Joe perry is of course lead guitarist of aerosmith they are best selling american rock band of all time having sold 150 million albums all time and 7 million in america alone and on Rolling Stone list of greatest guitarist of all time, has been inducted to hall of fame and now a memoir rocks and in out of aerosmith first a look at aerosmith per forpforming their hit, Sweet Emotion. Yeah, yeah, yeah Sweet Emotion come on sing it. So i knew you were talented as a guitarist. I didnt know you could actually do that while chewing gum. One of those things i like to prove to show i can walk and talk. You can do both chew gum and walk at the same time. Im honored to have you on this program. Im honored to be here. Let me start by asking, why put your life on the pages of a book . Well, i think for a number of reasons. I think i felt Something Like this would be done after i finish with my career or retired all generals, that kind of thing but every day it just seems another thing is happening. Theres always something new in this business. Its about to be 40th anniversary. Were working on our last record for sony and moving into a new era as far as the music business goes. So it just felt like time. My wife and i talk about it because we knew we would have to revisit painful things in our lives as well as put down some of the good things and also i wanted to kind of set the record straight on some of the some of the socalled legend thats have made aerosmith, just through my eyes anyway. Because so many times things have been misinterpreted or taken out of context over the years and i just wanted to put it out there the way i saw it. To me it almost starts with a question, like how did i end up doing this. I mean, had no calling. You know when i was this big like a lot of people who are in this kind of business, artists, so to speak. And you play guitar and chew gum now you want to be talk show hosts because now youre doing my job asking questions. Let me take that question and turn it back on you. How did this all happen . How did you end up in this lane . Well come to aerosmith in a moment. But how did you end up in this lane . There were two things going on. One i have a learning disability that of course, now they have identified, and given an alphabet souptype name. But back then it was looked at as a discipline thing. I had a really tough time in school. And i wanted to be marine biologist and get into science and exploring. I love jacque cousto and all this but as time went on and school became harder and harder and no matter what i tried or what my parents tried i was not able to fulfill that. I wanted to please them. I wasnt a wise guy to the point it got in the way of me trying to achieve what they wanted which was to go to college. Thats was also the path i would have to take to be a marine biologist. As time went on i got to the point where, man, i just cant take this. High school, much less college. If i could get in or whatever. But at the same time, rock n roll had me by the back of the neck almost shaking me going, hey, this is what you could do. Were you already playing at this time . Well i was playing playing the guitar a little bit. And i had a natural affinity for it when i picked it up. I played a couple instruments before that, nothing stuck. What did you try before guitar . I had piano lessons. And i played clarinet for two months. I would love to see you play clarinet. You know, i tried it. By the way, im not sure if they make lefthanded clarinets, but i had no idea that they made lefthanded guitars and im lefthanded. So when i got my first guitar, it came with instruction record and said to put the neck in your left hand and strum with your right and there you go. So ive been playing backwards all these years. [ laughter ] it kind of goes with my personality. Ive always been a loaner, an outsider, and very rebelloius in my own way. Let me cut in. Rolling stone lists you regards you as one of the 100 greatest guitarist of all time. How much better do you think you could be if you were playing it the right way. You know, i have to think i might be technically better but, theres so much more that goes into it. You can play, can you be a very technically basic guitar player or any instrument and write songs. And i consider myself a songwriter as much as i do a guitar player. So i think that again, as far as the technical part of it, i think i can get the point across either way. But its a little late to change it. Though i did try at one point. I said why dont i try it the other way and see what happens. And i worked at it for about a week and said if im going to spend all this time i might as well do it the way ive been doing it and get better there rather than go this way. That makes sense. It is amazing that you pick up an instrument that you never really played before. Youre playing it backwards, given your anatomy. And you still become one of the greatest of all time at it. Thats Pretty Amazing story. Im sure there are a lot of other people out there that have the same thing, you know. Yeah. And i was fortunate enough to be in the studio with Paul Mccartney a couple months ago now, but, and i asked him i said, how is it that you knew to play guitar lefthanded and he said well, its as it happened, he was he heard slim whitman and a few other artists that were very popular at the time that did play lefthanded and so he saw that and knew that was an option because when i first picked up the guitar, i naturally put the neck in this hand and the pick here. And then when i heard the record, told me do just the opposite, i did what the record said because i wanted to learn how to play it. But anyway that was not having any other guitar players around to talk to or any other artists that i knew at the time. I grew up in a very small town. I just did what they said. Like i said i dont know about a lefthanded clarinet. Or piano. [ laughter ] i just assumed you play it that way. You just went with it. Interesting thing when your parents, so you had a learning disability that had not been diagnosed at that time. And it made life a little difficult as a child. How did your parents handle that and handle you. Since it was regarded as a discipline problem did your parents respond to that or did they understand there was something going on that they chbt didnt know. Well they knew i was a good kid. Mother was a phys ed teacher for the whole school so she knew what was going on with me in school. She knew i wasnt a troublemaker. She knew i did my time in study hall, you know, like after school. Which was also used as a form of discipline. I mean, if you were a wise guy in class or something you know, you stayed after school. And usually you were thrown into study hall. So you were in there with people who were wise guys, so to speak, troublemakers, so that doesnt really help yourselfesteem either when youre really trying to concentrate. No matter what i did, nothing stuck. The only thing that i loved in school was reading. And i read a lot on the outside away from what was going on in school. And for some reason i was able to retain that. But when it came to the other nuts and bolts of the abcs it was really a problem. But your parents didnt discipline you . No they just did what they knew. And back then they were really puzzled. I mean, they took me to tutors. And they actually sent me to a prep school where they thought i could beim mersed in that and having access to teachers. Just to prepare me for college. And still it was nothing clicked. Except when i picked that instrument up and started to emulate some of the stars i looked up to that excited me. When you started to emulate some of the stars you looked up to, i love the way you phrased it because if artists are being honest, most are, they will tell you that they started out, we all start out emulating somebody until we find our own voice or style. We start copying someone before we become an original. You are an original now but we all start out copying somebody. Certainly one of the persons you most admired was chuck berry. Tell me about his influence on you. Without a doubt. I mean, i realize pretty early on that the show you put on when youre playing rock n roll definitely adds to the excitement. I mean, i consider myself a fan first. And standing in the audience and feeling that energy, its not just about the being able to hear a band play the songs but about how they perform the songs. Might as well stay home and listen to the record or the cd or whatever form it is on now. So chuck not only boiled doujwn the essence of the bridge between the blues and this new thing called rock n roll but he also put on a great show. I mean, he looked like he was born with a guitar in his hand. He could play it in any position he wanted. He could do the duck walk. He had all the tricks. That also impressed me. But did he chew gum, though. You know what, he did things that were i mean, some of the way i mean, if you closed your eyes you would never know he was playing the guitar behind his neck. Yeah. Or behind his head. And thats quite a feat. I managed to pick that one up and a few of my own. But it really is part of the show. Yeah. Anyway. Zwl when did you discover or feel maybe discover is the wrong word because it takes time to get there, but when did you feel like you were not just proficient, you started out copying chuck berry but when did you discover your own sound or style. I think that started to dawn on me after about the second record the second album because i was such a neo fight and very naive in the studio. The first time we went in i thought that when we go in there i had a certain sound that i would constantly play, so we had a sound but it didnt come out sounding the way i expected when it came out of the speakers in the studio. But i didnt know the technical end of that. Of that art. So we lived with it. We were all a little disappointed. The drummer felt the drums didnt sound like. Steven saying he had a voice with almost a certain affection to it. And wasnt until the third record that he really opened up and let it fly and we started to learn how to i mean, i i spent all the time i could behind the board in the Recording Studio with steven. Both of us just, you know, from the time we started recording to the time we were done and handing it to the Record Company we were there with the producer, learning. And watching how it went. And then by the time the third record came around i started to realize what it was and how you got it. To get that energy onto the tape to come out of the speakers. Let me go inside the book and ask you, i dont want to color these questions any more than i am going to. I want to ask two questions about steven tyler. One how would you describe your relationship with him. When the reader gets into the book how will they see you define your relationship with him, number one and number two, i will stand back and let you respond, how do you how does a guy how does any guy in any band get comfortable with this other guy getting all the attention . Oh, okay. Well the first thing i think the first half of that, theres a phrase that ive come across, you can love your brother but you dont have to like him. [ laughter ] one of the things one of the things it works great, thats a great one. But ill tell you one of the reasons i wanted to write the book was not so much to say, not in anyway did i want to point fingers or anything like that, it was more about just how hard it is to keep it together. I mean, the air is pretty rare where we are. To have all five members after 42 years still like looking forward to next year for whatever were going to do, and it takes a lot of work. And stevens you know, steven as talented as he is and as flamboyant as he is, he is tough to work with. Im sure i can be as arrogant in my own way. We havent changed much since we first met as far as that goes. You just have to leave the work in the studio or on the stage and then when youre back weve all grown up were grown men with families, some of us with two or three families, and we dont, you know, we dont hang around the way we used to when it was just the five of us with this dream in an apartment. That was probably the biggest thing to learn how to deal with leaving the personal side of it out of it. So i mean, weve had some knock down drag out fights in the studio about the way a song should go and that kind of thing and then we both get in our motorcycles and ride together for a while. You are confident after 42 years this book will not be the break up of the band. Oh, not at all. I mean somebody asked me that, obviously she wasnt following rock n roll. Right. But no. Theres in no way is that a it was just i wanted to get up until last year thats what i wanted to get down there. Right around the 40th anniversary. You mentioned stevens flamboyant from time to time. How do band mates get comfortable with the idea that one particular guy in the band may get most of the attention. Well, its one of those things, its like, kind of goes back to Frank Sinatra days, the elvis days there was a lead singer the front man, hes the guy with the voice the microphone and you tend to listen to him. And hes considered the front man as well. And say a band like cheap trick, the lead singer he will talk to the audience once in a while but the real front man that actually talks to the audience and builds that rapport is the guitar player. Its just one of those things. Its just natural to focus on the guy with the microphone that is singing and then with someone like steven who loves the applause and loves the fame and all of that and lives for it practically, hes custommade for the job. I mean, you know. Not only that but he wouldnt have to do anything. All he would have to do is sing and people would still still not be able to take their eyes off him. Because he is an amazing talent. And we get along. I mean, were all different. I can walk in a room full of musicians and pick out the lead singers and the guitar players and bass players and drummers without any introduction. You can just walk in and sense it. By the way they are dressed, by the way they are talking, its one of those things. Their demeanor. Yeah. Zwl so in a band, the bass playerss personality is cut out for that. So he may crave a little bit of that attention but after 40 years everyones pretty much set in their place. And i dance between the two things. Sometimes im sharing the front man job with steven and other times im back with the other four guys. And thats kind of what i like to do. Yeah. I know your fans around the world have different answers to this question, but what in your mind has led to the enduring relationship that this band has with its audience. I think thats it, the fans. I consider myself a fan. I know the other guys growing newspaper up in that time period were all infat ooh ated with the love of that excitement. And we knew we were going to survive in music. It was taking a step into the unknown which falls into my fast nation with the outdoors getting lost in the woods or swimming for miles in the ocean, i love the unknown. Goes with it. So i got to do two things play guitar and go out into the unknown. So playing in a band and not knowing what is going to happen next, weve always had the fears there its always been constant. I feel we owe our fans a debt because of all of the life theyve given us. And anyway. Thats a convoluted saying thanks to the fans. It wasnt convoluted at all. I got it and so did the rest of your fans. Said you wrote the book to set the record straight about a few things, can you just pick one. Sure. I was told and asked this question a while ago and they said,er said the reason the band got back together because brad and i went to aerosmith show to see the band with the other guys on valentines day and right then we decided to put the band back together. Which is totally wrong. That is so far from the truth that i just couldnt see that as being part of our, part of the aerosmith story. Because us getting back together was unknown at that point. And then getting sober and clean and putting that stuff aside and then having a second shot at a career that you are lucky if you get one shot, the first time, you know. And so i wanted to explain how the band got back together. Because we had a lot of things we had to talk about. And deal with. So anyway thats one sure thing. I suspect theres going to be a lot for fans to talk about when they get a chance to read the book. Finally out. Meuy joe perry tells it his way. The book is called rocks my life in and out of aerosmith love the title, love the cover. Written with david rich who will be here in the near future. We will talk to him in days to come. Hes great im happy to say. Hes a great guy. I learned as much from him as he did from me working with him. Hes worked with the greats ray charless, buddy guy, bb king, he was honored to work with you as well im sure. And im honored to have you on the program. Great to be here. Thats it for tonight. As always keep the faith. Im tavis smiley join us next time with lisa kudrow about her tv series the comeback. Thats next time. See you then. Announcer imagemakers is made possible by the members of kqed. [ wind howling ] [ liquid pouring ]