Joe Perry
Joe Perry
Anthony Joseph Pereira, better known by his stage name Joe Perry, is the lead guitarist, backing and occasional lead vocalist, and contributing songwriter for the American rock band Aerosmith. He was ranked 84th in Rolling Stone's list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Aerosmith, and in 2013, Perry and his songwriting partner Steven Tyler were recipients of the ASCAP Founders Award and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth10 September 1950
CountryUnited States of America
We went back to the beginning of the band's career for some of these songs. We had fun knocking the dust off them but it was a little nerve-racking too, because we hadn't played some of the songs in a while. I think we've only played 'No More No More' live a total of 20 times in our entire career. We were going on muscle memory for some of these, which gave our performance an edge.
Every time I get in front of an audience, I do the best I can. I really don't look at it like, you know, 'This is gonna be this crowd, or that crowd.' If anything, I think about the demographics only because of what songs will entertain more than others.
Listening back to the tapes to make this record, it was just one of those nights. Usually when you put out a live record, you kind of cull them from a series of shows -- you get the best performance of each song and hone it down. But with that one, we just kind of let it fly.
My Portuguese uncle had a Portuguese version of a ukulele. The family would pull it out after dinner and play Portuguese folk songs on it. I couldn't wait for him to finish so I could get my hands on it. I was seven or eight years old. And he used to have a Fender amp in his house and an electric guitar. I would spend hours making sounds.
Rhythm and sex go together and that's where I come from as far as the music goes. Rag Doll and Love In An Elevator are such sexual songs that you put them on & the strippers go NUTS!
Over the years, when you're in a band with a catalog like Aerosmith's, you accumulate a lot of instruments to duplicate those songs.
I think that... the age of just slapping songs into movies, that's done.
Sometimes when a record's done, I'm satisfied and I won't listen back to it for a while 'cause I'm usually pretty tired of the songs. Then I've got to learn them again to play them live, and sometimes it takes a while to realise it's a really good record.
I have seen more bad songs make it because of MTV than good ones that haven't.
Berry's On Top is probably my favorite record of all time; it defines rock and roll. A lot of people have done Chuck Berry songs, but to get that feel is really hard. It's the rock and roll thing-the push-pull and the rhythm of it.
I've seen bands split up for five years and do nothing. That sounds great to me, but it just hasn't worked out that way.
I've been fascinated with all kinds of weapons my whole life, and as I have been able to afford to acquire pieces, here and there I started to collect.
I've been into guns ever since I was a little kid, and the ones that fascinate me most are the black powder guns that people used back in the 17 and 1800s.
There's something about it that still works. To draw on a sports analogy, there's a certain excitement that you get from watching that ball go in the hoop. That's still there, even though the sneakers are fancier.