Joe Perry
"I don't want fans to think we're clean, upstanding American boys, but we are Americans, and we do stand up."
When asked if the band plays tighter now that they are sober and he said, "I guess we all have a bad night now and then and really screw up. I listened to our earlier stuff and we screwed up a lot. But at least now that we are sober, when we screw up it's for real."
(On videos) "It's weird but it's part of the game now, part of the industry. Unfortunately there's a lot of other things going on that will make it a hit besides if it's a great song...I've gotten so I like to do videos. I get a charge out of it.We put the same sense of humor and "fuck you"-ness that we put into the music. They've taken on a life of their own."
On Gems) "That was a non-hits album, which we thought was pretty cool. That is one of the Aerosmith records that I listen to."
"From the inside I didn't think anything was wrong. But from the outside everything. The focus is completely gone. If I kept a journal, I couldn't do a better job of showing exactly when we started to go south. Especially because I was too fucked up to actually keep a diary. The Beatles made their White Album; we made our black-out album."
"We'd stopped leading our band, we'd stopped giving a shit. We'd go out to play and we'd struggle to get through 'Back In The Saddle' as opposed to getting out there and moving things ahead. And all of a sudden there were all these new bands like Van Halen taking up the slack. We were just laying down sleeping and other people came in. We just blew it."
"Our story was basically that we had it all, and we pissed it all away."
"These days it's almost like a lot of kids get into bands because they want to get rich and famous, but when we started this band that wasn't really part of it. I never envisioned what I was doing as part of a career. We weren't even aware of all the stuff that came with it. We just looked at the bands that we idolized - like the Yardbirds - and we were blown away by how they could play. All we wanted to do was play like that, to be a great band like that."
(When asked if he is ever embarrassed or annoyed by Steven) "Constantly! Constantly. All of the above! But you know, that's what's great about it. There's a brother thing going on there. We've been through so much together. He forgives me for my stoicism and my hard-headedness, and I likewise do the same with his flamboyance. I mean, he only hits me with the microphone like once or twice a tour. And he regrets it when he does! But it's fun watching him, and it's just not in my nature to do that. I suppose if it was up to me, we'd wear black suits and sunglasses and just stand there and play. Oh man, he definitely gets dressed in the closet with the light off."
"You know, I definitely enjoy it, to be this close to that kind of insanity every day."
(Joe on writer's block):"I think there was a time when I used to feel that way, but...it's like I'm past caring anymore. I know that it's gonna come out as good as it's gonna come out, and I know from history that people just don't lose it, y'know what I mean?"
"I know that some of the great painters and some of the great artists didn't even start to 'peak', as you say, till they were in their fifties and sixties. And God knows, history is full of artistic people that weren't even recognized till they were dead and gone."
"I know that the gift that God gave me isn't gonna just wither up and die unless I let it die, so it's a matter of me having the faith that it's gonna come out. Whether or not the public's gonna like it is another story. But I think as long as I keep changing and sticking to what I really love - and the same goes for Steven and the other guys in the band - then people are gonna like it."
"Fuck you Steven"
"Tell 'em about the tie, Billie, the tie. You know the tie"
"Music is music you don't have to put a label on it"
"The '70's came and went already"
"What the Fuck is this?"
"[Steven and his band] were loud and obnoxious, behaving like rock stars are supposed to behave - especially when they're in a little town and nobody knows how not-so-big they are. They'd come into the Anchorage (the ice cream parlor that he worked at as a teen) and throw food and shit and I'd have to clean up after them."
"Wear the same thing you wore last tour, the blue striped thing"
"You guys are mericiless"
"Don't tell me what to do, I am having fun!"
"We have sex 2,3 times a day. In fact, we are late right now"
"This is our tour - don't fuck with our music"
"We like each other just enough"
"Is that a drug reference, I thought we gave up on the drugs"
"That's it we are leaving"
"I think I had my drink for next years Christmas about seven years ago!"('89)
"We were so f#?ked up,we couldnt even get into a studio & stay awake!"
"You've got to keep your body in good working order--otherwise,how else are you gonna be able to f#?k all night?"
"When those bass bins are cranking, it does something to you physically. We have these special sub-woofers. You dont really hear them, but it shakes you in the right places. You can call it the devil, you can call it God's gift."
"We're just entertainers. We're here to make people happy, to make them SMILE. That's what Steve does with his lyrics. God it'd be boring if it was all just boy meets girl...C'mon, we're here to have a good time!"
"What I like about Aerosmith, and what we always try to do, is to keep the balance of fun. There's enough shit going on--you don't need to come to our shows and have your face rubbed in it too."
(about Lightning Strikes..) "It's one of my favorite Aerosmith songs. I was pissed off that I didn't get to play on it, so I make up for it every night when we play it live!"
(more about Lightning Strikes..) "It's one of my favorite songs to play live--but just to show where I was at, I wouldn't listen to it at the time, 'cause in my mind it was shit."
"Rhythm and sex go together and that's where I come from as far as the music goes. Rag Doll and Love In An Elevator are such sexual songs that you put them on & the strippers go NUTS!"
"If you take your last album & try to copy it, then thats sure to hell the way to stagnation. And that makes me bored...and if I'm bored then the music is boring and so are the band!"
"Steven and I stood on the stage at the Boston Garden after the Stones had just played there and the stage was still up. We had been playing cards, maybe a high-school dance, to 400 or 500, maybe a thousand. We just stood on the stage and thought, 'Well,man,maybe someday.' In 4 years that was OUR stage."
"I think we're just a garage band that got lucky. It's the enthusiasm from the audience that keeps it going."
"The kids in the audience still get together and do whatever the f#?k they want. From the crowds we've played for, from the very beginning until now, they all get off when we're singing 'Come Together'--'One thing I can tell you is you got to be free.' The kids go nuts when you say that. It's a tribal thing. Rock-n-Roll is about freedom. Even if the kids arent there just to hear the band, it's a meeting place. The lights go down, they get anonymous, some of them go a little nuts, but it's okay."
"I don't need to speak...I play the guitar!"
"I never envisioned what I was doing as part of a career."
"My sense of humor gets out of hand sometimes, which really bugs the hell out of Steven. He'd like me yo play straight-ahead rhythms, but I like to make a lot of noise and shit."
(Before playing Stop Messin' at a concert), "For all the ladies and gentlemen and ships at sea out there in radio land ..."
(on whether they get dumped on for having so many sexy woman in their videos) "Sure we do ... but hey, if we were girls, we'd have good looking guys in our videos, we try to be sexy without being sexist" - Joe Perry, Seventen-April 1994
"I like the way this record sounds, it sounds loud - Joe Perry, on Nine Lives, Globe and Mail"-Febuary 1997
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nancy123
, 13 2010 . 01:22 ()
