| 20th September 2007 07:33 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Tyler And Perry: The Stories Behind The Aerosmith Hits
artist: aerosmith date: 09/18/2007 category: interviews
ultimate-guitar.com
“I’ve always felt I have a good understanding of melody,” says Steven Tyler, when asked about songwriting. “Great melody over great riffs is, to me, the secret of it all,”.
As Aerosmith pushes toward its fifth decade of making great music, the method to the band’s songwriting madness remains much the same as ever, writes Russell Hall of Gibson.com. Using his ever-present Les Paul, Joe Perry comes up with a stupendously infectious riff, Tyler counters with a strong vocal melody and lyrics rife with double entendres, and a classic song is born. The style varies on occasion—most clearly on the band’s power ballads—but, as Perry notes, listeners will never mistake an Aerosmith song for a song by anyone else.
“It’s all basically the same thing,” he says. “We still just sit in a room and come up with music. Steven and I both like that R&B backbeat. Sometimes it sounds poppier than at other times, and sometimes it sounds bluesy, but it’s always kind of wrapped around that feeling.”
Below, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler share with Gibson their exclusive insights and the back stories to several Aerosmith classics.
“Draw the Line” (Draw the Line, 1977)
Perry: “That was a case of trying to use an open tuning in a way that wasn’t typical, that wasn’t simply going to the sus4. That’s kind of how I approach open tunings. A lot of times your fingers just naturally want to go in that direction, and that just calls attention to that open tuning, kind of the way Keith Richards plays it. As a guitar player, Richards grabbed that early on and made it his signature. There’s something very distinctive and fun about playing with an open tuning, because you get all those open notes, and it just sounds great coming out of a guitar amp. But you don’t want it to sound like the other guy who’s using that same tuning. So I’ve always approached that with the attitude of, ‘Well, I’m going to make this sound distinctive.’ The Black Crowes used that tuning to great effect, but I could always tell what it was. I just shifted the tuning around a bit, and made it talk a little more, for my own tastes.”
“Back in the Saddle” (Rocks, 1976)
Perry: “I had heard [original Fleetwood Mac guitarist] Peter Green playing a 6-string bass, although he never really played it as part of a song. He would sort of jam with it. But that’s how I knew they existed. I figured it would be a cool instrument to play live. It sounded great, and I didn’t know anyone else who was doing it. I wrote that song so that I would have excuse to play it on-stage.”
“Same Old Song and Dance” (Get Your Wings, 1974)
Perry: “The original version [a different song with the same title, written by Sammy Cahn and made famous by Frank Sinatra] had more of a swing thing going. We just straightened it out and made it more of a twelve-bar progression. I haven’t heard the original in a lot of years, but I seem to remember that it was a little looser. If you go back really far, you don’t find a whole lot of straight 12-bar blues. There’s always a variation on it, and a change, and I think that’s kind of what we did to that song. We brought in the same instrumentation, and played it the way we heard it going down. Listening back to it, I think, ‘Wow, we were playing swing back in 1974. How about that?’ It was just another experiment. I’m not sure we really knew what we were doing.”
“Walk This Way” (Toys in the Attic, 1975)
Perry: “I stumbled onto that riff at a sound check. I can remember sitting there thinking how much I like James Brown, and the Meters, and I wanted to write a song that had that sort of R&B feel. That was the motivation, and that’s what started the riff. As far as the lyrics go, I didn’t know it was going to go that way, and I don’t think Steven did either. He just knew that the piece of music was in line with the type of music we liked, and that’s why it kind of stuck around. It just kept shouting, ‘Sing over me!’ But I didn’t know how it was going to go. He just kind of let it fly.”
Tyler: “I was just going with a [makes a retching sound]. I love that. That was just verbal diarrhea. That was me dancing with my muse, getting right up off the dance floor, not caring about how good or bad the band was, and just throwing my hands in the air and screaming, ‘Hallelujah!’”
“Janie’s Got a Gun” (Pump, 1989)
Tyler: “I had gotten a synthesizer with 300 presets. Of course I had written ‘Dream On’ on the piano, but to sit down at a keyboard, and have saxophones come out of it, or have a drum set on the keyboard, or violas, or cellos, or a choir, or just noises—it was like, ‘Oh my God, look out now!’ I set it up in the basement of my house, next to my treadmill. I would do a half-hour of running, and that would get me up to speed, and create an adrenaline that’s like what I get when I’m on-stage. I would run for a half-hour, then jump off, because I would get these ideas as I was running. If you ever hear the demo for ‘Janie’s Got a Gun,’ it’s all there, except for some beautiful embellishments that were added later in the studio. It was all done in my basement.”
Perry: “I wish Steven would write more stuff like that, not necessarily about that subject, but about things with that kind of weight. And he does, sometimes. We were really excited about that song. It was almost complete when he brought it in.”
“Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” (Permanent Vacation, 1987)
Tyler: “I had 95 percent of the lyrics complete, but I didn’t have the first line. Desmond Child suggested ‘Cruise into a bar on the shore,’ because we lived right there at the shore, in Boston. And I said to him ‘Her presence graced the grime at the door,’ or something like that. Then he came up with, ‘She’s a long lost love at first sight,’ and I said, ‘No, at bite.’ We spent the day spitting words out at each other, and I did realize that there was camaraderie there. It just all of a sudden clicked. It was fun.”
“Jaded” (Just Push Play, 2001)
Tyler: “It felt so phenomenal, when I hit on that melody. I thought, ‘Oh, my God!’ I didn’t even tell the band for two months. There were so many places to hang your hat. It was just a question of which hat goes where, and where the title of the song should go. I loved the way the song wrapped around itself. Within a couple of weeks it went from ‘Jaded’ to ‘J-J-J-Jaded,’ with the rhythm and everything. It helps a lot that I was a drummer, first. That’s helpful, when it comes to knowing how to dance between the notes.”
“Girls of Summer” (O, Yeah!, 2002)
Tyler: “We were in Hawaii. We moved all the furniture out of the living room, and within three days we had about five great thumbnail sketches, one of which went [begins singing]‘When winter hearts turn summer pink / In half the time it takes to blink / But it all depends on what you think /About the girls of summer.’ A little tip of the hat to Gershwin there, huh? I just love melody, wherever it takes you. My father was a classical pianist. It’s just in my Italian blood. We pushed up the rhythm guitar on that song. It was almost better as an acoustic thing, left alone, rather than done with the whole band. Of course, because you have a band, you’re sometimes forced to add accompaniment. You can’t have one guy not play.”
Perry: “Going back to the early days, we would bring guitar riffs, or shells of songs that might have the verse and the chorus and the bridge, but it’s really not a song until there’s a vocal. Or rather it is, in that when you hear it you think it sounds like a song, or sounds like an Aerosmith song, but you really need all the pieces to make it into something that everyone hears that way. We wanted to have that, along with a bit of an open-tuning, drop-D action. We worked on a bunch of things, and that was the one that kind of stood out. Steven spent a lot of time running around on the beach, writing the lyrics to that song.”
Thanks for the info to Gibson.com.
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| 20th September 2007 12:08 PM |
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| Bruno |
Janie´s Got A Gun is a great song.
Although I don´t like Pump that much its making of is real good to watch. |
| 20th September 2007 01:19 PM |
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| gimmekeef |
Always liked..Back In The Saddle myself..great party tune |
| 20th September 2007 02:17 PM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
I've recently just got the O Yeah Ultimate Hits compilation and absolutely love it. I've always been aware of and enjoyed their radio hits from the 80's and 90's, but had never heard (including the original Walk This Way!) any of their 70's output.
The change in their style and especially Tyler’s voice is striking. I thought I'd ordered the wrong CD when I put disc 1 in and Mamma Kin came on!
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| 20th September 2007 02:27 PM |
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| Dan |
quote:
Honky Tonk Man wrote:
I've recently just got the O Yeah Ultimate Hits compilation and absolutely love it. I've always been aware of and enjoyed their radio hits from the 80's and 90's, but had never heard (including the original Walk This Way!) any of their 70's output.
The change in their style and especially Tyler’s voice is striking. I thought I'd ordered the wrong CD when I put disc 1 in and Mamma Kin came on!
You need Rocks and Toys In The Attic. 2 of the greatest albums ever recorded. |
| 20th September 2007 02:47 PM |
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| Lord (Hetero) |
When Tyler says that a great riff plus a great melody on top is where it's at, I could not agree more. This has always been the reason I find "Rocks Off" such a fantastic song. It's a rocker for sure, but it is very very melodic. That incredible hornline does not hurt one bit either.
I like reading about songs' genesis. And I like Aerosmith. I think Tyler is very gifted. IMO he is actually a notch above the rest of that band.
On the other hand it's also tyler who weighs the band down on the other end with those crude sexual refernces that were never really clever, and with those silly outfits.
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| 20th September 2007 04:49 PM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
Another thing I've noticed with the earlier material is that they sound far more like a serious rock band. There is something quite comical about their later output. Love In An Elevator, Dude Loks Like A Lady etc. |
| 20th September 2007 07:30 PM |
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| Nellcote |
20-Sep-07Steven Tyler Joins Hohner Inc. to Create his Signature Series Harmonica
GLEN ALLEN, VA – Hohner Inc announces the release of a truly unique instrument, the Steven Tyler Signature Series Harmonica. Steven Tyler has worked with Hohner Inc. to design a Harmonica to his exact specifications featuring a custom combination of a premium reed plate, custom tuning, a special wood comb, and black & silver styling. The Signature Series Harmonica is shipped in a specially stylized gift box featuring the harmonica in the key of “A”, a carrying case, and a signed photo of Steven Tyler.
“It was a great pleasure to work with an artist of Steven Tyler’s caliber on this project. His enthusiasm and creativity helped us bring this unique instrument to market” said Scott Emmerman, Hohner’s Director of Marketing and Sales. “We expect strong demand for this product from serious players as well as from Steven’s loyal fans” Scott added.
Clay Edwards, Hohner Inc’s President commented, “In the year of our 150th Anniversary, this product uniquely celebrates our heritage and our future. We are very honored to be associated with a great contemporary icon of rock and roll and look forward to working with Steven.”
Hohner has manufactured and distributed musical instruments since 1857 and is one of the world’s oldest musical instrument companies. Its US brands include: Hohner Harmonicas, Accordions, Melodicas, Recorders & Fretted Instruments; Sonor Drums & Orff; Airwave Technologies, Korg Tuners, Remo Drum heads; Rockwood by Hohner Drum & Guitar packs; Laney Amps; Playful Harmonies by Hohner; Musical Toys; accessory bags & cases; Lanikai Ukuleles; Vater, Vic Firth and Pro-Mark Drumsticks.
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| 21st September 2007 12:09 AM |
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| ultimaterocker |
anyone looking to get into Aerosmith NEEDS to purchase Rocks and Toys in the Attic.....just like Dan said. They are right on par with the Stones' big four.....you dont believe me...have another listen! |
| 21st September 2007 08:38 AM |
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| _Boomy_ |
quote:
Honky Tonk Man wrote:
Another thing I've noticed with the earlier material is that they sound far more like a serious rock band. There is something quite comical about their later output. Love In An Elevator, Dude Loks Like A Lady etc.
MTV killed 'em. They really went south around that point, IMO.
As a recording band, that is.
[Edited by _Boomy_] |
| 21st September 2007 09:17 AM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
quote:
_Boomy_ wrote:
MTV killed 'em. They really went south around that point, IMO.
As a recording band, that is.
[Edited by _Boomy_]
Well, we should remember that MTV uis just the videos. Still, you can't moan about the videos with Alicia Silverstone in. Thats all good  |
| 21st September 2007 10:09 AM |
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| _Boomy_ |
I heard that she's posing nude for PETA in an ad.
But "Rocks" fuckin' rocks, brotha Alex.
Have you ever heard the song "Chip Away The Stone"? That's one good cut.
[Edited by _Boomy_] |
| 21st September 2007 10:26 AM |
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| ebmp |
Get Rocks and Toys in The Attic
Their first two albums are very underrated as well, especially their first.. So many great songs on that one like Dream On, Make it, Mama Kin, One Way Street, Walkin the Dog, Movin Out
Also get Live Bootleg!
Great live album from the 70's |
| 22nd September 2007 01:53 PM |
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| ultimaterocker |
quote:
_Boomy_ wrote:
I heard that she's posing nude for PETA in an ad.
But "Rocks" fuckin' rocks, brotha Alex.
Have you ever heard the song "Chip Away The Stone"? That's one good cut.
[Edited by _Boomy_]
Chip Away at the Stone is the best Stones song they never wrote. |
| 22nd September 2007 07:30 PM |
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| GotToRollMe |
quote:
Dan wrote:
You need Rocks and Toys In The Attic. 2 of the greatest albums ever recorded.
Ditto. |
| 22nd September 2007 09:17 PM |
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| ketvos |
quote:
GotToRollMe wrote:
Ditto.
Amen. These cats can still rock an arena also. Totally PRO sets they do nowadays. |
| 25th September 2007 01:35 PM |
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| Honky Tonk Man |
quote:
_Boomy_ wrote:
I heard that she's posing nude for PETA in an ad.
[Edited by _Boomy_]
She did indeed 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNyYO0o8rNw |
| 26th September 2007 01:30 PM |
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| _Boomy_ |
I don't know. I don't like any Aerosmith stuff from the 80's to now. Maybe "Pink," because I enjoy the harmonica "riff".
I think a lot of people view the Stones that way, too. Everything post "Tattoo You" is ignored by the masses.
I bought "Honkin' On Bobo" when it came out and that didn't really do it for me, either. |
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