AEROSMITH Guitarist: It's Time To Go To A Lot Of Places We Haven't Played In Awhile

Ultimate-Guitar.com recently conducted an interview with AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Ultimate-Guitar.com: AEROSMITH has been one of the very few bands to have emerged during the '70s and not only still be around but be at the very top of their game, how does it feel after all these years?

Perry: Right now, I feel like a tired motherfucker [laughs] I've just spent three months on the road in the States and Canada. I know the reason we did this was because we had to cancel so many gigs last spring because of Steven's [Tyler] throat, like we had this tour we had to finish so it all kind rolled into this thing this fall. Now that we're wrapping this up, it kind of clears the decks so next year can start to focus on working in the studio and hopefully do a world tour. What we're looking at is coming back and playing some places we haven't played a long time. And places we've never played. It's been eight years since we've been in Europe and I don't how long it's been since we've been in Australia, and these are all things I want to do and I know all the other guys in the band feel the same way too we want to get back and play back out in the world. We've played America enough for different reasons and we've stayed here but it's time for playing in other parts of the world. We're an international band and we've played out there and it's time to get back and go to a lot of places we haven't played in awhile.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Your last album "Honkin' On Bobo" was the very first time in many years that you all went into the studio together and recorded an album that way, so how's the recording aspect changed for you over the years?

Perry: The way people record records or can record records now, like recording on computers has really changed the way you make records because you can make them any way you want. It used to be you'd go in and you had to play pretty much as a band and get a good take and that was it. When we did our first couple of records that were done, I think on 16-track tape, though we first got a taste of being able to overdub and that kind of thing, it still relied pretty much on a good performance from the band. Over the years it just changed where it's this thing where you can put albums together and songs together piece by piece. The guys don't even have to be in the same studio to do a take when they're making an album. So it really has widened all your choices and doing "Honkin' On Bobo" kind of brought us back to what we do best and that is, play together as a band. And you turn on the tape and you hopefully capture that and that is where an album like "Just Push Play" wasn't. That was done in bits and pieces and though there were some good songs on there I know that record would have sounded different if we had recorded it the way we did "Honkin' On Bobo". But you try different things and live and learn. But this next record we're going to do, I think we will probably incorporate the best of both worlds.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: AEROSMITH have weathered through an ever changing musical climate that has seen a lot of changes in styles and sounds in music over the years. How do you think your sound has evolved from the early days to now?

Perry: Again there are so many different choices now. It used to be that you were desperate to get a kind of distortion and a certain kind of sound. But now you've got so many choices where because everything from reissued guitar amps to reissued guitars is available, you no longer have to buy these old original guitars from the '50s to get a certain sound. I mean, you can get a half decent sound plugging right into a computer. It's not what I choose to do but it certainly adds another color to your paint palette. So overall with my style I kind of lean towards a cleaner sound with a little more drive out of it. And it sounds a little more fresher too when it sounds a lot cleaner. I know when I'm writing songs and when I'm laying down basic tracks down and even when I'm playing live that I tend to go with a cleaner sound.

Ultimate-Guitar.com: Speaking of guitar sounds, looking back over your whole AEROSMITH catalogue, is there any album or albums that stick out that you are the most happy with and where it captures you at your best?

Perry: Well, looking back at some of the first few records I know I was still trying to figure out what the studio was all about. When I was a kid I thought that once I could get into the studio it would be really easy to get this kind of sound or that kind of sound. But then you realize that once you're in there, all it is about is just a microphone picking up the sound you're making and I think that the first few records, I was learning that. But I wouldn't go back and change it because that kind of naivety gives those songs a feel that they have. And in some ways I'd kind of go back and try and get it sounding like that again, but it's kind of hard. So I suppose in my own kind of ignorance, I've ended up making these guitar sounds that I think are classic now. I think I'm now able to kind of just pick the sounds that I think will work best for the song. And that is always an art. Once again it's what your ears hear once you go into the studio and then you try and get that on tape so it's always a big experiment.

Read the entire interview at Ultimate-Guitar.com.