Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: The Autobiography. Steven Tyler

minds. The Island of Lost Boys.

      Day one, I said to the guys, “This is so great that we’re living together! I fuckin’ love that!” It started out blissfully but soon turned into little skirmishes over chewing gum and toothpaste and petty psychological feuds. But that’s what marriages are. And in the end the band really worked, and I think somewhere deep inside—and quite hidden even from themselves!—they really loved me for making them do that when we lived at 1325. Stealing the food and cooking! I would make breakfast; we’d learn those songs and really craft them, make them tight.

      In his book, Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top, Joey told the world that the reason he has a facial tic is that I abused him just like his father did. I used to yell at him. I’d say, “Don’t play it like that . . . play it like this!” I know good things don’t come without practice; if I was hard on him it was because we had to get it right. But because I had decided not to be the drummer in the band, I gained a right IN MY MIND to be able to live vicariously through Joey.

      I had a dream. So in the beginning, Joey was my interpreter, and we sat and played together. I took my drum set and said, “Joey, today’s the day.” And he’d go, “What, man?” And I’d go, “Well, you set up your drums and I’ll set up mine . . . right in front of you! And we’re gonna play facing each other.” He never understood. Later on, with Aerosmith records, he always thought that if I did a snare hit with him—or if I played the high hat while he played the drums—people would notice that there was someone else playing the drums. And I’d say, “Listen to Greg Allman’s ‘I’m No Angel’ or the Grateful Dead stuff with two drummers. It’s a sound. The Beatles sang in a room that had a voice . . . which means the room had an echo. They didn’t have some ass fuck engineer try to get rid of it. They put it on the track like that. Once it’s a hit, that echo is on there forever.”

      A room has its own sound and music. You can buy a machine and tune it to “ambience.” When we were making Just Push Play, we recorded our empty room. If you record that hall noise and sing over it, it’s like letting the hall embrace you. It has chairs and equipment and people. The room IS another instrument. The room is in the band.

      So with Joey, we would play together, and in the beginning—what I’m getting at—is there’d be this Cheshire grin on both our faces. He loved me and I loved him. He couldn’t believe the tricks I knew. And to this day, he can play what I could never play. But back then, in ’71, it was all about “Hey, show me that again!”

      Hence there was I, night after night, sitting near his drum riser, going, “Do a drum fill here,” ’cause he really didn’t know on his own that after the second verse—right after the prechorus, going into a chorus—one needs something exciting and . . . what would that be, Mr. Drummer? A drum fill! A prechorus means “Whoops, here it comes.” A verse should be the storytelling, and the prechorus is the “Whoops, here it comes.” And then a drum fill to go into it to show that it’s important . . . to mark its importance! End of the song, maybe a prechorus again, and a middle eight (recapitulation), a little “tip o’ the hat” to something you might have said in the beginning of the song to remind everybody what it was about . . . and WHAMMO, right into your chorus and you’re out. And during the chorus and the fade . . . come on, play the drums even more. These things I knew and learned and passed on to Joey. So he played, and for the last thirty-five years, I lived through him. I don’t know how not to.

      You know what one of my favorite albums of all time is? Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, mainly because of what drummer Raymond Pounds decided to do, which was, in essence, not live up to his last name. There are very few drum fills on that amazing record. You can be good just holding down the fort. On Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” listen to that drum beat. Simple. Straight. It gives the song legs—like the linemen who protect the quarterback.

      Since I’m a drummer and a perfectionist, I rode Joey hard, admittedly. But in the process I made him a better musician. Like when we’re sound checking in Hawaii, I sat down at the drums and wrote the drum line for “Walk This Way.” You want the story now or when we get to Toys in the Attic? Hey, I never said this was gonna be a completely linear read. How could it be? (Ha!) But we’re on DRUMS so . . . what the fuck?

      One of the things I’m most proud of is “Walk This Way,” and it’s very EGO and all, but even after you read the press about Run DMC and Rick Rubin, I still think the song was a HIT in and of itself. And the proof of the pudding . . . “Backdoor lover always hiding ’neath the covers.” You can’t SING that unless you’re a drummer or have some major sense of rhythm.

      Backstage with Darryl (Run-D.M.C.) in 1982. (Ross Halfin)

      So we’re at the HIC Arena in Honolulu, doin’ a sound check, and Joe was playing a riff and I went, “Whoa, whoa, whoa . . . STOP!” I ran over to the drums. Joey had not come out yet. He was backstage, and Joe and I just started jamming on the “Walk This Way” riff ’cause Joe’s rhythm was fucking “get it!” Bada da dump, ba dada dump bump (air) . . . bada da dump, ba dada dump bump. I got on the drums and played to that, and that’s where the “Walk This Way” drum beat came from.

      Joey wasn’t the best drummer in the world when I joined the band, and I was a drummer, and it was my theory of how a real band rehearses that fused the band together—playing that line from “Route 66” over and over and over again—and because I wrote the song “Somebody.” Eventually Joey achieved his independence as a drummer. He always had a hard time playing the rhythm at the end of “Train Kept a-Rollin’,” but he worked on his independence—that’s your ability to move all four of your limbs independently—and in the end he’s turned into the greatest drummer in rock ’n’ roll. He now has a right ankle that’s like a bicep from playing the bass drum.

      Joey says I drove him crazy, gave him a nervous breakdown. When we were in rehab together at Steps in Malibu in 1996, the class confronted me. “What’s the big idea of bringing someone here who’s an active addict?” I said, “What the fuck are you talking about?” “Your drummer, your drummer’s on cocaine, he’s got that tic addicts get from snorting coke.” Then I had to explain—but I had no idea I was the explanation.

      Okay, so we’re all living and working together and we’re getting these early gigs. Sure, there’s friction from time to time, but nobody in the band has doubts that we are going to make it. Everybody was totally committed. No band I was ever in had gone to that extent. Prior to moving to 1325 I would look at Tom and go, “You’re not leaving, right?” “Are you a quitter?” “We’re doing this, right?” Nowadays, there are fewer places for a young band to set up and play . . . and suck. Dare to suck! We did—you can, too!

      Joey Kramer’s the one who brought that funk and shit to Aerosmith because he was playing in black bands and he thought he was all that. Of course, he had no idea what he was going to blossom into. He’s so dis-tinc-tive. Even his mistakes fly-y-y-y!