How Janis Joplin inspired Steven Tyler to become a singer
In a 2018 feature on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler confessed the importance of Texan soul singer Janis Joplin’s massive influence on him as a young high-school kid early in his developing confidence as a singer. Reflecting on his newfound sobriety, Tyler recalled first encountering Joplin: “Someone like me who watched Janis Joplin up there OK, it’s 1968, I’m in high school, and she’s got bangles and beads like this on (displays his wrists), she’s drinking Southern Comfort, and she’s spitting and using the F-word, smoking cigarettes, nobody did that!”
Aerosmith’s career splits into two halves, existing on either side of their monster collaboration with Run DMC for 1986’s hip-hop reworking of ‘Walk This Way’, breathing renewed life into their flailing relevance and ushering their big, MTV second coming with albums Permanent Vacation and Pump.
There was a time, however, when the band were a bluesy, hard-rock outfit dubbed ‘the bad boys from Boston’ and perceived as America’s answer to The Rolling Stones, inspiring a generation of young future artists who had yet to be struck by punk’s lightning. Kurt Cobain even featured 1976’s Rocks in his ‘Top 50 Albums’ diary entry.
Tyler’s bluesy rasp is indebted to Joplin’s aching mezzo-soprano vocals. A force of nature, her soulful croon could reach depths of sensuality before riding passionate peaks of wailing power that cemented her as one of the voices of the late-1960s counter-culture. Hailing from Port Arthur and turning heads for her uncompromising attitude, appetite for hedonism, and principled disregard for the societal prejudices that plagued her hometown, Jefferson County, Joplin forged a unique path for herself from day one.
Initially fronting Big Brother and the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills‘ ‘Piece of My Heart’, an Erma Franklin cover from a year prior, became one of her enduring cuts, surpassing the original with her powerhouse performance. Following her first album as a solo artist, I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, it was 1971’s posthumous Pearl that’s been many an artists gateway to her red-blooded, unabashed soul rock, ‘Me and Bobby McGee‘ and ‘Mercedes Benz’ enduring as her biggest anthems.
Joplin’s flagrant decadence certainly made an impact on the young Tyler also. Both are known for living lives of excess both sexually and chemically, Joplin tragically dying of a heroin overdose in 1970 at the age of 27 and looming grimly over the mythos that surrounded her along with Jimi Hendrix a mere month earlier.
Tyler, along with Aersomith guitarist Joe Perry earned the joint moniker ‘Toxic Twins’ due to their reputation for debauchery, Tyler revealed to FHM in 1997: “By ’83… I lost it all. I remember in the early days looking at another fucked-up rock ‘n’ roll star and thinking, ‘I will never end up like that, man’. They had all these riches and blew it all. That would never happen to me… I forgot about reality and just loved shooting dope and coke. Stupid.”
However, aside from the penchant for revelry, Tyler’s affection for Joplin is always about the music. Including ‘Piece of My Heart’ for his 2016 country album We’re All Somebody from Somewhere, and routinely covering ‘Mercedes Benz’ with his boho-country backing band Loving Mary, Tyler remains as much a fan now as he did that young high-school kid way back in 1968.
