Steven Tyler: The Biography Read online

  That year Aerosmith headlined in their strongholds around New England, playing sold out shows at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre, shining too as emerging stars in pockets across the US. Though Steven was gaining a reputation as a flamboyant frontman, a role that came completely naturally to him, he has revealed that he often regrets not playing on tour. ‘I miss playing instruments very much. I play on the albums, a little guitar, drums here and there, but I definitely miss that when I’m touring. It’s something to do. There are a lot of dead spots up there on stage so I just hide behind my scarves.’

  The fractiousness inherent in Aerosmith was not the only source of tension. Elyssa Jerret accompanied Joe Perry wherever he went and her constant presence was later said to have aggravated matters, while Tyler and Perry’s ever escalating drug use further fuelled feelings of resentment which could only add to the cauldron of unrest. By Tyler’s own admission he was stoned much of the time - it had become essential to him constantly to chase the elation he craved, for without that feeling he became nervy and irritable. He could not do without a fix even for the couple of hours each night he was on stage, which was why he had pockets stitched into some of the long flowing scarves dangling from the mike stand to hold his back-up stash of drugs. During performances, he could feed what was becoming a serious habit.

  Steven’s stage style was now very much the ragamuffin gypsy look - torn clothes made of floaty material that swirled around him as he gyrated manically about the stage. Joe Perry, the black-clad epitome of Mr Cool, once groaned: ‘Oh man, he definitely gets dressed in the closet, with the light off!’ But visually, it was extremely effective. Steven’s lurid stagewear had started off being provided by friends who would run him up outfits as favours, but he had progressed beyond that and soon he rasped to journalists: ‘You have no idea how much it costs to look this cheap!’ Despite his cheek, Steven was still not at all secure, a fact that showed when the rock media began knocking on Aerosmith’s door for interviews. Looking back, he wished that he had been a little less nervous when sitting down with journalists but, having received bad reviews and criticisms from the press in the past, his distrust of the music press was understandable.

  When Aerosmith returned to Boston in late 1974 after such a hectic year the rewards were plain to see. The reception at gigs was now so wild, state after state, that cops were becoming nervous about controlling hyper fans on the verge of spiralling out of control, and the money the band coined in was at last steadily rising. With a real feeling that Aerosmith was taking wings Steven focused on writing songs for their next album. The ceaseless roadwork had sharpened the band, helping to infuse Steven with a positive attitude, but it is also true that their troubles behind the scenes provided grist for the mill. Brad Whitford believed that in the song ‘No More No More’, Tyler cleverly held up a mirror to life inside the band at that time. Joe Perry agreed, describing this number as representing ‘a page from our diary’. The pacy tempo of ‘Toys in the Attic’ appealed greatly to the lead guitarist, while Tyler was later not too certain where his head had been when writing ‘Adam’s Apple’. Tyler collaborated on numbers with Whitford, Perry and Tom Hamilton, and he fell back on a pre-Aerosmith song, ‘You See Me Crying’, which he had penned with Don Solomon. He also opted for a cover version of ‘Big Ten Inch Record’, but two particular songs written for this third album would stand apart from the others.

  At the start of 1975 recording work had begun, once again at Record Plant Studios in New York with producer Jack Douglas. Joe Perry had stumbled upon a stimulating riff while messing around during a sound check, but coming up with lyrics proved annoyingly elusive. With nerves fraught and fatigue setting in, Douglas suggested the band took a break, so they quit Record Plant late one night to get some fresh air. Passing the prostitutes plying their trade alongside the drug dealers in shady Times Square, the band wandered into a cinema showing the Mel Brooks-directed comedy Young Frankenstein starring Gene Wilder, Gene Hackman and Marty Feldman, famous for his startlingly bulging eyes. Feldman’s character in the movie would croak ‘Walk this way’ at people, and that clicked with the band.

  Although Steven Tyler’s confidence could drop when he had to come up with lyrics, he was more than capable of stepping up to the task when the pressure was on. Back at the studio, with the song title to stimulate him, he clamped on a pair of headphones and let fly. ‘That was me just throwing my hands in the air and going with a retching sound. I loved that,’ he said. Ideas were coming thick and fast, and as he had lost his notepad he ended up rushing out to pen the lyrics to what became one of Aerosmith’s most famous hits on a wall by the staircase. Unashamedly, the song is saturated with sexual innuendo suggesting masturbation, three-in-a-bed sex and romps with older sirens. Said Steven of ‘Walk This Way’: ‘It’s about what I went through in high school, the relationships with girls. It reeks of teenage sex.’

  The other notable number was ‘Sweet Emotion’ which, despite what the title suggests, stemmed in part from a bitterness that had taken root inside Steven. He has stated that he cannot pinpoint when he physically sat down and expressed himself so poignantly in this song, but he does not dispute that some of the lyrics were inspired by his complex feelings for Elyssa Jerret. He has candidly admitted to blaming her for being a barrier between himself and Joe Perry. Considering that Joe and his girlfriend were growing even closer, this release of Steven’s frustration and naked hurt was unlikely to be well received, and did not help the suffocating pressure under which they were all living. More money purchased a better grade of dope and now what Perry termed ‘unstepped-on cocaine’ became the drug of choice. As cocaine often induces paranoia, this was the last thing anyone needed.

  In late March 1975, with recording over at Record Plant Studios, when Steven led the band out on tour around America just prior to the release of Toys in the Attic, their faith in the new material proved to be well founded. The album reached number eleven on the US chart, but more than creating Aerosmith’s commercial and artistic breakthrough, Toys in the Attic became a hard rock classic. Billboard said: ‘The band’s sound has developed into a sleek, hard-driving, hard rock powered by almost brutal blues-based riffs. Aerosmith strip heavy metal to its basic core, spitting out spare riffs that not only rock but roll. Steven’s lyrics are filled with double entendres and clever jokes and the entire band has a streetwise charisma.’ The single ‘Sweet Emotion’ was released in May and made number thirty-six.

  With this welcome impetus, the band worked hard that summer, turning in electrifying performances, such as at the Schaefer Music Festival held in New York City’s Central Park. At gigs, the mercury was teetering on the verge of exploding backstage where the aggravation between Steven and Joe Perry was now noticeable to total strangers; in a different way fans out front were becoming crazed. At one Central Park gig in the 1970s, a female fan scrambled on stage and launched herself on to Steven, clawing at him in such a frenzy that he was left with a large bleeding hole in his left earlobe. New safety measures had to be implemented both to protect the band in performance and to dissuade the teenagers from harming themselves in their fever to get on stage.

  At the same time, after a period in rock when androgyny had left audiences not sure what to make of sexually ambiguous stars, Steven Tyler oozed full-on heterosexual lust. He has declared: ‘The stage is my mistress and I fuck her to death every night. I do feel sexy up there.’ Sex permeated Steven’s whole life. He wrote about it, adored to sing about it and continued to be insatiable when it came to slaking his desire for women. He saw no reason to limit his horizons. As he plainly put it: ‘It’s a trip seeing girls with big tits and tiny asses just dripping with sex, throwing themselves at you - especially if they’ve brought a girlfriend with them! Man, that’s orgasmic! I haven’t had it [three-in-a-bed sex] as much as I would like but when I have had the pleasure, it has truly been a pleasure!’ One of Tyler’s later regrets was that there had been times when his drug consumption left him flaked out on his bac
k alone in bed, too stoned to get it up.

  But if sex was Steven’s mistress, drugs were rapidly becoming his master. He flatly denounced those who decried drug users as being empty-headed fools, arguing that drug abuse was rooted in the search of feeling great. Comparing the similarities between the molecular structure of cocaine and heroin and that of adrenalin and endorphins, he reasoned: ‘Taking drugs is very akin to feelings that humans get when they are elated.’

  Building a relentless head of steam increasingly resulted in trouble erupting at gigs, bringing with it reports of riots at some venues - just the juicy kind of notoriety that was guaranteed to bolster a band’s reputation. Aerosmith was widely credited as being the hardest-working band on the road in America throughout 1975 - in terms of pulling crowds they stood shoulder to shoulder with Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull and Queen. The previous year, rivalry had reared between Aerosmith and Queen when both bands had been booked to back Mott the Hoople at a gig at the Harrisburg Farm Arena in Pennsylvania. A row broke out between the two groups as to which should be first on stage. Joe Perry and Brian May wandered off with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, leaving Steven Tyler and Freddie Mercury to go heatedly head to head over the issue.

  In 1975, Tyler had his own take on Aerosmith garnering recognition. He said: ‘This band is like cold butter on hot bread - it sinks in after a while.’ ‘Walk This Way’ and ‘Toys in the Attic’ were released from the new album towards the end of the year and did not initially make much of a splash. Rock critics at the time did not give Aerosmith much of a break. Steven let these attacks get under his skin and although a new kid on the block, in the mid-1970s he was not shy of airing his forthright views on reviewers, highlighting examples of what he termed their ignorance. In Melody Maker he blasted: ‘I go through a lot to write lyrics to songs like “Walk This Way” - I’m very fond of those lyrics - and the critics never stopped to listen to the words. They don’t give a shit. So why do I have to respect their opinions?’ With the fans, where it counted, Tyler continued to see proof of Aerosmith’s burgeoning status; by December, Toys in the Attic went platinum and his band was a bone fide major concert draw in the States. For Steven personally, however, the picture was not quite so rosy.

  CHAPTER 5

  When The Fur Starts Flying

  IN SUMMER 1975 the tense dynamic between Steven, and Joe and Elyssa worsened. Tyler now felt to an intolerable degree that Elyssa was depriving him of Joe’s friendship and companionship. Her presence in Perry’s life seemed to be all-consuming. The lead guitarist disputed this, in the sense that whenever he was needed for Aerosmith he was there, but the singer clearly hankered for his brother-in-arms. It was not only Tyler who felt this way - other Aerosmith members were concerned at the influence Elyssa’s presence had on the band - but, in a display of raw emotion, Steven left himself vulnerable to further rejection when he attempted to explain his feelings to the besotted couple. On reflection, Steven has acknowledged that it was not one of his wisest moves; indeed, at the time he believed that his frank soul-baring had only led to him making a fool of himself. It was a very painful time and maybe Steven’s substance abuse heightened his sensitivity.

  Elyssa Jerret became a firmer fixture in Aerosmith’s world when she and Joe married on 5 August, with the reception being held at the Ritz in Boston. It highlighted the stark contrast in the band’s fortunes. Guys who had not so long ago huddled in a hovel of an apartment across town on Commonwealth Avenue, with an eviction notice hanging over their heads, were now being waited upon at the city’s plushest hotel. Family members from both the bride and groom’s side afforded the nuptials traditional values and respectability, while the groom became so stoned his insides were spinning and Steven discreetly disappeared around speech time to inhale heroin.

  That month, Aerosmith again hit the road. Said Tyler: ‘I’ve been going to a lot of concerts lately, watching groups who are so fuckin’ outrageous on record that you’d think they’d get out there on stage and shake ass but they just stand there. The songs we write aren’t the kind that you come out and fucking genuflect. We play kick-ass music!’ Following an exhausting schedule as headliners and as a support act, Aerosmith played gigs in over a dozen states coast to coast across America. Racking up the air miles, hotel rooms all started to look the same, and weeks passed by in a drug-induced off-duty haze; fuelled by cocaine and vodka, every night felt like it was New Year’s Eve. For the unattached Steven the on-road debauchery became crazy, elevating Aerosmith’s raunchy reputation to Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin realms. Along the way, Aerosmith played on bills with the likes of ZZ Top, Reo Speedwagon and Rod Stewart.

  Aerosmith set out to thrill their audiences to the core, and Tyler’s stage act had become breathtakingly physical. As lithe as an acrobat, he could leap to astonishing heights and perform slick somersaults, and he whirled dizzily back and forth across the full length of the stage. His endless energy was incredibly exciting to watch; he wielded the heavy microphone stand like a weapon, at times coming within an inch of unwittingly braining his guitarists. He shook his bony body as hard as he did the maracas and his deft harmonica playing was very Dylanesque. Tyler was Tyler, not emulating anyone on stage, although Rolling Stone recorded around this time that when Steven sang the ballad ‘Dream On’, his voice sounded like Robert Plant’s.

  Yet, for all that Tyler was beginning to live the dream, with his latent anger he could erupt like a volcano for a variety of reasons. After a performance, exhausted and loaded with drink and drugs, something as simple as taking against one dish among the generous buffet laid out backstage could make him lose his temper and tip over the whole trestle table, sending food and drink flying. It would be years before he admitted to taking a long hard look at this behaviour, which had felt so good to him at the time. By his own admission, throughout the 1970s he smashed up expensive wristwatches by hurling them against walls whenever something pissed him off. ‘I was so far out on the edge that I felt I had to trash something quickly,’ he revealed.

  The fact that Steven is not a man to always mind his ps and qs, meant that he nearly had his collar felt in Memphis for flouting local laws by swearing on stage, and in Lincoln, Nebraska, some high jinks with fireworks resulted in the cops calling at the band’s hotel. He could explode with fury about some of the media coverage his band attracted. In particular, he found it profoundly irritating to see Aerosmith dubbed an overnight success. In one frank exchange with journalists he talked of his intense dislike for those people who had not believed in Aerosmith at the outset, mourning the fact that there was no way he could get back at them. Not vindictive by nature, it was an interesting indicator as to how deep previous cuts had gone with him.

  Aerosmith started the new year as one of America’s hottest rock properties; by securing the hitherto elusive AM radio airplay their debut album finally peaked at number twenty-one. Also in spring, ‘Dream On’ lodged at number six on Billboard’s singles chart, providing the band with their first Top 10 hit record. Soon the tangible signs of their increasing wealth came in the shape of luxury cars. As the era of merchandising was taking off, Aerosmith acquired a logo featuring wings, the initial A and the band name. The business side of affairs flourished, establishing their identity even more firmly in the public’s consciousness.

  The year before, bassist Tom Hamilton had married his girlfriend, Terry Cohen. Now, in February 1976, rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford wed Lori Phillips. By this time, work had already begun on the band’s fourth album at the Wherehouse, a rented converted warehouse in Pond Street, Waltham, Massachusetts. This hard rock song collection included ‘Lick and a Promise’, which Steven said dealt with setting out to win over an audience, and ‘Rats in the Cellar’, a counterpoint in one sense to ‘Toys in the Attic’. Of ‘Rats in the Cellar’, Tom Hamilton declared that Tyler and Perry were: ‘taking the thing the Yardbirds created and making it balls to the wall’. ‘Rhythm and sex go together,’ maintained Joe Perry, who co-created with Steven the ambigu
ous ‘Back in the Saddle’. Another hard rock song was ‘Nobody’s Fault’ - a Tyler/Whitford number about the San Andreas geological fault that runs through California. Steven and Tom came up with ‘Sick as a Dog’, and one of Tyler’s favourite songs was ‘Last Child’, on which he and Brad again worked. Said Brad: ‘Steven likes some oddball things, kind of out of the way riffs.’ Steven’s only solo composition was a ballad titled ‘Home Tonight’, while Joe Perry’s first solo song, ‘Combination’, proved to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of giving drugs free rein - advice that was being completely ignored by everyone in the band.

  With substance abuse in Aerosmith plumbing new depths, Steven was sinking further into the mire. Once asked what his favourite drug combination had been, he replied: ‘I guess that would have been Brumpton’s Cocktail. That’s a mixture of cocaine, alcoholic spirits, morphine and syrup - delicious!’ Joe was later brutally honest about the seductive allure of heroin before it turned on him. He confessed to writing the music to songs for this new album while lying on the floor, totally stoned on heroin.

  At the Wherehouse in Waltham, rehearsals got under way. The fan mail in Steven’s office in-tray was mushrooming by the day, and they were surrounded by a circus of people, including drug dealers who came and went. Years later it emerged that Aerosmith’s growing riches were not being handled with the tightest possible rein. One decided downside of being as high as kites or dope-sick was not knowing precisely what was going on around them.