shows is the beginning of AEROSMITH's "farewell tour," Perry responded: "Not officially, no. But we postponed the American tour we were supposed to do this fall. And we're gonna go out and tour until, you know, we're done. And we're gonna try and hit every place we've ever played and never played. There's always new places to go. New countries. I'd like to play China and the Far East. There's a lot of places that are off the beaten path. Is this the last tour? Well, I don't know. I don't think so."

The guitarist added that he is not ready to walk away from AEROSMITH, explaining: "No. It's like, try and picture your last meal. You're only gonna eat so many times in your life. You're gonna sit down at the table 258 million times. There's a finite number of times you're gonna do anything in your life. To picture a final AEROSMITH gig, it's like… I can't do it. There's too much of that 'rock until you drop' ingrained into this band. But like I said, we're at the end, so who knows how long it's gonna go?"

Last fall, AEROSMITH announced the 2017 "Aero-Vederci Baby!" European tour, 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!'"

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. Perry and singer Steven Tyler announced the tour via a fake newscast video featuring "The Toxic Twins" portraying cable TV anchors.