THE BEAST

Aerosmith members Steven Tyler and Joe Perry discussed drugs in a new Classic Rock Magazine interview (via Ultimate-Guitar ).

Was it tough touring with Guns N’ Roses [in 1988] when you’d just cleaned up?

Tyler: “No, they were great. That was one of the most fun tours that we had. We pulled in so many people.”

Perry: “It was good. It was great seeing them taking off too because that’s the most exciting point in a band’s career. You’re trying to make it, you’re trying to break through here, break through there, and all of a sudden something happens and the word’s out and you’re the newest, hottest thing.

“No matter what you accomplish down the road, whatever next hurdle you get to, there’s nothing like that first time in your life when people are finally showing up. That’s what that tour was for them; they went from being an opening act to a headliner.”

Did you see them very often?

Tyler: “That whole thing about us telling them they couldn’t drink backstage, that was never said. What happened was, the first night I brought them into my dressing room and we were going over something. There was a guy in the band I used to get my heroin from named…”

Perry: “Izzy.”

Tyler: “Izzy Stradlin. We’d just gotten sober so I simply told those guys, ‘This is my dressing room.’ They’re like, ‘Yeah? No shit.’ I said, ‘Well, if you whip out a bundle of coke, I’m going to have to leave my own dressing room. Please don’t do that kind of thing around me.’ That was it. Then it was printed that we banned them from drinking. Never.”

Didn’t you buy them all luggage?

Perry: “We did. At the end of the tour, we usually give the opening act some kind of memento.”

Tyler: “That was so they could lock their shit up and no one could get in. We teach them all the good tricks.”

Joe, how did you feel when you got a room service bill for $80,000 in 1979 [around $280,000 when adjusted for inflation]?

Perry: “Pretty fucking disgruntled. I wasn’t quibbling about the fact I got it but the fact that they [Aerosmith’s management at the time] said I didn’t have the money to pay it. That really pissed me off.”
Over what period of time did you rack up that bill?

Perry: “Over the course of a year. It’s easy to spend that much on room service, you know what I mean? We always had parties and you didn’t buy booze by the bottle; you bought it by the case.”