Steven Tyler: The Biography (16 page)

Steven found this proposal baffling at first - it certainly took a bit of thought - but he and Joe went for it and all concerned met up in early March at a recording studio in Manhattan. Joe confessed that he had no idea who was who in the rap trio, just as he knew that they could not tell him and Steven apart. The atmosphere was perfectly friendly and curiosity about each other was palpable, but when they set to work, the cracks flew wide open.

Because of their substance abuse, Steven and Joe had difficulty in staying awake. Tyler later said of this shambolic first attempt: ‘We just
couldn’t
fuckin’ do it! I was at the bottom of my barrel. I was on methadone and snorting Xanax. Rick Rubin looked at us and thought: “What the fuck is
this
? They can’t even
dribble
straight!”’ They persevered, though, and it was finished in five hours. To support the number they filmed a video featuring Steven, Joe and the rap trio at a theatre in New Jersey before an invited audience ready to scream and jostle excitedly below the footlights.

Aerosmith is now synonymous with creating memorable and provocative music videos, but it was a whole genre they had feared missing out on with the state of the band in the early to mid-1980s. Talking of the development of the likes of MTV, Tom Hamilton recalled: ‘I remember watching that first video channel and thinking we’re not going to be a part of that and it was a horrible feeling.’ In the video for this new version of ‘Walk This Way’ equal time was given to both Run D.M.C. and Aerosmith’s two, but Perry’s cool rock guitarist image and Tyler’s brash in-your-face delivery stole the limelight. In his trademark ragamuffin stagewear, Steven pranced energetically, rode his mike stand and finally literally flipped head over heels. For a man in his condition, he was remarkably athletic and he conveyed an attractive arrogance when watching the black trio figuratively attempt to break down the wall between them. Symbolism in the video had a certain significance, for it was hoped that this crossover number would improve the fortunes of both very different bands.

Run D.M.C. released
Raising Hell
in May with the reworked ‘Walk This Way’ as its first spin-off single. It reached number four on Billboard, with the video receiving saturation air time on MTV, and has gone down as the first hip hop track to break into Billboard’s Top 10 singles chart. Said Joe Perry: ‘As far as I’m concerned, this was just a little side thing that Steven and I decided to do for some fun.’ Years later, the rap-rock version of ‘Walk This Way’ would rank twenty-seventh in
Rolling Stone
magazine’s Top 100 Songs That Changed The World. It gave Run D.M.C. the injection it needed, and played a part in jump-starting Aerosmith’s comeback, but by September 1986 it was clear that a crossroads had been reached. Although
Done With Mirrors
was considered a commercial flop, Geffen Records still wanted a second Aerosmith album, but no one was under any illusions. It was do or die time, and to have any chance of capitalising on the boost the new version of ‘Walk This Way’ gave them, the band had to get clean - starting with sorting out their lyricist, vocalist and frontman.

The timing was right. Steven knew that he was a slave to his addictions. He took cocaine and other drugs but he had recognised throughout that summer that heroin had the deadliest hold on him - he was very alive to the danger that heroin could be killing him, bit by bit. It already ravaged his health and robbed him of his creativity. The mental fog caused by drugs had even removed his ability to rhyme when writing lyrics. That was why he had taken steps to try to wean himself off heroin by turning to methadone. This powerful synthetic painkiller, used to treat heroin addiction, helped to an extent but Tyler knew that he was struggling. He was living with his girlfriend, Teresa Barrick, in an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when life-changing events kicked off.

One night Steven received a message that Tim Collins had convened an urgent meeting at his office for the following day, at the ungodly hour of 6.00 a.m. To make this meeting Steven had to miss receiving his daily dose of methadone, so when he arrived at the office on time he was emotionally and physically shaky. On stepping through the door he realised that he had been summoned under false pretences and that it was, in effect, an intervention.

Six men were present, each primed and ready to confront Steven - Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer, Brad Whitford, Tim Collins and one stranger who turned out to be a psychiatrist, Dr Lou Cox. Their collective aim was to pressurise Steven into undertaking a strict rehabilitation programme. To that end, caught cold, Steven was made to listen for hours while the band told him in unsparing detail just how dreadful his behaviour had been because of drugs and alcohol, and how badly it had been affecting each of them. Tyler’s knee-jerk reaction was that this was rich. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Every
member of Aerosmith was struggling with addiction problems; not surprisingly Steven took exception to this bruising attack. When he was permitted to respond, at first he ferociously argued back and hurled a few well-aimed metaphorical brickbats at his bandmates. It was highly emotional, and deep down Steven would forever hold on to a tiny kernel of resentment about the way this whole painful business had been handled. In the end, by late morning, his control collapsed. He broke down in tears and agreed to accept professional help to conquer his addictions. Already drained and strung out, Steven learned to his alarm that the deal meant him going into rehab immediately. A room at a clinic was booked for him; a bag was even packed for his admission. It must have been extremely frightening for him to relinquish control of his freedom so suddenly - albeit for the best of ends.

At the clinic Steven checked into that day, there was a strong element of religion underpinning the whole treatment regime. He was expected to make God and prayer a key part of his life. At this facility, he was grilled to a head-spinning degree about his feelings on what seemed to be every aspect of his life from childhood to date; all, it seemed, with a view to attaching assorted labels to him. Some tags he acknowledged as valid, others bemused him, but there was one corner that he was not prepared to be painted into - the need for sex addiction therapy.

The rehabilitation process and coping with all the withdrawal symptoms was really tough. Physically, his pain threshold had sunk so low that he later likened his excruciating suffering to that endured by a third-degree-burn patient. He has a naturally fast metabolism but the medication he was given rendered him catatonic. Losing all interest in his personal appearance, he became for a while a sadly bedraggled wreck. With his long hair hanging lankly about his face, a shawl around his coat-hanger-thin shoulders and shuffling around in loose moccasins, he was painfully aware that as he aimlessly slunk around corridors people were staring at him, whispering, recognising the once outrageous rock star in their desperate midst. It hammered home to Steven just what a leveller drug addiction is. There were people from all walks of life seeking help in this facility - from pilots to postmen. Said Steven: ‘There was even a priest who used to shoot up when he heard confession!’

Mentally, Steven was all over the place and he had to draw on untapped reserves to help him survive this gruelling and disturbing experience. There were some saviours. He got back in touch with other aspects of the world. He began to read a lot and Joe Perry’s support was of great importance to him. Perry empathised with Tyler going through this harrowing ordeal, and he extended the kind of compassion Steven needed right then. This was one crucial time that proved the strength of the friendship bond between them. As the guitarist’s visits also gave Steven the promise of a new future for Aerosmith, he worked hard to develop a sense of purpose and to recover a sense of self-worth. ‘Every day, you face a different fight against craving or withdrawal but every day it gets a little better,’ he later stressed.

After forty-five days of rehab, Steven was classed clean of drugs. He went from this clinic to attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in order to tackle his drink problems. Teresa watched these developments closely, and her support and understanding throughout also played a vital role in the frontman’s fight back from the brink. Once back in the real world, Steven’s biggest danger was relapsing. To keep up the pressure on him, Joe threatened his friend in no uncertain terms that if he were to fall by the wayside then he (Perry) would take a walk from Aerosmith again. Tyler, though, was all too aware of how precarious his condition was. He knew that just one glass of beer could result in him heading down town in search of a needle or a mirror.

For all that, he was able to enjoy the obvious upside of being clean of drugs. The world was brighter, had more definition and meaning. His energy levels and mental alertness were coming back up, and for the first time in a long while he was able to appreciate music properly. In the years ahead, the sober Steven Tyler never became evangelical about recovering from addiction; he would not preach to others going the same way he had.

In November 1986, Joe Perry was next to go into rehab to come off of heroin. He, too, went through a gruelling journey of discovery and later said: ‘It’s amazing how people can be so unaware that they’re fucking other people over and hurting people but that’s how it was with us.’ Joe emerged from rehab clean, and over the next two years Brad Whitford, Joey Kramer and Tom Hamilton each found his own method of tackling his individual addictions. Said Brad: ‘We crawled out from under our problems and got in touch with ourselves.’

Drug-free, sober and feeling like a new man, Steven was looking forward to the future when part of his past came into focus. For the past nine years, Bebe Buell’s daughter Liv had grown up believing that Todd Rundgren was her father. By the end of the 1970s, the girl’s domestic situation had changed. Bebe had become romantically involved with another man, but Liv still lived with her mother and attended school in Portland, Maine. For a period in the early 1980s, Bebe had attempted to launch a career as a rock star, fronting a couple of bands. That had not panned out but she had lost none of her verve, at least around her young daughter. Liv later recalled: ‘My mom was so amazing. She had all these beautiful clothes and in the bathroom all her jewellery was pinned to the wall. It was more than a little girl could ever dream of!’ Whenever her mother went out, Liv enjoyed dressing up in Bebe’s glamorous clothes and experimenting with professional make-up.

In December 1986, Bebe took Liv along to see Todd Rundgren perform a gig in a Boston club. Backstage afterwards, Todd’s dressing room door opened and Steven walked in. He had come to visit the musician, but his eyes shot at once to the dark-haired little girl beside Bebe. When Steven had learned in 1976 that, after their brief liaison, Bebe was pregnant, he had not known what to believe, particularly since she and Rundgren had instantly resumed their relationship. Over the ensuing years, Todd was widely understood to be Liv’s father. That night, however, Steven was jolted. ‘When Liv was very young, I wasn’t sure whether I was her father,’ he admitted, ‘but by the time she was nine I could see my features in her.’

Bebe has always maintained that her reason for allowing Liv to be under the misapprehension that Todd Rundgren was her father was to shield her, because Steven had been so mired in drugs and drink. That December night, it was a patently very different Steven Tyler who strode confidently into the dressing room, looking and sounding better than he had done for years. Bebe introduced Liv to Steven simply as an acquaintance, but for the intuitive youngster it was not quite so straightforward. Liv has revealed: ‘I connected with Steven immediately. It was almost like I fell in love with him.’ This innocent love she channelled into idolising Steven Tyler, the rock star. That evening, Steven spent a little time in Todd’s overcrowded dressing room talking generally with Liv, helping her to knock out a tune on a keyboard. Watching this tableau, Bebe was overwhelmed with emotion, and torn over what she should do, but it was obviously not the right moment to say anything.

In 1977, it had pleased Mick Jagger when speculation had run around that he might be the father of
Playboy
centrefold Bebe Buell’s daughter. Jagger’s pride might have taken a dent if he knew that in 1986, noting a strong resemblance between Steven Tyler and the Rolling Stone, Liv guilelessly asked her mother if Jagger was Steven’s father!

Setting aside the question marks that that backstage visit had thrown up, Steven faced the new year determined to further his drive to get well, and he began to work out in a gym. This physical exercise was also good psychologically, since it provided a trouble-free way of expending any pent-up aggression, and it became a way of finding clarity and purpose.

January 1987 saw Boston blanketed with snow as Aerosmith regrouped to begin rehearsals and to knuckle down to writing material for their next album. Invigoratingly, it became like the old days when Aerosmith was just starting out, with Steven fired up by Joe’s inspirational guitar licks. With a clear head, Tyler’s creative juices got going and output was rewarding in both quality and quantity. Visiting these sessions weeks later, John Kalodner was encouraged by what he found, but believed that an extra element was needed to sharpen the material even further, and he told Steven that he wanted to bring in outside songwriters to work with the band.

Kalodner first drafted in Desmond Child. The thirty-three-year-old, Florida-born Child had just a year before been recruited to work with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora on Bon Jovi’s third album, also a do-or-die career point. Desmond had driven to the Sambora family home in Woodbridge, New Jersey, where in the basement he had injected fresh blood into the songs Jon and Richie were coming up with. That three-way symbiosis had produced two hits: ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’, and the blue-collar anthem, ‘Livin’ On a Prayer’. Bon Jovi’s album
Slippery When Wet
, released in August 1986, shot to number one and eventually racked up sales exceeding 20 million worldwide. By bringing Desmond Child’s talent to Steven and Joe, John Kalodner hoped that it would likewise help to create the defining moment in Aerosmith’s career.