JOE PERRY PROJECT TAKES OFF

JOE PERRY PROJECT TAKES OFF

FEATURES

by Dave Zimmer

My brand new ship is stellar bound To search out a place I’ve never found Where I go only time will tell There’s a lot of space between Heaven and Hell *

Heaven may not look anything like the darkened, seedy, cement-floored Keystone nightclub in Berkeley, California, but Joe Perry, former lead guitarist and writing force in Aerosmith, isn’t complaining. Slouching down next to his striking wife, Elissa, on a plastic-covered couch in the sparsely furnished Keystone dressing room, Joe peers out from behind long curtains of black hair and there isn’t a trace of the patented Aerosmith scowl or lip pout. Perry actually offers a broad smile. And he has plenty of reasons to be happy.

Since ending his *9Vi year association with Aerosmith last October, the gaunt 29-year-old guitarist/songwriter has put together a new group—the Joe Perry Project (Perry: guitar and vocals; Ralph Morman: vocals; David Hull: bass; and Ronnie Stewart: drums), recorded and released a Project album, Let The Music Do The Talking, and is now in the midst of a two-and-a-half-month national club tour.

*from “Shooting Star” by Joe Perry, Vindaloo Productions, Daskel Music Corp. 1980 (BMD

“Everything’s up and moving forward,” Perry says, in a tough Bostonian brogue. “I feel like nothing can stop me. I’ve gotten back to basic music, basic rock ’n’ roll. And a club tour is the way I always wanted to dp it. Everybody gets their money’s worth. I could have gone on a big arena tour, but I’m not looking to play the rock ’n’ roll game anymore and get the most exposure in front of the most numbers. Right now, I feel like a local boy playin’ rock ’n’ roll in a local club with guys who are real hot, eager to play and gettin’ off on it.”

During his latter-day shows, with Aerosmith, ’‘it was mechanical,” Joe explains. “All we had to do was walk out there and play ‘Sweet Emotion,’ ‘Walk This Way,’ ‘MamaKin’.. .actually, sometimes we didn’t even have to play. I could thumb my nose, drool on myself—and I did a few times—and the crowds would still cheer. If I tried that tonight, they’d fuckin’ throw things at me, throw me out of the place. But tonight the audience is going to walk out of here forgetting Aerosmith and remembering Joe Perry.”

Saying this, Joe rises from the couch, strolls to the other side of the dressing room, picks up his electric guitar, plugs into an amp and fingers a few warm-up riffs. A half-hour later, he is attacking this same guitar on the small Keystone stage, wrenching out howling leads and chugging rhythms atop David Hull’s rumbling bass chops and Ronnie Stewart’s machine gun paced drumming. A slew of new Perry originals from Let The Music Do The Talking electrically explode—including the raging “Discount Dogs,” a funky party track, “Rockin’ Train,” an eerie, dissonant number, “The Mist Is Rising,” and the slashing instrumental “Break Song.”

The Project also delivers steamy renditions of a couple of Aerosmith tracks— “Same Old Song And Dance” and “Reefer Head Woman” (from Night In The Ruts), as well as several covers, including the Elvis Presley standard, “Heartbreak Hotel.”

Perry sings lead on about a third of the songs (compared to a quarter of the tracks on Let The 1Music Do The Talking), unveiling a funky, street-wise Lou Reedstyle delivery and occasional rave-up wail. Joe rarely, if ever, sang in Aerosmith, and he admits, “I’m just here for the beer as far as my singing goes, but I feel I have a lot of emotion to let out, even though I may not be in pitch all the time. And I think the kids know what I’m trying to get across; at least, they haven’t thrown any bottles yet.”

Most of the lead vocal chores are handled by Ralph Morman, a diminutive shouter who, possessing a consummate wildness on stage, recalls the sandpapery tonality of Humble Pie’s Steve Marriott. And as Morman stretches out on the evening’s blitzkrieg encore, “Let The Music Do The Talking,” Perry cuts in and the song climaxes with a fiery flourish.

Afterwards, inside the Joe Perry Project tour bus, parked in an alley behind the club, Perry cools out, changes clothes and then emerges through a draped portal.

“Any future in it?” Joe asks, as he settles into a cushy side chair.

When I nod, he continues, “I think with this band, I can extend into the 80’s what I thought I was going to do with Aerosmith, but didn’t. I’ve got this inner drive to keep growing, changing. But,” he pauses for a moment, “I’m not going to put Aerosmith down. I loved Aerosmith. I was part of it. I’m proud of it. I think Aerosmith was the epitome of the American heavy metal'band in the 70’s and paved the way for a lot of bands. There would be no Van Halen if it weren’t for Aerosmith, I think. But what happened, is that Aerosmith got to a certain point, then it was ‘What are we going to do now? Just sit back?’ And that’s what they felt like doing. This band is more a vehicle for my energy.”

Late spring, however, Perry was still releasing this energy within the framework of Aerosmith, having just written the music and recorded the basic tracks for ten original songs for Night In The Ruts; then, Joe says, “The LP was in limbo from April on and I washed my hands of it. After a certain point, I said ‘No, I’m not going back to New York and just sit around and not do anything.’ I said, ‘It’s your album, do what you want with it. You’ve got my work, you can use it or erase it. I’m working on something else.’”

Perry had been contemplating a solo project for several years, but, being a loyal “team player,” he had always shelved it, postponed it, in favor of Aerosmith commitments. Then, during the summer of ’79, he made contacts with the players who would eventually make up the Joe Perry Project. However, it wasn’t like he sought them out. Even now, Perry admits “the whole thing just fell in my lap.”

Ralph Morman, formerly in the Bostonbased band Daddy Warbux, had met Perry several years ago and was working jn construction in Florida when Aerosmith came to the state for a concert. Wanting to resume his music career, Morman came backstage and asked Perry “do you know anybody who needs a lead singer?” Joe said, “Yeah, me.” Ronnie Stewart was working as a salesman at a Wurlitzer music store in Boston (“He’s also a great jazz drummer,” Joe says), and was referred to Perry by an Aerosmith roadie. David Hull, formerly in a Connecticut-based band called the Dirty Angels, was initially introduced to Perry by-Steven Tyler, and Joe says, “I’d loved his bass playing for years, ever since I saw him playing with Buddy Miles. Last summer, he was between bands, between managers, so... bang!

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Ihave more~energy now than when I was 18or19.

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“I didn’t have to ask anybody,” Perry enthuses. “So I knew it was shining down on me to do this solo thing. I’m a great believer in providence, pre-destiny. So, for me to say‘No, it’s not time,’ I’d have been a fool.”

Still, Perry, though excited about his burgeoning solo project and dissatisfied with Aerosmith’s stagnation, wasn’t initially considering leaving the group. He explains, ‘‘I couldn’t see why I couldn’t ^o both— make a solo album and stay in Aerosmith. I’d written enough material for the Ruts album and I had plenty of ideas left for my album. And, you have to understand, being in Aerosmith since the beginning, the band was really like a club.

“But they were planning a tour right after the release of Night In The Ruts, and I realized at that point, they didn’t give two shits if I had a solo thing going. It just didn’t matter, they were going totour, and I thought i don’t have control anymore. I’ve got to make a decision. ’ ”

Last October 10th, after adding his final instrumental tracks to Night In The Ruts, Joe Perry officially left Aerosmith and he explains, “I felt relieved. I Suddenly had all this fuckin’ freedom and I had a course set in my mind of where I was going.”

This course initially involved finishing up some new songs and rounding up Morman, Stewart and Hull. Then, as the newly christened Joe Perry Project, the players embarked on a mini-tour or Northeastern clubs.

At this point, did Perry feel any insecurities about getting audience support as a solo arist?

“I had that fear,” Joe admits. ‘But my fans didn’t let me down. In Boston, without an album, without anything except just my name, they came out to the clubs and supported me and the band. They’ll never know how much their support meant to me.”

CBS, however, was not as eager to get behind the Joe Perry Project.

“Aerosmith had been/bringing in their1 albums late,” Perry says', “going way over budget, and they [CBS] thought they’d get more of the same from.me. But I convinced them I was a walking, talking viability and not ia fuckin’ burned out prima donna.”

Perry eventually secured an eight-album deal with CBS as a solo artist and, as if to prove a point, went into the studio with the \ Project in New York, cut the basic tracks for Let The Music Do The Talking in five days, finished the album in six weeks and came in way under budget, “with over-energy,” Perry adds. “This album was definitely a spurt of energy that was let loose after being fenced up in Aerosmith. Jack Douglas [long-time producer for Aerosmith who was fired during the Night In The Ruts sessions] and I just clicked. I’d pre-produced, arranged everything. We went into the studio and played the songs live. There was no bullshit, no magic...the album’s like a soundtrack for the live shows.”

This immediacy made it into the grooves, with Perry’s gutsy, molten metal guitar work kicking out then pairing up with trebly vocals and driving rhythms. The songs are succint, relatively, short and about, for instance, loyalties in the record business (“Conflict Of Interest”), love and longing (“Discount Dogs” and “The Mist Is Rising”), communication (the title track) and promise (^Shooting Star”). The overall mix, at times, reminds of Aerosmith, and Perry admits “I had a lot to do with the Aerosmith sound. My guitar parts molded it. So it’s natural to hear the similarities. But I tried, with this album, to get a little funkier than I ever was in Aerosmith.

How did the Project sessions compare with the Aerosmith recording routine?

“Different as night and day,” Joe answers quickly. “Instead of showing up for a party, everyone was there to play . And everyone showed up at the same time.”

Has Joe Perry undergone an image transformation since leaving Aerosmith?

“No,” he says after a brief pause. “I’m still the same guy I was in Aerosmith, but, in that band, I was definitely playing a part I just couldn’t grow out of—the ‘bad boy’ thing.” Joe shrugs. “Everything you read about me in the press is true—my arrest record [for traffic violations] and my car accidents. But I don’t worry about it.”

Does he worry about getting pelted by more flying objects—such as the M-80 that struck him in the hand and exploded, leaving a permanent scar and almost blinding Steven Tyler?

“Aerosmith,” Joe admits, “had a reputation for audiences that is unsurpassed—in terms of violence and throwing things.’ So, we definitely took our chances, with all that stuff flying upon stage. But it came with the territory. Now, with this band, I’m hoping to draw a more mature audience. At least, I hope they won’t be throwing things.”

Looking towards the front of the bus, Perry adds, seemingly addressing all past and any future debris slingers, “Just don’t try and damage the guy who’s trying to entertain you, that’s all.”

At this Berkeley club show, there were the expected contingents of teenagers pressed up,against the front of the stage; but, even though familiar clenched fists and *1 signals went up, no flying objects were seen—this time.

When I ask Joe what drew him and keeps drawing him into this rock ’n’ roll circus, he jresponds: “I get off on music more than I do on drugs, and I can remember when I was younger, a certain feeling would happen when I Would turn music on and it would take me away, make me feel good. I can remember when I was working in this factory after dropping out of prep school. I’d wake up in the morning and I wouldn’t drink any coffee or take any speed, I’d just put on Ten Years After, “Goin’ Home,” and I’d be up and moving for the rest of the day. Ever since, I’ve -always wanted to do what they did, and have it in my head and be able to control it.”

How did Perry’s 9V2 year association with Steven Tyler (albeit a fiery one) affect the development of this goal? X,

“Basically, what Steven taught me was order,” Joe says. “What I taught him was unbridled energy. That’s what drew us together at the st?urt and that formed the basis for our love/hate relationship throughout our entire career. All I knew how to do was get up there and rock.. .fuckin’ come. What he knew was songwriting, so I learned a lot about writing songs from him over the years. Now,, I can put together a complete showcase for the energy that 1 have and always have had. I think I have more energy now than when I was 18 or 19 [in his only pre-Aerosmith group, the Boston-based Jam Band with Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton] and I know how to channel it better. I have more tools to rape and castrate the audience.” He keeps a straight face.

What lies ahead?

“I suppose-it’s like I’ve done it all,” Jbe says. “I’ve played the biggest places you can (e.g. before 207,000 people for Cal Jam 2 at Ontario Motor Speedway)^ I’ve done a movie (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band) and had the platinum albums. So about all I can do is keep knockin’ out the rock ’n’ roll, blow my own head, make the audiehce feel as good as I do onstage, continue the American whatever. There hasn’t been a Chuck Berry-type for awhile; I’d like to think I’m playing with that idea.

“The way I feel now, there aren’t enough days in the year for me to play. I could spend the next two years touring the U.S., but I still have to cover Japan, Europe and this summer Jack [Douglas] and I will be working on the next Project album (tentatively titled Soldier Of Fortune). It’s been said that ‘the only aging rock star is a dead one.’ I’d like to add to that.. .‘The only dead band is one that isn’t making any music.’We’re alive!” ^