“An iconic band”: The one man that Steven Tyler almost quit Aerosmith for
Most rock singers would normally pray for a chance to sing in a band like Aerosmith. Even though the group had followed in the footsteps of the greatest acts to come out of England, the chemistry between Steven Tyler and Joe Perry made the group sound like a 24-hour party that never lets up for a second.
While every single artist wouldn’t shake a stick at the idea of joining ‘The Bad Boys from Boston’, Tyler almost left his bandmates behind for a project with Jimmy Page. Now, if that name means even the smallest thing to you, you can probably already understand why Tyler might pick up sticks and leave the band he helped create.
Then again, most of the magic behind Aerosmith comes from Tyler’s way of working off Perry. While they may be far from the best of friends most of the time, their way of working off one another both onstage and in the studio is what made their classic material work so well, like Tyler working one of Perry’s riffs into musical magic on ‘Back in the Saddle’.
By the time the band reached the 2000s, Perry wasn’t exactly thrilled with the direction they had been moving in. Since everyone in the group wanted to keep in touch with their bluesy roots, Tyler’s decision to make pop-influenced ballads in the wake of ‘I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing’ led to albums that no one wanted to make, like Just Push Play.
While Perry did manage to get the band back in touch with the genre they loved as kids on the blues cover album Honkin on Bobo, Tyler was still chasing his celebrity status whenever he could. After landing a spot as a judge for American Idol for a handful of seasons, Tyler eventually got the call to work alongside Jimmy Page for a Led Zeppelin-focused project.
Even though the surviving members of Zeppelin had gotten together for select shows in 2007, Robert Plant’s refusal to tour behind it led to Page consulting other singers. For Tyler, this was going to be a no-brainer from the minute that Page started talking.
Having loved Zeppelin from the first time he saw them at their famous Boston Tea Party gig, Tyler immediately went down to play a few songs with the group. After a few rehearsals went well, singing classics like ‘Black Dog’, Tyler had the chance to join Page and John Paul Jones for a few select shows and possibly an album before he eventually baulked at the opportunity.
Reminiscing on the few days he spent with them, Tyler said he couldn’t live with himself leaving his bandmates hanging, telling Louder, “While I was there, Jimmy spoke to me about maybe doing an album. I went home and thought about it for a couple of days, and I got back to him and said: ‘Look, Jimmy, you’re in an iconic band, and so am I. I can’t, in good faith, leave my band and be in your band.’”
It’s a bold decision. There is no doubt that without Page, Aersomiuth simply would have never existed, but one could say the same for hundreds of bands that emerged after the British quartet chewed up what The Beatles had started with the rock revolution and spat it out in a breath of hellfire.
It’s not hard to see the influence in Aerosmith’s music, either. From the breakdown riff of ‘Sweet Emotion’ to the massive middle riff of ‘Love In An Elevator’, it’s clear that the band at least have a passing knowledge of what constitutes a Zeppelin-esque groove, albeit with the signature bluesy flair of The Rolling Stones.
Even though Tyler would spend time away from Aerosmith, the rest of the outfit came close to carrying on without him, eventually talking about the possibility of auditioning new singers for the band. For all of the unknown factors surrounding Tyler’s status with the group, it could never truly be Zeppelin without Robert Plant, and it certainly wouldn’t be Aerosmith without ‘The Demon of Screamin’’.
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