JOE PERRY: 'I Love Playing Rock And Roll, But I'm Not Part Of That Celebrity Thing'

Andrew Perry of Telegraph.co.uk recently conducted an interview with AEROSMITH frontman Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry.

"It's weird, all these years later and we're still massively at it," Tyler says. "Because we're on the road so much, there's no time to go to the dentist, the doctor, go on vacation. My daughter's graduating from high school, and I'm gonna be in f***ing Dubai! I had to tell her, 'Aw baby, I tried to move it, but it's moving a whole tour! Sixty million f***ing dollars' worth of argh!"

Tyler and Perry's sparring relationship is palpably what makes the band tick.

"Steven lives and breathes AEROSMITH," Perry drawls, from under a tousled crow-black thatch. "For me, sometimes, it's just a way to make a living. I love playing rock and roll and collecting guitars, but I'm not part of that celebrity thing. I don't need that."

When Perry quit AEROSMITH in the early '80s, the band fell apart. "Those two or three years," he says, with a hint of pride, "they kept touring as AEROSMITH, and kept cancelling dates, and falling down on stage. I came back, and we basically then had to prove that we were straight. It was all part of us coming out of that black hole."

Tyler talks reluctantly today about the band's narcotic dalliances. At the end of our conversation, he scampers up to me, plants his giant lips on my cheek and says, "No drugs in your article, OK?"

Perry, by contrast, wistfully remembers the days when "you would sit in first class in airplanes, and hand a bottle of coke around, and just turn your head to the side and do hits". His big regret is the book. "We didn't have to tell that much," he says, visibly embarrassed. He goes on to explain that it was necessary to win back confidence within an industry which viewed them as terminal wasters.

Read the entire article at Telegraph.co.uk.