Tyler had scarcely caught his breath after surviving the latest stint on tour when Cyrinda went into labour. Charged with the task of getting his wife to the Mary Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, New Hampshire, Steven drove there like a bat out of hell; on 22 December 1978, Cyrinda presented him with a baby girl. Steven found being at the birth an overwhelmingly moving experience. They named their newborn daughter Mia Abagale.
By the end of the year, Aerosmith released the single, ‘Chip Away the Stone’. The band liked the number but it did not find favour with the fans and dropped anchor at number seventy-seven in February 1979. Two months later, they took part in yet another massively attended California music festival, this time held at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, along with acts including Van Halen, Cheap Trick and the Boomtown Rats. At this point Steven was thirty-one years old, a dollar millionaire who was in complete denial that he was risking his wealth, his health, his life even. Many in and around the music scene could see some metaphorical red flags flying. In the 1970s so far, the music world had witnessed the premature demise of Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Paul Kossoff, Elvis Presley and Keith Moon, among others. Young, talented and recklessly out of control, Steven Tyler right then fitted the profile and seemed ripe to become rock’s next tragic casualty.
CHAPTER 7
Crying Over Spilt Milk
AFTER REHEARSING
at the Wherehouse in Waltham, Massachusetts, in late spring 1979, Aerosmith headed to Media Sound Studio, New York, to start recording their next album. The pressure pot lid was already rattling when it quickly transpired that Tyler had failed to come up with any workable lyrics. They tried to motivate themselves but it felt as if a lead weight was on their shoulders, and the forced struggle to be creative caused increasing friction in the camp. On the other hand, it was easy for apathy to set in and so the slow progress practically ground to a complete halt. There were no incentives, and to top it all they were demoralised by looming financial problems and rising debts.
The ructions erupting between Steven and Joe became more heated as summer approached. Said Tyler: ‘We got in each other’s face but we never came to blows. I guess because I’m Italian and he’s got Italian in him.’ Perry confessed that there was an invisible line that neither was prepared to cross, no matter how intense the confrontations became. That said, the lead guitarist recalled: ‘We certainly went head to head on a lot of occasions and stuff would fly around the room. We’d be like bull gorillas.’ Their drug consumption ensured that this volcanic state worsened as the weeks went by, what with feeling stale in the studio and zoning out at hotels. Verbal abuse was strangely less hurtful than refusal to speak to one another. Against this miserable backdrop Steven battled to come up with lyrics to lay over the tracks recorded in the studio, aware that he was the brake on anything happening, conscious that frustration all around him only added to his difficulties.
Perry became so infuriated at doing next to nothing that he hightailed it off to Boston, where his thoughts turned to launching a solo career. On his way back to New York he suffered a seizure, blacked out and was rushed to hospital, where doctors were alarmed at his emaciated condition. Tyler, too, was fading virtually before everyone’s eyes. If inwardly he was aware that he was weak, at the same time he knew that the band needed to get out and earn some money. Production on the album had stalled, forcing the record company to bump back its release date, and now industry rumours were muttering that the album would never see the light of day. Continuing with their schedule of stadium appearances, Steven led the band out before tens of thousands at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia before heading to Ohio to take part, on 28 July, in the World Series of Rock concerts held at the Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. Other bands on the bill included Journey, Ted Nugent and Thin Lizzy. For Aerosmith, it marked one of the most significant nights in their lives.
The incredible tension afflicting the band members had been creating animosity among the men’s wives. Often the atmosphere was so strained that some women actively avoided being in the company of others; if thrown inescapably together, one wife might not breathe a word all night to another, and the potential to take serious exception to any perceived snub was enormous. Backstage at the Municipal Stadium matters boiled over when a row erupted between Terry Hamilton and Elyssa Perry. Verbally, the two strong-minded women gave as good as they got. Then Elyssa chucked a glass of milk over Terry and all hell broke loose. Steven’s wife, Cyrinda, later reduced this incident to nothing more than a playground spat, but the men could hear the noisy fracas, and when they came off stage the real fireworks began as Steven, Joe et al. got into one almighty rumpus.
Although Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer and Brad Whitford had their own deep feelings to express, the eye of the storm swiftly centred on the harsh vitriol trading back and forth between Steven and Joe. This was not just the sort of bear-baiting they had been doing on stage, niggling and pushing each other’s patience. This felt like all out war brewing. The fire had been smouldering for a long time and the set-to between the women had merely fanned the embers into flame. There had always been a chance that things would flare up one day. ‘We could feel the decline in ’79,’ said Joe. ‘We could feel what was going on but we’d been too wrapped up in our bullshit to do anything about it.’
That night, they did do something - Joe Perry quit Aerosmith. Tyler later declared: ‘Drugs brought us to our knees and it made us break up. It made me say: “Fuck you, Joe,” over a glass of spilt milk! Can you believe it?’ From Perry’s perspective he felt that he had reached the end of his tether with the way things had become in the band. Despite the ferocity of their tempers, that night the guys surprisingly agreed to keep this momentous development a secret. Certainly rumours were already circulating about their delayed album, but there was a touch of masculine pride at play here. The men, or some of them, were embarrassed at the thought of it coming out that this raucous rock band could shatter because of women squabbling and throwing a glass of milk. Within a couple of weeks, however, speculation began to surface that Aerosmith’s lead guitarist - Tyler’s Toxic Twin - had cut loose. In the circumstances, the band had had no option but to cancel the remainder of their live dates. This threw another log on the fire, and though music journalists were dished denials that a rift had occurred, it was said that Joe Perry was preparing to bring out a solo album. There was just too much grist not to set the millstones grinding.
Behind closed doors, Joe’s departure threw up mixed emotions. Tom Hamilton admitted to harbouring relief. The terrible tension coiling around the band members and their respective wives had often produced unbearably stifling conditions, which the bass player felt had been alleviated by this bust-up. Hamilton maintained of Perry: ‘He was at odds with the rest of the band generally on how we should conduct ourselves. He’d been thinking about doing his own thing - at first within the context of the band, but then things got pretty heated.’ Steven battled with a kaleidoscope of feelings, none of which he could think through clearly due to the thickening fog of his drug addiction. In addition to heroin and cocaine Tyler now took opium, and was endlessly scraping up cash to be able to pay for his worsening habit.
In the recording studio, with producer Gary Lyons, Steven worked at nailing six songs for the overdue album. The five numbers credited to Tyler and Perry were a disparate lot. ‘Three Mile Smile’ reflected the anxiety of the nation. On 31 March that year a potentially lethal build-up of hydrogen gas inside a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station in Pennsylvania had brought the threat of a nuclear disaster into very sharp focus. The song ‘Bone to Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy)’ had somewhat less lofty connotations. Explaining to the bewildered that a Coney Island White Fish was a used condom, Tyler maintained that when he had lived near the Hudson River he had often spotted such things floating by on their way to the sea. ‘No Surprize’ saw Tyler tell the story of Aerosmith’s early beginnings, and the only solo Tyler composition was ‘Mia’, written for his little daughter. Three cover versions completed the nine tracks: one was an old blues number, ‘Reefer Head Woman’; ‘Think About It’ was written by Yardbirds’ Jim McCarty, Keith Relf and Jimmy Page; finally, and incongruously, ‘Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)’ was a 1964 number five hit penned by George Morton for the Shangri-Las all girl group.
The album was finally shaping up when, on 10 October 1979, a band press release officially announced Joe Perry’s departure from Aerosmith. It spoke of the guitarist’s plans to branch out into a solo career in the new year, and maintained that his leaving was an amicable arrangement, driven by his desire to seek a new musical direction. Joe soon stated: ‘Considering what kind of progress I was makin’ with Aerosmith, the decision [to leave] was easy to make. I’m a rock musician who likes to play and I always enjoyed playin’ clubs the most. Aerosmith had become such a big cumbersome project. It was just so stifling and it wasn’t movin’ into the eighties.’
The notion that anyone could happily regress to playing small clubs after having hit the big time was completely alien to Tyler, and he was aggrieved when he read in the music press that Joe had complaints about some of the mixes on the forthcoming Aerosmith album, which had been such an incredibly hard slog to put together. Tyler’s argument was that Perry might have been happier with the final product if he had attended the recording studio when he had repeatedly urged him to. Steven revealed: ‘There were things going on that, as far as we were all concerned, had nothing to do with the band as a unit. Certain outside aggravations you don’t need. When the split came, there was quite a bad taste in all of our mouths.’ Steven later reflected that he had felt a fair degree of anger about the whole situation, but the underlying emotion was intense sorrow that the partnership he valued very much was broken.
Joe Perry knew that the bond between himself and Steven Tyler pivoted on their love-hate professional relationship and friendship. The wives being at war was not the issue for the guitarist. He acknowledged almost immediately that the blame lay with him and Steven for having let matters run way out of control. Even so, he had no compunction about walking away. He needed space and the freedom to try new challenges. He also felt strongly that Aerosmith had been pushing the fans’ patience too much. Considering the state of some of their live performances he believed that the Blue Army’s loyalty was more than the band deserved at that time. Steven could not believe that the dream was over, but in late October he welcomed in Joe Perry’s replacement - lead guitarist Jimmy Crespo.
James Crespo was born on 5 July 1954 in Brooklyn, New York, into a musical family. He recalled: ‘My father was a guitar player and singer. We are Puerto Rican, so we always had a Spanish guitar around. My grandfather was a violinist and I was supposed to become a violinist but I couldn’t stand the way you had to hold it.’ The Rolling Stones kindled the flame in the teenager to become a rock star, and his attraction to learn lead guitar was fanned by listening to Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Crespo’s first guitar was a second-hand instrument with rusty strings, but his natural aptitude overcame this obstacle and throughout the 1960s he diligently honed his talent. His first band was called the Knoms and he made his debut public appearance at a school dance. By the early 1970s, Jimmy had formed Anaconda and gigged around the New York clubs, at the same time securing studio session work with artists including Meat Loaf. At that time he found the club scene tawdry, depressing and unlikely to be his springboard to recording stardom. He then auditioned for and landed a place in a band called Flame, which struck a deal with RCA Records and subsequently released two albums. Flame quickly burned down, though. ‘It fell apart, as groups do when there is no money coming in,’ explained Jimmy, who concentrated his energies on session work. ‘I was playing music with whomever I could.’
In autumn 1979, David Krebs spotted Jimmy Crespo in performance, liked his hard rock style and sounded Crespo out about possibly playing lead guitar with Aerosmith. Unaware that Joe Perry was leaving, Jimmy considered it an academic, though tantalising, query and said that that would appeal to him very much. At this point, Aerosmith was still finishing the new album. When the call came in October, Crespo eagerly auditioned for the vacancy. Steven thought Jimmy fitted the bill both in terms of his strong musical abilities and his look - so he was in.
Night in the Ruts
- said to be a spoonerism for ‘right in the nuts’ - was released in November. It peaked at number fourteen in the US album chart, went gold and drew polarised reviews. Malcolm Dome for
Record Mirror
at the time hailed: ‘This is a raw hunk of macho venom that decimates the old grey matter like an overdose of neat vodka. Steven Tyler has obviously been sand-papering his larynx with great zeal.’ More than twenty-five years on,
Mojo
pinpointed: ‘
Night in the Ruts
is the sound of the band on the brink.’ The only single to be released ‘Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)’, stalled at number sixty-seven, by which time the album had sunk from view. Steven, meantime, was keeping an eye on Joe Perry’s progress.
Since storming away from the band after that July Cleveland gig, Perry had not let the grass grow beneath his feet and by autumn he had recruited three musicians to enable him to form his solo band, the Joe Perry Project - vocalist Ralph Mormon, bass player David Hull and drummer Ronnie Stewart. After intensive rehearsals this new outfit played its first gig at an old Aerosmith stomping ground, Boston College, in mid-November 1979. Despite their fractured friendship, Steven showed up that night in the band’s dressing room to say hello but he did not hang around to watch the Joe Perry Project perform. Perry described this solo band’s style to
Rolling Stone
as being ‘high-powered rhythm and blues, sort of funk rock’. Reinforcing his stance that he wanted to revert to playing more intimate venues than Aerosmith favoured, Perry maintained: ‘I got disillusioned playing the big halls. I just don’t like it and I don’t need it any more.’