STEVEN TYLER: 'Left Up To My Own Devices, I Probably Would Have Been Dead Several Times Over'

AEROSMITH frontman Steven Tyler is featured on the cover of the May 9 issue of People magazine. In the accompanying article, Tyler states that he doesn't need drugs to get high these days — all he needs is to go to work as a judge on "American Idol".

"If you think going out in front of high-def cameras and millions of people I'm not high on adrenaline, you're crazy," he is quoted as saying. "I'm stoned when that curtain drops. I just don't snort the curtain dropping. I don't snort J. Lo [fellow 'American Idol' judge Jennifer Lopez] either, though I do breathe her in."

Tyler, who has been sober for a year and a half, says he is "grateful" that he’s survived several health problems, as well as his hard-partying ways.

"Left up to my own devices," says the singer, "I probably would have been dead several times over."

For much more on Tyler, including his life as a dad and his plans for the future, pick up this week's issue of People, on newsstands Friday.

Tyler revealed in a new interview with Rolling Stone that he wasn't the only long-sober member of the band who fell off the wagon in recent times. The singer said that he and guitarist Joe Perry got high together in 2008 while attempting to record a new album. Tyler revealed, "It was just like 30 years before. I whipped out mine, he whipped out his and we got high together again. I say to Joe, 'Wow, man, how you been, it's been, what, 17 years since we got high together? Joe, you've been fucking running away from me ever since.' "

The drugs, however, derailed the sessions for the album, with Tyler saying, "Joe was high and he couldn't play. I couldn't sing, really, because I was snorting everything, and it fucks up your throat. It was the wrong time."

Perry did not respond to an Associated Press request for a comment.

Tyler's alleged fall from sobriety led to an injury onstage, a canceled tour, and tensions within AEROSMITH in late 2009. The band patched up their differences early last year and toured, after Tyler spent 90 days in rehab.

He then shocked his bandmates by accepting a job as a judge on the current season of "American Idol", throwing a wrench in recording plans.

The singer said he was motivated to take the "American Idol" gig after his bandmates threatened to throw him out of AEROSMITH. He admitted, "Did I take this job to show the band? Fuck, yeah. Not to show them, but that I can't be held hostage anymore. I will be my own hostage. The band can't throw me out."

Tyler will release his autobiography, "Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?", next month, along with the first solo single of his career, "(It) Feels So Good".