Joe Perry Gear, Guitars and Equipment

The Interview

Unleashing high-energy rock and roll led by Steven Tyler’s vocals and the often-dueling guitars of Joe Perry and Brad Whitford, the members of Aerosmith have made their mark on the young American rock audience. Though today they regularly perform before crowds numbering 80,000, Aerosmith’s formative years were spent in poverty, living in the basements of Boston. The band’s genesis arrived in 1970 when Tyler joined forces with bassist Tom Hamilton and Joe Perry in Sunapee, New Jersey. In his previous band, Chain Reaction, Steven had doubled on vocals and drums; Perry and Hamilton suggested he just handle vocals in the new band. Tyler recruited his high school buddy, Joey Kramer, who was a drummer, and guitarist Ray Tabano to complete the lineup. Tabano was soon replaced by Brad Whitford, who had been gigging on nearby Nantucket Island with his group, Justin Tyme.

Sunapee, a small, sleepy town in southwest New Hampshire, was an unlikely place to launch a hard rock band, so Aerosmith moved to Boston, the nearest large city. They began gigging in high school auditoriums, colleges, bars, and anywhere else they could find work. “After we had been there for about a year and a half,” Hamilton recalls, “we suddenly had no gigs and no place to rehearse. The rent kept going up, and we had no money to pay our bills. All of a sudden, this guy let us rehearse in his theater for free, and through him we were finally introduced to our current managers.”

“It was really a classic case,” adds Perry, “and things happened just in time. I can remember when we had our eviction notice in one hand and a management contract in the other; we were really on the skids, trying to stay alive. We literally had no food or anything.”

Though still relatively unknown outside of a cult following in Boston, Aerosmith was signed in 1972 by Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records, after he saw them perform at Max’s Kansas City in New York. They recorded their debut album, Aerosmith, in January 1973. Included on this LP is “Dream On,” which became a national hit three years later. Get Your Wings, the band’s second album, still did not achieve for them the success they had hoped for. “The media really didn’t take us seriously in the early days,” Tyler says. “They sort of looked at us as just another loud band, but we knew differently. And the kids sensed it, too. It just took a lot of time before we were recognized. Those early years were frustrating.”

Steven Rosen has been a rock journalist for over 30 years interviewing the likes of Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, Mick Fleetwood, Joe Perry, Billy Gibbons, Tom Petty, Les Paul, Ginger Baker and Brian Wilson just to mention a few of these rock legends. Since 1973 Steven has accumulated over 1000 hours of audio content and 700 articles of published interviews. All this content is now available for licensing or purchase. Contact Steven Rosen for more information.

In 1974 the band formulated the strategy of continually touring, hoping to become recognized city by city, state by state, until the entire country caught on. Late in the year the strategy began to pay off: Aerosmith was heading such important venues as the Boston Garden and Detroit’s Cobo Hall. Their next LPs, Toys In The Attic and Rocks, were well received, finally bringing the band the recognition they desired. Aerosmith was considered a major American rock influence by early 1977; their first four albums had each sold in excess of two million copies. The band slowed down its pace, staying off the road and spending nearly a year and a half to complete their next record, Draw The Line. Hoping to repay fans for their support. The band then went on a tour of small halls in May 1978. “We hadn’t done club gigs that small for a few years,” Perry says, “and it really felt great. For years and years we’d been playing hockey rinks, and we wanted to get back to a smaller situation. It felt good to get out on a club stage with only a few hundred people and get toe-to-toe with them, wher we could get immediate feedback on how we were playing.” 1978 also found Aerosmith playing the largest shows they had ever done, the Texxas World Music Festival and California Jam 2, this latter gathering holding the world’s record for the largest paid attendance at a musical event with 207,000 and resulted in a live album of the same name.

The Aerosmith Discography and Fact Sheet - Top 10 albums, Top 10 songs, list positions and more

Another side of Aerosmith was also seen last year when they acted the role of “Future Villains” and performed in the musical version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Aerosmith’s most recent release, Live Bootleg, is their first live recording. “We named it Live Bootleg,” Tyler explains, “because for years now people have been following us around, selling unauthorized posters, buttons, shirts – you name it – at our gigs. We’ve been bootlegged so many times than in a sense we felt like we would be bootlegging ourselves, too by putting out a copy of us playing lie. It’s a humorous statement, really. The album features material and experiences from all types of concerts we’ve played; it’s really the essence of the whole band.”

Now firmly ensconced in the American rock and roll psyche, Aerosmith plans to continue their no-frills, high-energy approach to music. “We have a more general appeal to rock audiences than a lot of other groups,” says Whitford. “There’s a lot for people to identiy with in our band. Steven is a very unique singer, Joe Perry and I have two different styles that guitar lovers can relate to, and Tom and Joey provide some of the strongest and most energized bass and drum work of anyone around. We’re just really high energy.”

When did you start playing guitar?

I remember having a guitar when I was five. I messed around with them off and on, but I actually started playing when I was 15. I took one lesson from a guy, and then a week later when I was driving to school I saw a hearse in front of his house. He had died – so that was the last lesson I took. I don’t think it was because of me, however, because I’m sure I didn’t make that much of an impression on him. I just took it as an omen.

Whom were you listening to on records when you were learning to play?

The Yardbirds, the Beatles, Roy Orbison, Ike & Tina Turner, Gene Vincent, the Shadows, and the Ventures – just anything I could hear.

What are the main guitars you’re using at the moment?

I use a Fender Stratocaster, a new, left-handed one, a couple of B.C. Rich guitars, a ’65 Telecaster and a couple of Dan Armstrongs.

What was it about a Stratocaster and particularly a left-handed instrument that grabbed your attention?

It sounds different and feels different to me. And I know the way the pickups are set in there, and the way the tension on the arm is and the length from the nut to the tuning pegs are all different. So it has to add up to something. I’ve shielded the guitar with this copper or aluminum paint, and we changed [Perry and Neal Thompson, guitar tech] the electronics by putting Bill Lawrence L-220 pickups in. We rebalanced the neck and removed the neck’s back plate, putting four screws in there to balance it. And we did a few other tricks with the vibrato arm that I’m not going to mention.

And what types of B.C. Rich guitars, specifically, are you using?

I’m using a Bich, which is the 10-string guitar. Brad Whitford has a blue one and I have a red one. I took the extra four high strings off. I have a solid rosewood Mockingbird and I did ‘Come Together’ [from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie soundtrack] with it and I used it for ‘Milk Cow Blues’ [Draw The Line].

And for different tunings, I have Dan Armstrongs. I use them for slide. And those guitars have been changed. All the guitars I own have been reworked; all the pickups have been changed. That’s how you can avoid paying more than $500.00 for a guitar.

What kind of amplifiers do you use?

Music Man. I’m not sure what model I use but we got the first prototypes about three years ago. In fact, I remember coming out of rehearsals for Toys In The Attic, and we went out on the road and got the Music Man amps then. We’ve been reworking them until now. We’ve put a graphic equalizer in the midrange and we have something that will change the amount of top end you want; it’s like a different way of looking at a midrange control. And all the guitars are set up to go in at line level – they all have cannon [balance line] plugs, so you can have 100-foot cords and there’s no noise, none of that radio frequency interference you get with a regular patch cord, although I can plug in with a patch cord if I want. The Grateful Dead used to do it but I don’t know of anybody else who does.

What types of cabinets do you run the Music Man heads through?

I’m currently using Marshall cabinets – just straight Marshalls. What I’m going to do is plant a bunch of Marshall cabinets all over the stage as well as two stacks in back of me, and have an amp running them all. The way I have it now, one master amp is set up in the back so all I have to do is plug into the right places and one preamp will control all of the output amps. And I can slave them out like that, so one control can handle all the monitors and everything. I also have lights built into the backs and depending on what breaks, a light will go out so the guys can fix anything immediately. Those are the kinds of changes we made – different impedance selector switches. And in the back of the cabinets we have those spring-loaded wires which can be pulled right out or plugged right in.

What other sound equipment do you have?

What I have is like a mini-PA – it has ported JBL cabinets and they’re designed to be in a 4x12 configuration. I have two JBL stacks and they’re all redesigned cabinets and they all breathe incredible. All are equalized for guitar and we drive them with Music Man amps. And then it goes into this computerized effects box – in fact that it’s like is a mini studio. It’s all computerized with these fail-safe things so if anything breaks, you can take it completely out of the system with a flip of a switch. I have a compressor, an equalizer, a phaser and a flanger – it’s all MXR stuff. I have an MXR DDL [digital delay line].

Is this the same array you use in the studio?

No. When I’m at the Record Plant in New York City, I use some Ampegs they have there, really hot Ampegs that sound a lot like Fender Dual Showmans. The Ampegs are new ones but they’ve been reworked.

Jumping back to Aerosmith’s first album, can you remember the gear you used then?

I think it was a Stratocaster. And then I used Gibsons and a ’65 Tele on Toys In The Attic. I changed the pickups in the Telly with Bill Lawrence pickups. I used to use DiMarzios but they let me down sound wise.

You must like working with a second guitarist – what is it you find comforting in having Brad Whitford standing on the other side of the stage?

He’s written some good songs and he definitely has a different style and outlook on music than I do. Brad will come up with a riff – on top of the riff that I write – and it might end up being the catch phrase of the song. Or, he’ll take a lead naturally because he knows that’s where I’ll leave it open. There’s never a problem of who’s going to play a lead where. I don’t think we even actively discuss who’s going to play what.

Do you think you and Brad work in a similar way to Ron Wood and Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones? Where one guitarist keeps the rhythm and the other one plays off of that?

I don’t know how they work; I’ve never met them. I really don’t know how they do it. With us, it depends on whose song it is, what the riff is, and things like that. Brad will come up with a riff – on top of the riff that I write – and it might end up being the catch phrase of the song. That kind of stuff always happens because he knows that’s where I’ll leave it open. There’s never a problem of who’s going to play a lead where. I don’t think we even actively discuss who’s going to play what. The only reason I’m captioned the lead guitar player is because I write many of the songs – so the press isi going to pick up on that. But actually, onstage I may take the lead more in starting songs or something like that, but basically we play the same amount of lead onstage. They probably see me up there singing with Steven, and that’s why they say that.

Have you improved as a player? Has your sound and technique expanded with each passing album?

Definitely. As far as Draw The Line goes, that was a hard album to make. But I think my best playing has been on Rocks; it really stands out. There’s a lot of playing on Draw The Line that you can’t her. But you’ll notice a difference on Live Bootleg because we play a lot of songs off of Draw The Line and you’ll her how much crisper they now sound.

What is it about your playing that sets you apart from other guitarists?

I don’t like to brag but I do hold the North American Conference record for ‘highest thrown Strats’ and also for the ‘most smashed’ – five in one show. Sometimes I play two guitars. I have my Rich on my back, all plugged in and everything, and while I’m using the Strat, I’ll leave it there. Also, I have this switching box with LED lights and I have about five guitars plugged into it, so whichever switch is hit, I can pick up the corresponding guitar. Now I’m working on playing all five guitars at once!