AEROSMITH's JOE PERRY Talks About Touring With MÖTLEY CRÜE

Shay Quillen of The Mercury News recently conducted an interview with AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Q: How is [bassist] Tom [Hamilton] doing? [Tom is recovering from throat cancer.]

Perry: He's definitely getting better and better. It looks like he could possibly be back for the last couple of weeks of this tour, so we've got our fingers crossed. He's well enough to play; he's just not well enough to travel.

Q: He joined the band last month to play "Sweet Emotion" in Boston. What was that like?

Perry: It was great. This thing of ours is bigger than five individual guys, and we've been able to get through so much, but these are the kinds of things beyond your control. It almost doesn't count that he's not with us, because he's so here in spirit. . . . He's still here, and physically he'll be back soon.

Q: How is David Hull working out?

Perry: He's doing great. . . . He just has a really good sense of what we sound like and why we sound that way, and so he fits in. He makes sure that he plays within those guidelines.

Q: You got to play guitar with Chuck Berry at his 80th birthday show in St. Louis. What was that like?

Perry: It was amazing. I felt like I was 17 years old. Man, when he picks up that guitar, it's such a part of him. He looks incredible. He looks like he's 60. He did the duck walk. I couldn't believe I was actually on stage with him playing.

Q: Let's talk about teaming up with MÖTLEY CRÜE. Had you known those guys well before this tour?

Perry: I remember seeing them when I was with the PROJECT. I went to see them play at one of their first headline gigs. I hung out with Nikki (Sixx) back then. And then when we were up in Vancouver working on the "Pump" record, they were doing "Dr. Feelgood". So all of us got to know them really well. Really they're as much friends as you can have in this kind of business, where you have a ships-in-the-night kind of thing. So it's a lot of fun having them around.

They definitely have their own party going on back there. They have all their trailers circled around the strippers' dance pole.

Q: Your Sony contract is coming to an end. What's the next step for AEROSMITH?

Perry: I'm not sure. Obviously we'd like to stay with the label, but the business is changing so fast. . . . You hear new bands on commercials, you hear new bands on sports shows, or you go to the Internet and go to different sites and hear music. There's just so many different ways to get it, and I think it's taken the record companies so long, they've been left in the dust.

Q: AEROSMITH is often billed as America's greatest rock 'n' roll band. Are you comfortable with that title?

Perry: I don't know. I think that there's a lot of great bands out there. Sometimes when I'm watching a band play, and they're having a great night and the audience is with them, I think they're the greatest band that night. It's fun to hear that, but I don't know if I buy it.

Read the entire interview at www.mercurynews.com.