‘Draw the Line’: the album that nearly killed Aerosmith
As the 1970s rock scene began, there was no way to imagine a better band for America than Aerosmith. Although the British Invasion may have given the world amazing acts throughout the 1960s, the chemistry between Steven Tyler and Joe Perry was enough to leave many fans begging for more, taking the sounds of The Rolling Stones and combining them with the swagger of Led Zeppelin. While they dominated the back half of the 1970s, one album saw them heading toward a brick wall fast.
Throughout the group’s first few years, they went through hell trying to get any of their songs on the radio. Compared to the en vogue sounds of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith were being looked at as a ripoff of The Rolling Stones by various media outlets, leading to many calling out Tyler and Perry as being a mirror image of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Once the band earned their stripes on the road, they found their calling, making blues-soaked rock and roll on albums like Toys in the Attic. If songs like ‘Sweet Emotion’ set them on the path to stardom, Rocks poured gasoline on the fire, letting everyone know that they wanted to make a sonic statement whenever they entered the studio.
Then again, the band’s penchant for fantastic rock music was only matched by their copious drug intake. Once they got off the road for the album Rocks, the group walked into the studio for Draw the Line with little to no ideas left in the tank. Instead of taking time away and trying to get clean, their management forced them to make the project in an abandoned convent called The Cenacle.
While the goal was for the rest of the band to dry out, they just spent more time wallowing in their addictions, leading to many of them getting their narcotics delivered. By the time Perry showed up at the facility, the first thing that he did was put down his belongings and walk up to his room, spending the first few days doing nothing but shooting heroin and having a firing range with his pistol.
By the time everyone tried to get on the same page, Tyler recalled having no inspiration when putting together the songs, eventually using leftovers they had lying around and putting a token cover of the blues standard ‘Milk Cow Blues’ towards the project’s end. Even though the band were out of their minds, Tyler thought they were dangerously close to not surviving the album.
When talking about it with Behind the Music, Tyler considered the album one of the darkest periods that they ever had in the studio, saying, “Everyone was gacked to the nines. [We were] as stoned as you could be. It was truly days full of night. It was just a matter of time before we all killed ourselves.”
After the album was completed, the band’s time on the road fared even worse, culminating in shows where Tyler would refuse to speak to the audience and a massive fight leading to Perry leaving the group for a few years. While the 1980s saw Aerosmith back in full force and newly sober for works like Permanent Vacation, the fact they were able to make anything after Draw the Line is practically a miracle.
