The Aerosmith song Steven Tyler was sure would ruin his career: “Just too wimpy”
Being in a rock band is a dangerous place to be. Always precariously teetering towards excess and subsequent failure, the pitfalls were many for a band like Aerosmith.
The classic rock band found fame in the 1970s and ’80s with a range of swashbuckling records that seemed to link the two decadent decades with a run of deliberately sultry and shimmering dips into rock music. They relied heavily on a particular brand of machismo. Their lead singer, Steven Tyler, had to be the archetypal leading man, both able to wear flowing silk blouses but also steal your girlfriend with a wink. Some songs, however, left the singer worrying he’d go too far one way.
Aerosmith have never been afraid to wear their influences on their sleeve. When listening to the band’s classic material throughout albums like Rocks, it’s clear that Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were drawing from the well of bands like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, albeit with their Americanized brand of boogie. While the band were down and out once Perry left the fold, Tyler wasn’t convinced they could get back on their feet once a reunion occurred.
Then again, the fact that Tyler and Perry were able to patch up their differences is practically a miracle, considering what they were up against. Throughout the late 1970s, Tyler was growing resentful towards Perry’s relationship with his wife, Elyssa, leading to a massive argument backstage after a gig when Perry quit on the spot.
Not taking care of themselves, Tyler self-medicated with as much cocaine as possible while Perry started his solo outfit, The Joe Perry Project. Although both bands could sell out decent venues worldwide, it wasn’t until manager Tim Collins got the pair talking again that they realised they needed each other.
Reforming for the album Done With Mirrors, the band were in rare form yet again, only for the album to fall on deaf ears because of how uninspired it was. The band went into the studio with outside songwriters looking to reinvent their sound, fresh off their collaboration with rap outfit Run-DMC on their remake of ‘Walk This Way’.
After meeting songwriter Desmond Child, the band got some of their first major hits in years with songs like ‘Dude (Looks Like a Lady)’. While they may have been back on top briefly, Tyler had second thoughts about one of the group’s signature ballads.
When putting together the rest of Permanent Vacation, Tyler and Child devised a softspoken piano ballad called ‘Angel’, ultimately dividing the band. While the song was undeniably pop, Tyler thought that recording it would end his time in the spotlight, with producer/A&R man John Kalodner recalling in Walk This Way, “Tyler says that I ruined his career by making him write ‘Angel’ with Desmond”.
Tom Hamilton also wasn’t much of a fan of the song at first, telling Behind the Music, “The song was just too wimpy.” They were a rock band, the heavy-drinking, cigarette-smoking, leather-wearing rock band you see in the pastiche of your mind’s eye. Songs like this felt like too big a departure for most of the group and those involved.
But, things change, and the audiences loved it: “Then when we played it on the road, I had these hardened biker guys saying, ‘Play ‘Angel’. I love that ‘Angel’ man. Oh yeah’. So there goes my argument”. Even though Tyler may have had cold feet about the song, it would lead to a beautiful dynamic working with other songwriters for the next few years.
Outside of Child, Aerosmith would work alongside artists like Tommy Shaw of Styx and Diane Warren to help create even greater hits, ushering them into the 1990s with tracks like ‘Amazing’. Aerosmith may have been known as a grizzly rock and roll band for the early phase of their career, but with party songs and ballads under their belt, they stood tall as elder statesmen of the hair metal genre.
