JOE PERRY Says Writing 'Rocks: My Life In And Out Of Aerosmith' Memoir Was 'Cathartic In Some Ways'

Soundworks Collection recently spoke to AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry about his upcoming memoir, "Rocks: My Life In And Out Of Aerosmith", which is due on October 7. You can now listen to the chat using the SoundCloud widget below.

Asked if writing the book gave him a chance to lay some stuff to rest that might have been more private and that hadn't been publicly exposed, Perry said: "I thought that I had already done that, frankly, and I was surprised at having to get into it again. But I feel like going through it and talking about it has helped process it more."

He continued: "I feel like anything like that, whatever it is — whether it's the death of a parent, or you do something that's screwed up and you realize you fucked up — you put it somewhere and you never forget it, but you just put it in a box somewhere back there in your memory and just leave it alone. And some of those boxes I've had to go back and open up, but after going through it, every time you do that, the impact of it gets less and less. Yeah, it was cathartic in some ways. It wasn't a lot of fun. It was a lot more fun talking about the good stuff, no doubt about it. But you have to have both in there to make the book interesting."

Perry worked on "Rocks: My Life In And Out Of Aerosmith" with author David Ritz, who has written books with B.B. King, Jerry Wexler and Bettye LaVette.

AEROSMITH singer Steven Tyler's "Does The Noise In My Head Bother You?" autobiography was issued in 2011, while the band's drummer, Joey Kramer, had his own tale, "Hit Hard: A Story Of Hitting Rock Bottom At The Top", published in 2009. AEROSMITH bassist Tom Hamilton is also working on a book.

Perry said: "I've wanted to write one for a while. But Joey put his book out and I wanted to leave some room there and then Steven put his book out. I didn't want to make it seem like mine was an answer to his, so I waited a little longer."

Perry admitted to RollingStone.com that he read Tyler's book, calling it "definitely Steven's truth, no doubt about it." He added: "He's allowed to perceive things how he perceives things. He can write his book any way he wants. But I didn't agree with a lot of the things he said. I know he worked hard on it, but it's got a totally different tenor and energy than my book. Mine tends to be a little more traditional. It's an autobiography in the real classic sense. I just hope Steven accepts the things I say about how I felt and how I saw things happen. I don't put words in other people's mouths or talk about conversations that I wasn't there for."