The song that brought Aerosmith back together: “What do you have to lose?”
No one really expected Aerosmith to stand the test of time when they first got started in Boston. They certainly had the same swagger and charm as The Rolling Stones, but it felt like they wouldn’t even see the 1980s, not because of their lack of enthusiasm, but because one of them would most likely be dead of a drug overdose. While Joe Perry eventually called things off in the late 1970s, it took his solo song ‘Black Velvet Pants’ to bring the ‘Bad Boys From Boston’ back from the edge.
But at the time, things were beyond ugly between Perry and Steven Tyler. Much in the Yoko Ono tradition, Tyler blamed most of the problems in the group on Perry bringing his wife, Elyssa, everywhere they went, which devolved into a massive fight when she ended up throwing milk onto bassist Tom Hamilton’s wife before a show.
While Tyler was livid about Elyssa’s involvement, Perry thought he would be better off on his own, launching The Joe Perry Project and actually seeing some success with Let the Music Do the Talking. The record is far from Aerosmith-level quality, but considering his status as a Keith Richards-type figure, it is a decent side project from the traditional sound Perry was known for.
Then again, it’s not like the band or Perry were raking in the sales anymore. Aerosmith finished off Night in the Ruts pretty well, but Rock in a Hard Place felt hollow and sad by comparison, as if Tyler had somehow lost contact with his muse after losing the musical love of his life. When ‘Black Velvet Pants’ was released as a single by Perry, he was introduced to his next wife, Billie, on the set.
While Perry was smitten, he was shocked to hear that Billie had never heard a single Aerosmith song in her life. She was fashioned in the same mould as the punk scene, so hearing the same tired blues cliches from Aerosmith wasn’t exactly on her radar in between the Blondies and Talking Heads of the world.
Once she heard ‘Back in the Saddle’ on the radio, though, Billie knew that Perry would feel much better going back to his old outfit, telling Biography, “To me, it just made sense. I mean, you’ve played with them before, just try it and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. What do you have to lose?”
Despite it taking a few more months, Perry did end up reconciling with Tyler and rejoined his old mates on the road for the appropriately titled ‘Back in the Saddle’ tour. Even when he came back to the fold, Tyler ended up bringing in some ideas from Perry’s solo joint, eventually rewriting ‘Let the Music Do the Talking’ for their album Done With Mirrors.
Even though ‘Black Velvet Pants’ is far from being close to Perry’s greatest moment as a songwriter, it lit the spark that he needed to get off his ass again. No matter how much he might resent Tyler on some occasions, he knows now that they are always better together than they are apart.
