In the 1970s, Aerosmith earned the title of ‘America’s Greatest Rock Band’. And as guitarist Joe Perry tells MusicRadar, there were no set rules when it came to recording some of their greatest songs.
In May of 1976, Aerosmith dropped their fourth record, Rocks, a hard rock classic that inspired everyone a generation of bands - not least Guns N' Roses.
If you're into rock and heavy metal, you've probably feasted on Rocks, and with good reason. It’s generally considered their best—and gnarliest—effort. And it was created by a band willing to experiment in the studio.
The album's opening track Back In The Saddle had Joe Perry playing heavier-than-heavy six-string bass, while another track, Combination, had Perry on lead vocals.
But it was on Sick As A Dog that the band took a really unorthodox approach.
If you've checked the credits on Rocks, you’ll have seen that Sick As A Dog was written by bassist Tom Hamilton and singer Steven Tyler. But did you know that Hamilton also recorded the song's main guitar riff at the insistence of his bandmates?
As Joe Perry says of that unusual moment in Aerosmith's history: “Sick As A Dog was actually a song that Tom Hamilton wrote from Rocks. I think Tom wrote the riff on that. He wrote it on guitar, and so we wanted Tom to play guitar, the riff, on the album.
“So, I played bass on it, and when we cut the track, Tom and Brad [Whitford, guitarist] played guitar.
“I had the bass, and I was in the control room with Steven. And Steven was beside me, doing what he does - cheerleading and all that.
“Anyway, we were cutting the track with Tom and Brad on guitar, me on bass, and Steven with me in the control room. And when the breakdown on the song came, I handed the bass to Steven, who kept playing, and I went into the live room with Tom and Brad, picked up a guitar, and played the solo.”
It sounds impromptu, but Joe says they it all planned out beforehand:
“It was all choreographed,” he says. “It was at The Record Plant [in New York City], and I remember going through the double doors and into the studio. We had it all figured out, and the people with headphones on in the other room helped us choreograph it by having us run through it all a few times so we didn't trip over the wires!
“We had to figure out where a good place to stand was - and all the little stuff like that. It sounds easy—and once we got it right and played it right, it kind of was easy. And we've actually done it live like that a bunch of times, but it was never that steady doing it that way.
“It was a lot of fun, and I always thought doing it that way was best. I love playing bass, and Steven plays bass - really basic but good bass.
“It was just fun—and again, we did it all live. We just had to do a little bit of moving around to get it done.”
