Steven Tyler: The Biography (4 page)

Joseph Michael Kramer was born on 21 June 1950 in the Bronx, New York, the first of four children for Doris and Mickey Kramer, an ex-Army man who became a salesman. Like the Tallarico family, the Kramers relocated from the Bronx to Yonkers when Joey was a child, and he also attended Roosevelt High, the school Steven had been kicked out of after being busted for drug taking. Shades of Tyler, Kramer also attended the Woodstock festival and was so doped up that he missed all the action, though he would later state that he remembered seeing Steven at this hippie gathering. Playing drums in a few different cover bands including the Medallions, King Bees, Unique 4 and Turn Pikes, Kramer had caught a couple of Steven’s earliest gigs with Chain Reaction. He rated the band highly, in particular Steven’s vocal skills. His own musical taste centred on The Who, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull, and with music absorbing most of his waking hours, he had often toyed with the whole paraphernalia of being in a rock band, scribbling possible band names on jotters - including the name Aerosmith. Come late summer 1970, Joey was in Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music and, on the lookout to join a band, he fell in with Raymond Tabano. Soon he was the latest recruit to swell the ranks of this as yet unnamed new outfit. Joey Kramer has never claimed to be a technically sophisticated drummer - he plays by instinct and has honed his talent well. The personalities in this new group were all different, and life at 1325 Commonwealth Avenue proved eventful for the five of them.

Like the others, Steven was permanently broke and eternally hungry. Tom Hamilton recalled: ‘We lived in this basement dump and we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and supper.’ Steven later reminisced about how they had all existed on a great deal of brown rice and nourishing soup. ‘In those days,’ he wistfully remembered, ‘a quart of beer was heaven!’ As he pointed out, they did not have enough money to get fat and so these were literally lean times, during which Steven resorted to shoplifting to survive. Despite these dire financial straits, Steven still managed to scrape up the cash to buy speed. He was not the only one in the band taking drugs, but this chemical consumption did not stop them from knuckling down to serious rehearsals, which they held in a basement room they managed to get the free use of at the West Campus dormitory at Boston University.

His bandmates have credited Steven with metaphorically whipping them into shape, instilling in them a discipline towards practising and an intolerance for anything less than the very best they could deliver. Without a scrap of false modesty, Tyler has laid claim to having taught these guys how to be a proper, professional band, even though his methods sometimes caused upset and a deal of strain.

It could come down to personalities on both sides of the fence. Steven is a forceful and forthright guy, who does not shrink from letting someone have blunt criticism square in the face. Not everyone is equipped to like or to deal with that kind of direct approach. In Aerosmith, therefore, tensions frequently ran high during this period and Tyler has confirmed that his tough taskmaster attitude towards relentlessly honing the band made him, for spells, extremely unpopular. Battles often broke out, too, over the high volume at which the musicians liked to play, making it difficult for Steven to hear himself sing. Compromises on this front were sometimes only achieved after pieces of furniture had been hurled angrily around the room. Steven said that therapy was later used by all the guys in the band to enable them to let go of lingering resentments and anger dating from way back to this time. In a lighter vein, but no less meaningfully, Tom Hamilton described life under Tyler’s rehearsal room tutelage during this period as ‘rock and roll boot camp!’

With their collective musical influences, they not unnaturally strove for a powerful, hard rock sound with a raunchy swagger to it. As to the name, Aerosmith? Joey Kramer proffered it for consideration and the others liked it. While frequent attempts have been made over the years to attach some special significance to the choice of band name, Steven has recalled: ‘It’s just a name. We sat around for months coming up with different ideas - the Hookers, Spike Jones - and Aerosmith was great because it doesn’t mean a thing.’ The tighter Aerosmith’s sound became, the more they were champing at the bit for exposure, and so the band began to perform on the Boston University campus. Said Steven: ‘During lunch we would set up all our equipment outside of the university, in the main square, and just start wailing. That’s basically how we got ourselves billed.’

Aerosmith played cover songs to rehearse, but from the outset Tyler wanted to write original material, and the symbiosis between himself and Joe Perry made for a natural collaboration. Perry began producing riffs, which inspired Tyler to put pen to paper. The first song Steven and Joe came up with was ‘Movin’ Out’, which drew on their mutual influences. Joe vividly remembers sitting on a bed at the apartment developing this song, imbued with a strong sense that he and Steven had begun something exciting. Tyler exclaimed: ‘It was like hitting pay dirt!’ That said, sometimes it was hard for Steven to see any tangible sign that he and his band were not just living on pipe dreams.

Life at 1325 Commonwealth Avenue could scarcely be described as idyllic, and there were some downright hair-raising moments. One day, when Steven and Tom Hamilton were at home, a group of angry men burst in. They were on the trail of a suitcase stuffed with thousands of dollars, which they insisted had been left at the apartment. They were not prepared to believe an understandably alarmed bass player that he had never seen this suitcase about the crummy apartment and had no idea what these intimidating men were on about.

Steven had been in another room, and the intruders did not know that Tom was not alone. Realising from the different voices that he and Tom were outnumbered and out of their depth, thinking quickly, Steven managed to slip out unnoticed and rush off to beg help from an ex-marine who lived nearby. To Tyler’s surprise the obliging former soldier came to Tom’s rescue wielding a sharp, four-foot-long sword. As Steven gaped, the cavalry he had summoned kicked his way into the apartment, brandishing the weapon. Tom’s would-be assailants immediately trained their drawn guns on the armed newcomer, who showed no signs of backing down. An intense battle of wills prevailed for what seemed like an eternity, but in the end it was the intruders who lost their bottle and fled, leaving Steven and Tom startled out of their wits but eternally grateful to their colourful neighbour.

When Aerosmith hit the Boston band circuit, life on the road was just as crazy. At the end of a bar room stint one night, with applause ringing in their ears, when they went to pick up their fee for the gig, the owner pulled a loaded gun on them - the grim message being: thanks very much, now beat it and be thankful that you are still alive. Aerosmith paid their dues as, hungry for work, exposure and cash, they played anywhere from high school auditoriums to the dingiest, dodgiest dive. Steven admitted: ‘It was hard in the beginning to play and play and play, five sets a night - forty-five minutes a set - even when there was no one there and it was like for beer sometimes when we had no food!’

Some atmospheres were so fraught that it just took Steven’s fatal forthrightness to light the touchpaper. Once they were on stage at what Tyler described as a ‘bucket of blood Boston biker bar’ when a woman swaggered across the dance floor and rudely gave Steven the finger. Without thinking, he snapped something crude at her over the mike, then thought nothing of it until the band was getting ready to go home, when an ashen-faced man tapped on their dressing room door. Joe Perry recalled: ‘The guy said: “There are guys lined up outside and they’re gonna kill you!” Steven had insulted the girlfriend of the leader of the bikers. We had to have the police come down because this was a place where periodically people got shot.’

Developing nerves of steel, the band plugged on, building a strong local reputation for turning in high-energy, adrenalin-driven performances, and they liked people to get up and enjoy themselves. Tom Hamilton reflected: ‘When we played the Naval Officers’ Club in Boston they would flip out. Then, we would play a frat house and they would get smashed and dance their balls off.’

Energised that Aerosmith was starting to create a smidgen of the sensation he planned to become, Steven was firing on all cylinders. He was also a red-blooded, unattached young guy very much on the loose, and virtually insatiable when it came to bedding women. Indelicately he once maintained: ‘I like to ball everything I see - well, not
everything
, but at least one a day.’

Rampant skirt-chasing aside, Steven’s serious eye was firmly fixed on what he could see amid the ever-growing crowds they attracted to gigs. He was also carefully weighing up how his individual style was going down. Tyler has become synonymous with his frenetic stage act, with dressing in lurid, revealing clothes and with grabbing the mike stand, itself festooned with flowing colourful scarves, as he suggestively grinds his body to raunchy lyrics. In 1970, he had not yet perfected that act but his bold behaviour at the mike already provoked a reaction. He recalled: ‘I vividly remember the first time in Boston when I came out on stage and it really clicked. I
knew
the kids were digging what I was doing.’

Steven diligently rehearsed for the bigger venues he envisaged Aerosmith playing, and would privately practise addressing vast audiences. Without diluting the ambition in each of his bandmates, Steven believed that he wanted success more than anybody - it was impossible for him to imagine anyone wanting it more than he did. He once said: ‘Rock and roll is just entertainment. If people pay their money and walk out happy, then you have done what you’re supposed to do.’ But he also revealed: ‘I walked around in a fantasy land for years. I thought of it [attaining success] every second of the day.’ He was convinced deep inside that it was only a matter of time before his band would achieve the breakthrough it needed. Aerosmith’s following in and around Boston now ensured that more and more clubs were packed wall to wall with a growing number of grassroots fans. As Aerosmith thrashed out the raucous hard rock songs, probably many punters were inwardly comparing Steven Tyler to Mick Jagger, but Steven was doing his own thing and his mindset was clear: ‘Pretend to be somebody, until that somebody turns into you!’

CHAPTER 3

The Nature Of The Beast

WHILE IT
cannot be said that Steven Tyler’s ambition or determination waned, by late 1970 times were tough on a day-to-day level. Money was in desperately short supply. Steven was given a start at a bakery but was soon out the door. A spell waiting at tables did not last long either, and it was clear that he was not cut out to hold down a regular job. Joe Perry worked as a janitor at a Boston synagogue. Meantime, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer battled with health problems that winter; all of which also weighed things down.

Continuing to pick up bookings playing ballrooms, high school dances and at clubs and bars around Massachusetts, Tyler perfected his delivery of Yardbirds and Rolling Stones hits, but at 1325 Commonwealth Avenue he bent his mind even harder to writing original compositions. Stimulated by what he saw emerging, by spring 1971 Steven had produced sheet music for particularly promising songs but his rising optimism was tempered by an awareness that there was unrest in Aerosmith. It was not working out with Raymond Tabano as rhythm guitarist.

Years later, Tabano candidly confessed that, in terms of musicianship, he did not match the others in the band, a fact that became increasingly apparent that summer. He also had a life separate from the band - personal relationships, other calls on his time and attention. He would sometimes be late for rehearsals or unavoidably have to miss some practice sessions altogether, which irked the others. ‘When Raymond did show up,’ recalled Joe, ‘he would try to take over.’ Arguably, a personality clash was the biggest problem. Raymond has suggested that the others believed him to be a tougher guy than he really was, and Tom Hamilton did later state that he had felt intimidated by Tabano. Perry felt that there was someone out there who would make a more complementary match for the band, but not everyone was at ease with ousting Raymond.

Drummer Joey Kramer was saddened to see the man who had helped secure him his place in Aerosmith becoming isolated, and Steven had the toughest time of all reconciling matters. He and Raymond went way back to when they were children, and because of these shared roots he did not take kindly to wielding the axe. One sunny summer’s afternoon, Joe Perry tried to let Raymond know over a pint of beer that he was being dropped from the band, but Tabano was not prepared to go without a fight. He perhaps believed that, if push came to shove, his long-time friend would not eject him. With tensions running high, after Steven and Raymond got into a shouting match at a gig Aerosmith officially dropped Raymond Tabano as its rhythm guitarist. Although they eventually made up and remained good friends, Raymond did not return to the band; his vacancy was filled by Brad Whitford.

Bradley Ernest Whitford was born on 23 February 1952 in Reading, Massachusetts, to Joyce and E. Russell Whitford, the middle child in a family of three sons. The brown-eyed, brown-haired boy began playing the trumpet at junior school before turning his sights on an electric guitar, an instrument about which he was sufficiently serious to seek tuition at a local music shop. In time-honoured tradition, however, he taught himself to play more by listening to records on the radio. Like Steven Tyler, the young Brad was an early aficionado of the British music scene. Newly a teenager, in summer 1965 Brad caught the Dave Clark Five live during their US tour. Synonymous with foot-stomping melodic pop songs such as ‘Bits and Pieces’ and ‘Glad All Over’, this five-piece outfit ignited in Whitford the spark to join a band. Starting younger than most, he played rhythm guitar in a succession of local groups including the Cymbals of Resistance, Teapot Dome, Earth Incorporated and Justin Tyme, cutting his teeth in often less than salubrious joints. As a long-haired, music-mad eighteen-year-old, Brad left high school in 1970 and enrolled to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music when the clean-cut, suited Dave Clark Five was soon replaced in his affections by Britain’s hottest hard rock export, Led Zeppelin. On tour, smashing attendance records in a blaze of publicity, Led Zeppelin was everywhere, and like so many others Whitford was bowled over by the stage wizardry of lead guitarist Jimmy Page. Energised, Brad threw everything into developing his guitar skills, and it was the following summer that he played at Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire, coming into casual contact with Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton. Brad went to see an Aerosmith gig there and something clicked. Everything about Tyler, Perry and co seemed right to him. The blues rock music Aerosmith belted out dovetailed with his tastes. Days later, to his surprise, Brad received an offer to join the band. He said: ‘They were incredible, so there was not much to think about.’