The argument that Aerosmith called “the dumbest shit on the planet”
Being in a band like Aerosmith is like being in one of the most dysfunctional musical marriages of all time.
Even though every member of the band wanted to make the best record that they could every time they went into the studio, it was anyone’s guess as to whether or not they would all be on the same page or if Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were butting heads whenever they sat down to write a song. It was never going to be easy for them to capture the magic every single time they made a record, but by the time they came up for air, they realised that none of their petty arguments mattered.
But if you know anything about the band, those petty arguments do get more than a little bit tiresome after a while. Their entire world seemed to collapse after one backstage fight with Joe Perry’s wife, and while more than a fair bit of substances were involved in breaking them apart, a lot of their learning process was about them figuring out what was important to the band and what they needed to let go of along the way.
They were always better together than apart, but somewhere around the 1990s, things started to go a little bit haywire. The band themselves were still a well-oiled machine, but after years of playing their asses off, bringing in outside songwriters did start to wear out its welcome. Desmond Child did a fantastic job reintroducing the band to a new audience when working on Permanent Vacation, but after one too sappy ballads on their albums, things started to taper off somewhere around Just Push Play.
The rest of the band resented Tyler for making songs that sounded that mainstream, and while Honkin’ On Bobo got them back to the blues, Tyler wasn’t done having fun on his own. He had been trying his best to step out of the band’s shadow for a little while, but when he jammed with Led Zeppelin and got the gig as a judge on American Idol without talking to the rest of the guys, they felt like they were hung out to dry for a little bit.
Perry could at least get back to his solo career, but the idea of Tyler being gone for so long had the rest of the band wondering whether they could try looking for other vocalists. But when they finally kissed and made up in time for Music From Another Dimension, Tyler realised that a lot of the problems that they were having just came from them not communicating properly when talking about the business.
And even if he was at fault to a certain degree, he didn’t want to get back to that kind of animosity ever again, saying, “How fucking amazing is it that we came up with this great album after so many years? Is it because we haven’t been in the studio for a while? Or is it because we fought, and everybody in the band laid their dumbest shit on the table for a few years? Whatever the reason we were fighting, it was the dumbest shit on the planet, and maybe that tumultuous moment caused the electricity in the studio when we did get together.”
Some of those problems may be part of Tyler having a severe case of Lead Singer Disease, but the idea of him continuing on without the rest of the band was never going to work. He did have a strange turn towards country music on his one solo record, but if that managed to prove anything, it was that the band worked better together than apart in nearly everything that they did.
There’s a lot of great songs on Music From Another Dimension, but even if it wasn’t exactly the greatest record that the band ever made, all of them managed to learn a valuable lesson about each other. No matter how much of an asshole you think your bandmate is, they’re more important than you realise, and it’s best not to treat them like an afterthought whenever you’re working with them.
