Joe Perry on the artist who could equal Beethoven
The notion of blending rock and roll with classical music can often seem like an incongruous pairing. While there have been instances of rock songs incorporating classical instruments with great success throughout the genre’s history, the idea of fully merging both genres appeared far-fetched during the era of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Joe Perry, known for adhering to the traditional rules of rock while in Aerosmith, held a different view when it came to The Beatles. He believed that the legendary band had the potential to rival the greatest classical artists in history.
Before Perry had even picked up a guitar, he had already been fascinated with the idea of rock and roll. Once he heard the songs of Chuck Berry, he first used the instrument in an attempt to emulate his hero. Even though Perry may have gotten his initial lead licks from Berry, every piece of the Aerosmith story tends to come back to The Rolling Stones.
Despite being compared to the British legends throughout the first half of his career, it’s not like Perry didn’t take a few cues from Keith Richards. Throughout singles like ‘Same Old Song and Dance’ and ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’’, it’s clear that Perry was borrowing from the same lick library as Richards, focusing on writing solos that were more focused on a bluesy groove than anything too flashy.
While The Stones are never a bad place for any artist to start their journey, the Fab Four were instrumental in taking the genre to new areas. After becoming known as everyone’s favourite band thanks to movies like A Hard Day’s Night, The Beatles would spend the latter half of their career in the studio, working away creating incredible music no one had conceived of.
Although the band got a lot of credit for pioneering techniques no one had heard before, it was their musicality that appealed to Perry. Instead of the usual bluesy progressions, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were known to throw a few abnormal chords into the mix whenever they played, either using different modes or shifting time signatures without the listener even noticing.
By the time they had decided to call it a day, their collaboration with George Martin on Abbey Road brought a brilliant end to their discography, featuring a borderline orchestral suite of songs towards the end of the record. Even though it was still being hammered out by guitars and drums, Perry thought he was hearing his generation’s equivalent to classical music.
When speaking about his influences with Rolling Stone, Perry thought that their best melodies could hold their own next to Beethoven, saying, “People will feel about The Beatles the way they do about Beethoven or Mozart. Their core audience was the whole world. And they finished it off with all the class and panache you would expect from a group of guys who were hea, hands and feet above everybody else.”
Even though Aerosmith never reached the same heights as The Beatles, that’s not to say they didn’t try. On ballads like ‘You See Me Crying’ and their cover of ‘Come Together’, the band are doing their best to capture that kind of lightning-in-a-bottle energy that the Fab Four captured on every one of their songs. Then again, anyone trying to match the brilliance of The Beatles is borrowing from what their heroes did naturally.
