Hop in the car for a ride with Joe Perry and a journey into that phenomenon known as Aerosmith.
     One of Boston's revered sons has an appointment to keep in the city, but there's a lot of miles between here and there, a lot of time to talk about his favorite subject, music.
     Long, strange trips? This isn't one of them. Perry and his bandmates—Steven Tyler, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer—have most assuredly been there, and done that.
     They may have been around forever, but when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, these men with the boyish spirit proved that they still rock.
     And if they indeed are, as has been suggested, America's Rolling Stones, and Joe Perry our Keith Richards, then, yes, like the Stones, it may "only" be rock and roll but, man, do they still like it!
     Their new album, Just Push Play, which went to No. 2 in its first week out and includes the hit single "Jaded," was the first one produced by Tyler and Perry. In a return to basics approach, they did it in Perry's basement.
     In January of this year, they scored what they believe was one of the major achievements of their career, successfully pulling off a meeting of the genres in starring in a live halftime performance at Super Bowl XXXV, leading ’N Sync, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige and Nelly through a celebration of Aerosmith music. With an audience of 86.5 million viewers, it received the highest ratings for any halftime show in Super Bowl history.
     The Aerosmith story, described as one of the most successful comebacks in the past two decades, is still being written as the band once again takes its music to the world, with new stops in the Far East (maybe even Vietnam) planned, in a tour expected to last most of two years. Joe Perry fills in the blanks in this one-on-one conversation:
     InsideCx: I was listening to the new album again last night and what comes across to me is the pure joy of the music making. It’s obvious that, in contrast to your song, you guys aren’t "Jaded." We did have a good time making it, no doubt about it. A lot of things came into play. Most important was, "When are we ever gonna do this? Let’s do it now." I don’t know how many more records are in us. When were we gonna take another shot [at experimenting again]? We felt we had the time and backing. New management was behind us 100 percent. What made it fun was that we had something to prove.
     For years we have been traveling to this place and that place to record. This time, everything was an experiment because we recorded all the guitars in my basement, wrote most of the songs there, tracked just about everything there except for drums and a few of Steven’s vocals. It was all done literally in my basement.
     When it came time to mix, against the advice of our most trusted advisors that it was too much of a science project, we built a mixing studio on the other side of my yard. We rolled the dice. We always knew we had a trap door. We could always go book a studio somewhere else. There are a few good, small studios in Boston, but no big studios there.
     For us that would mean going to Vancouver or L.A., with big, world-class drum rooms in them. There’s always been this energy to pack up and leave. Steven and I have gone away for three to five months to make a record. When we made the decision to do this at home, we didn’t want to get up and travel. We adapted and made the room the way it should be.
     InsideCx: Do you want to continue with this recording approach in the future? I think so. On a lot of levels, that has been the best part of it. It’s so freeing to write the songs and record them without the clock going. Now it’s easy.
     You can’t be in the business and not know what it is costing you an hour, whether it's lawyers or studio time. You may come up with something in an hour or three days. Obviously we spend what we have to spend to get it, but to be able to do it in my basement and the next day be back at my house, it really made for creativity and this wide open feeling.
     InsideCx: How does Just Push Play stand up against Aerosmith’s body of work? I think it’s in another class. I always felt we shared ownership with our records before with producers and other people and other advisors and the record label. This one I feel like we own it ourselves. It’s almost like you can’t put it in a class with others. We made our best record. Every one we’ve done, we tried our best. We’ve never said, "This is half-ass." When we wake up in the morning, this is our record.
     InsideCx: How do you keep it all fresh? It’s not much of a struggle. There is so much about music today that still gets me going, music that I love. I’ve had those moments in my life where I’ve said, "You can’t do this anymore at your age. You’ve got to get a real job. It’s too much of a guilty pleasure to be able to make a living from music." I probably felt that way at 29, 35 and 40, where I thought, Jumping around on stage with a guitar is OK when you are 22, but now I’ve got to set an example for my kids. Then that moment passes and sanity sets back in [laughs].
     InsideCx: How much of a factor these days is the question of age and whether or not you can still make valid rock at whatever age you happen to be? As long as you don’t become a caricature or cartoon of yourself. It’s tough, because I talk to guys my age and they just don’t get new music. I’ve just seen generation after generation of music coming up. I don’t know if I’ll ever sound like Limp Bizkit, but I understand where they are coming from. I get off on that music. I’m lucky to be born in that era when Jimi Hendrix was alive. It was a really exciting time. If you just keep your eyes and ears open and don’t become too stodgy, and don’t say "Nothing is as good as Led Zeppelin IV,"—I run into guys like that. They stay stuck [in the past]. There’s a whole bunch of new music to enjoy.
     InsideCx: Was turning 50 [last September] traumatic for you, or was it easy? It was one of the more memorable experiences of my life. Some of my best friends came and played. I sent a plane to New Orleans for Cheap Trick to come up and play. … I don’t sit back and go, "Wow! Look at these wrinkles, man!" I love every minute that we are here.
     InsideCx: This is at least your fifth straight Platinum-plus album. With your last album, one writer observed that Aerosmith had won over a teen audience in each of the three decades the band has been playing, and that no other band in rock history has pulled that off. Now it’s four decades. That’s pretty heavy, isn’t it? It is. I don’t get it. I don’t know if we will be on the Nickelodeon Awards again [laughs]. It’s all up to the songs. It really is. If it’s something people can relate to, it’s gonna be the song. It’s got nothing else to do with anything else. If it’s a great song, people are gonna like it. That’s what it’s about in our business.
     InsideCx: Did the magnitude of being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the history involved, strike you that night, or did it take some days for it all to sink in? It’s been very cathartic to do the book [about the band] and hear about all the history, and to hear it put in a 10-minute [induction] speech by Kid Rock was pretty amazing. He really kind of defined it for us. I thought he was great. I didn’t know how good he was gonna be. He didn’t tell us what he was going to say. Before he came up, he stopped at our table and asked, "Do your kids know what is going on?" He didn’t want to tell them anything they hadn’t heard. We said, "The older ones know and for the younger ones it will go over their head. So just let it fly." It was great.
     As far as where we sit [in rock history], that’s really up to the fans and where they put us. We really don’t know what the public thinks of us. We live in a bubble. That’s why we’ve been anxious to get out on the road.
     InsideCx: Some people consider Aerosmith America’s Rolling Stones. Can you relate to that? I don’t know about that. The Stones were part of the British Invasion. I don’t know if we actually turned the world on its ears like they did when we first started.
     We certainly carried on the standard of a rock and roll band. It is a band, not like five guys that can be moved around. It’s a tradition. I’ve seen bands come after us doing the same thing. It’s great to be viewed as that.
     InsideCx: You made a remark earlier this year that was telling, saying, "We still want to feel like we’re in it, not touring on the strength of something you wrote back in the early ’70s." Yes; that’s what keeps it interesting. The thought of doing the usual 30 dates over the summer and playing "Sweet Emotion" just doesn’t sound that great to me. I don’t mind going out and playing new stuff. We are entertainers. We want to give fans what they want. They also want to hear "I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing" [their first %Billboard% No. 1 hit single in 1998 from the film Armageddon, which earned them an Academy Award nomination]. We are at a point where if we didn’t play "Dream On," we could get away with it.
     InsideCx: Has what music means to you changed through the years or has it remained a constant? It’s one of the few constants in my life, when I look at the whole span of things. It’s always something I fall back on. When I was going through hard times in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it was always there for me. I can’t tell you how many Chuck Berry or other records I bought. I’m probably responsible for at least one Gold record [laughs]. I stay in it. I love hearing new Moby and others.
     InsideCx: You’ve spoken of being in Aerosmith with the guys you are in it with as "a gift." And that the gift of the band playing together is something you can’t deny, you added. Could you elaborate, please? It’s a family of choice. We managed. For some reason, all the personalities hooked up. It’s like you go to a party and you don’t know anybody, but you end up talking to the same people as you are. Being musicians got us together. I don’t know if we dreamed of it lasting all these years.
     Everybody has their own amount of A and B personality. It seems to be a leveler. I can always count on the others to pick up the ball if I drop it. We all work together to do it. A lot of bands have broken up over the years over some of the things we fight about. We don’t let it get in the way. Knowing the five of us together are stronger than when we are alone, we are going to make it happen come hell or high water.
     InsideCx: What do you think a new musician can learn from Aerosmith’s career? You can keep doing it. It doesn’t have to be this career where you have a few good years and it’s over.
     It’s funny. I remember [early in his career] being in this girl’s apartment. She said, "Most guys want a couple of hot years and that’s it." I said, "That’s pretty cool, but what will they do when they are 27 or 32? Are they going to be real estate agents?" That’s how everybody kind of perceives the business.
     I think the business is still geared to that. They think, "If this band doesn’t put out or sell 5 million records, there’s another one right behind them." As far as they are concerned, the business is healthy. But as far as developing new acts and building a career, it’s just not set up that way. If there’s one thing we’ve done, it’s break the mold.