Joe Perry is a guitar hero with a simple philosophy. “Guitar,” he says, “is a means to an end. So many players get hung up on technique, sometimes losing the forest for the trees. You can learn all these scales and tricks, but it only comes together if it’s something you want to hear again.
“I can appreciate all kinds of music and self-expression. It could be jamming in a band where you play one song for 45 minutes, like Jerry Garcia with the Grateful Dead. But for me, playing guitar is all about what serves the songs…”
As a founding member of Aerosmith – the self-styled Bad Boys of Boston, widely revered as America’s Greatest Rock ’N’ Roll Band – Joe Perry has played his part in some of the most iconic rock songs of all time. In the ’70s they gave us Dream On, Sweet Emotion and Back In The Saddle. In the ’80s, Dude (Looks Like A Lady) and Love In An Elevator.
And in both of those decades there was Walk This Way, originally recorded in 1975 and reborn in 1986 as a groundbreaking collaboration with Run-DMC, which became the first hip-hop single to reach the US top five and put Aerosmith on track for one of the most successful comebacks in the entire history of rock ’n’ roll.
It was way back in 1971 that the classic Aerosmith line-up was established, with Steven Tyler on vocals, Perry and Brad Whitford on guitars, Tom Hamilton on bass and Joey Kramer on drums.
Together, they defined the sound of American hard rock with albums such as Toys In The Attic and Rocks, and as Joe now recalls, the inspiration for having two guitar players in Aerosmith came from two influential British groups – the early Fleetwood Mac, led by Peter Green, and The Yardbirds.
“One of my favourite Yardbirds recordings is called Stroll On,” he says. “It was their version of Train Kept A-Rollin’, and it’s one of the few recordings with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck playing together. I still get goosebumps when I hear that. The two guitars come in, and to me, that’s the ultimate – that’s rock ’n’ roll! It’s so cool to get two lead guitars together and not get in each other’s way. And even if you can’t tell who is playing, it doesn’t matter. That was always something that stuck with me…”
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In turn, Perry and Whitford’s hard-rocking prowess would influence a generation of guitarists growing up in the ’70s, most notably Slash, who told Rolling Stone magazine of the moment the he first heard the Rocks album at the age of 14: “It hit me like a f*cking ton of bricks,” he said. “My life changed.”
In the same interview, Slash added: “When I was learning to play the guitar, Aerosmith gave me the shove. I identified with Joe Perry’s image, both visually and sound-wise. He was streamlined in a way that reminded me of Keith Richards, and had a careless guitar style that was really cool.”
When I was learning to play the guitar, Aerosmith gave me the shove. I identified with Joe Perry’s image, both visually and sound-wise
Slash
As far as guitar playing goes, Joe Perry is an institution. With any number of Les Pauls, Strats or various off-kilter six-strings in hand, he has rocked and rolled for more than 50 years with Aerosmith – give or take a few years at the turn of the ’80s when he was out of the band after falling out with Steven Tyler.
But all good things must come to an end, and this year the band will resume their farewell tour, titled Peace Out. The tour began in 2023, only to be postponed after Tyler blew out his voice in just the third show.
In the ensuing hiatus, Joe kept busy with his other band, The Hollywood Vampires, fronted by Alice Cooper and featuring two other guitar players, Johnny Depp and Tommy Henriksen. But come September, with Tyler fully recovered, Aerosmith will be back in the saddle once again.
And as America’s Greatest Rock ’N’ Roll Band gears up for that last hurrah, Joe Perry has plenty to say for himself in this wide-ranging interview with Total Guitar. He talks about his evolution as a player and the music that inspired him; his creative partnerships with Brad Whitford and Steven Tyler; the key songs in Aerosmith’s career; and of course, the guitars…
What he says at the outset is that great guitar playing is all about open-mindedness. “It’s about when you think outside the box,” he says. “When you try things and fall into something inspiring, or when you play guitar and somebody says, ‘Well, this is the proper way to play it’, and then you think about it and go, ‘Oh, I never thought of playing it like that!’
“That’s why guitar sounds the way it does. It took a lot of rule-breaking back in the ’60s, and it still does. So there’s no point getting hung up on getting the right sound – unless it’s the sound you want, and it feels right and inspires you. Other than that, there are no wrong sounds, just the ones that inspire you to do something good…”
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
Let’s start with how the young Joseph Anthony Pereira learned to play guitar…
“My parents wanted me to play piano. It was like everybody had some musical instrument their parents wanted them to play, and mine gave me piano lessons. But that lasted like three months! I mean, rock ’n’ roll – that sound – was always in the back of my mind. I finally got an acoustic guitar in the early ’60s, and I played along with what was on the radio and then put it aside. But when The Beatles came along, I brought that guitar out and I started plinking away on it.”
As I understand it, you are naturally left-handed but learned to play with your right.
I never knew that there was a left-handed guitar or that you could play left-handed
“I never knew that there was a left-handed guitar or that you could play left-handed. I remember when I got my first acoustic guitar, my first instinct was to put the pick in my left hand and the guitar neck in my right hand. But I had this instructional record, and it said, ‘Put the guitar neck in your left hand and the pick in your right hand’. So that’s what I did!
“At that point, I didn’t know that there were left-handed guitars or that you could play them that way. I was just young and following directions! And that was it. That’s how I ended up learning to play right‑handed.”
What did the guitar mean to you?
“It was something I could always do that was mine. I loved rock ’n’ roll – something about it got me. But back then, rock ’n’ roll was the ‘Devil’s music’, you know? Certainly, pop music had guitar in it, but rock ’n’ roll was different.”
Once you came of age, what sort of local scene were you exposed to in New England?
“The little town I lived in [Hopedale, Massachusetts] was the exact opposite of what was going on in London in the early ’60s. One or two other guys played guitar, but that was it. Most of the other guys played pop songs at high school dances or local clubs.”
Eventually you hooked up with future Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton and formed The Jam Band. How did that happen?
“During the school year I’d be in Hopedale, which is like 45 minutes from Boston, and I had a band with group of friends there. We played in clubs, some dances. And one of the guys had an older brother who turned me onto a lot of great music.
“He had stacks of albums, like Elvis, blues, Chuck Berry, and the first live record I ever heard, The Kinks’ Live At Kelvin Hall. But my family was fortunate enough to have a little cottage up on a lake in New Hampshire. We’d go there every summer, and that’s where I met Tom.”
And that’s also where you met Steven Tyler?
“Yeah. I worked at a hamburger place, which is where all the kids liked to hang out. And one summer this guy Steven Tyler came in. He had a band up there, and I’d got the band together with Tom. I’d heard about Steven Tyler, heard his name. We never met, but we ran in some of the same circles for a couple of years. He saw my band play a couple of times.
“But the first time I really interacted with him was when he and his band came into that hamburger joint. They were all dressed like a New York band that was gonna make it. They were loud and doing what they thought rock bands did, and then they started having a food fight. And I remember having to clean up after it! I had to clean their f*cking whipped cream off the wall!”
Come Together
After that rather inauspicious beginning, how did that progress toward the earliest incarnation of Aerosmith?
“I don’t think Steven really took my band seriously. We covered some pretty heavy stuff, like The MC5, and we didn’t care about tuning our guitars. All we cared about was energy and rocking out! That’s not what Steven’s band was about. They would play Beatles songs, and they had harmonies.
“But one summer, I think it was 1970, his band broke up. Steven was a singer and a drummer, and he was really good. Tom and I had plans to go up to Boston to put a new band together. So I talked to Steven.
“By that point, he was thinking of quitting the business. I wanted him to play drums, but he said, ‘I want to be the singer.’ I said, ‘Okay, that’s great.’ And then we found Joey Kramer in Boston.”
Early on, before you found Brad Whitford, you had Raymond Tabano in the band on guitar.
“Steven said, ‘I know this guitar player called Raymond…’ Steven always wanted to have two guitars, and I was okay with that, so I said, ‘Let’s give it a try.’ Raymond was in the band for about eight or maybe 10 months, but that was it.”
From there, Brad joined the band, and Aerosmith got rolling.
“Well, we did a lot of high school dances and stuff, but we never got into working the local Boston scene. Back then you had to play five nights a week, four sets a night, and cover whatever the Top 20 was. But Boston was a good place to be, because a lot of the English bands that we really loved would come down to Boston before they went to New York. So I got to see bands like Fleetwood Mac.”
What was the feeling in the band in that early period?
“It was a really exciting time. Steven knew a lot about songwriting. I didn’t think that was as big a deal as having a band together and a gang of guys with the same vision of making music. The performing part came later, along with being on a record label, and going into a studio…”
