Steven Tyler: The Biography (21 page)

Aerosmith once again appeared on
Saturday Night Live
before heading to Europe for a series of gigs, performing for the first time in some countries. Soaking up the undiluted adulation he received night after night, Steven curiously sought some anonymity, too, and on a free evening in Amsterdam he and Joe Perry took an acoustic guitar and went out busking on the street. Passers-by threw money into the open guitar case, oblivious of who was entertaining them. It tickled Tyler no end, and when he and Joe called it a night, they tipped their takings into a legitimate busker’s case further along the road.

On 26 October 1993, Aerosmith performed live on MTV Europe for the first time. During this leg of their world tour Tyler realised that it was taking a little bit of time to warm up their audiences. Even though ‘Cryin’ and ‘Livin’ on the Edge’ were instant favourites, they had to rejig their set to suit what European fans were familiar with from their back catalogue. Audiences undoubtedly have moods, and Steven was candid that while some shows ignited, others were less successful. Aerosmith hit Britain, playing at London’s Wembley Arena in December. Back home, at the Billboard Music Awards, the band was voted the Number One Rock Artist.

By the time they arrived back in the States, ‘Amazing’ had dropped anchor at number twenty-four. Some in the music industry had been sceptical that Aerosmith could ever exceed the success achieved by
Pump. Get a Grip
proved those people wrong. Yet the band never seemed to feature in those endless Top 100 lists, which at times irked Steven. In Europe, he had happily busked unnoticed, but he never normally liked to be overlooked, as Joey Kramer has vouched. Out in public, Tyler loved talking with anybody and everybody, was never precious or pretentious, and thoroughly enjoyed being mobbed. What amused the drummer was that on the very rare occasions that the frontman was prowling the streets and no one realised he was in their midst, Tyler would do something outrageous to ensure he grabbed their attention.

After twenty years in the business Tyler still found the enthusiasm to wake up each day eager to see what else lay around the corner. He was very happy in his marriage to Teresa and as a father to their two children, Chelsea and Taj. Apart from the obvious reasons for refraining from adultery, now that the spectre of Aids loomed large he, like several other rock stars, viewed casual sex while touring as just too dangerous a caper. He knew that he had a wife who deeply adored him, knew too that he was still on a learning curve to becoming a selfless husband; while he had begun by appreciating her unswerving devotion when he had been down and out, he now admitted to loving Teresa more than ever.

After playing sold-out shows at the Boston Garden on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, in January 1994 Tyler was thrilled for Aerosmith to be undertaking its first tour of South America. During this exotic leg of the
Get a Grip
world tour the band performed at the Hollywood Rock Festival in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Their own gigs also took them to Argentina and Mexico. It was an eventful trip, which threw up a few surprises for the experienced frontman. More than a decade earlier, on their first jaunt through Mexico, Queen had been bombarded on stage with boots, bottles, batteries and other hazardous missiles. Coming off stage thoroughly dejected, assuming that the audience had hated them, Queen were greeted by a local official gleefully explaining that, on the contrary, that ordeal was a traditional show of appreciation. In these humid climes, times had not changed and Steven was subjected at some gigs to fans in the front row spitting on him whenever he came near the lip of the stage. The promoter’s assurance afterwards that it was well meant did little to excuse this disgusting behaviour.

Aerosmith opened their next north American leg of the tour on 1 February in Florida at the Orlando Arena; that same month they played an exhilarating gig to a sold-out, delirious crowd at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Along the way, at the American Music Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, they picked up two trophies - Favourite Pop/Rock Band, Duo or Group and Favourite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artist. In March, at the Grammy Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Aerosmith performed ‘Livin’ on the Edge’ and collected their second Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for this increasingly lauded number.

As the rock world had gathered to reward its brightest stars and to backslap each other, another casualty was lining up to make a tragically premature exit. Nirvana’s troubled frontman, Kurt Cobain, had been in and out of rehab in 1993 and had overdosed in a New York hotel suite. While in Italy in early March 1994, the twenty-seven-year-old singer downed a cocktail of prescription drugs, anaesthetic and champagne, and slipped into a coma. He was rushed to hospital, where his stomach was pumped, then transferred to the Rome American Hospital to recover. A week later, he was discharged. Towards the end of that month, back on US soil, Cobain checked himself once more into rehab, this time in California, only to check himself out three days later. On 5 April, he shot himself with a Remington 20-gauge shotgun, in a room above the garage at his home in Seattle, Washington. His body was not discovered for three days. His suicide note quoted the Neil Young lyrics, ‘It’s better to burn out than to fade away.’ Steven felt heart-sore for the young man. He stated: ‘When Kurt Cobain did videos, look into his eyes - he could not even face the camera. He was in pain. I’m angry about Kurt. This guy didn’t have to die.’ The same could have been said about Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, all of whom, curiously enough, were also just twenty-seven years old when their lives were snuffed out.

In late April, Tyler set sadness aside to enrapture Japanese fans when Aerosmith’s world tour took the band to the Far East. They opened at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama and wrapped up this leg in mid-May at the Budokan in Tokyo. Thoughts now turned to the European and UK dates that were next on the agenda. On 4 June, Aerosmith fulfilled Perry’s prophecy and this time headlined at the annual Monsters of Rock Festival at Donington Park in Leicestershire. Said Joe: ‘It really means a lot to us to play at Donington. It’s one of the few festivals - one of the last ones - that’s like a tradition. It’s like a fabled gig.’ The support bill included Sepultura, dubbed ‘Sao Paulo’s angriest young men’. Aerosmith had played with them on a bill in Rio de Janeiro but had not actually caught their act. That night, at Donington, before ripping into a hard rock set of their best-loved hits, Tyler had that split second of disorientation when, walking out on stage before tens of thousands of people, he could hardly grasp that anyone was there. Particularly at night, with the bright stage lights in his eyes, it can feel momentarily as if he is completely alone. That night Aerosmith turned in a stupendous performance and Steven was described next day in
The Times
’ report of the gig as ‘a glamorous stick insect’. A spectacular pyrotechnic finale capped the night, sending the fans home happy. The fifth single released from
Get a Grip
, the rocker ‘Shut Up and Dance’, was released in July in Britain where it peaked at number twenty-four.

Towards the end of that month the power ballad ‘Crazy’, the final single from
Get a Grip
, was released. Reaching one place higher than ‘Shut Up and Dance’ in the British charts, it lodged at number seventeen in America. Its video featured the third appearance of Alicia Silverstone (she had also featured in the video for ‘Amazing’) and marked the career screen debut of Steven’s eldest daughter, Liv.

At 5’10” tall, the beautiful, dark-haired girl had successfully eased her way into the modelling scene at fifteen; in addition to appearing on the covers of teen magazines she had starred in commercials for make-up and for shampoo. The ‘Crazy’ video makers maintained that she landed the part because of how she had looked and come across on screen in an advert for Pantene shampoo, and that they had not known of her connection to the world-famous Steven Tyler.

The theme of the video, which became one of the most requested on MTV of 1994, was two schoolgirls playing truant, taking off in an open-topped car and basically turning any man they met into putty in their hands, but it was more noted for two specific aspects. One was the suggestion of teenage lesbian romance between the characters portrayed by Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone. According to Steven, the original version of the video graphically depicted lesbianism, but on consideration it was decided to tame that element down before its release. Said Liv: ‘I understand why people might have a problem with it but I have no problem with it, Steven has no problem with it and if other people have a problem with it, that’s their problem.’ Then there were the scenes where the girls decide to enter an amateur pole-dancing competition for the $500 prize money. This scene was Liv’s spotlight moment. Dressed in silver trousers and bra she very visibly became her father’s daughter on stage; spitting out a piece of chewing gum, with a leggy high kick she whirled off seamlessly into a slinky, sinuous stage act, plunging her fingers into her long hair and oozing scintillating sexuality.

Years later the ‘Crazy’ video ranked number twenty-three in VH1’s Top 100 Music Videos of All Time. In March 1995, ‘Crazy’ won Aerosmith their third Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. When Liv was filming the pole-dancing scenes someone had called out to her to give the camera ‘a little more ass’ - a risky request with her protective father around.

Steven and Liv continued to enjoy a special father/daughter relationship. Affectionately, Liv has maintained: ‘I can smell my dad from a mile away. He has this ambery smell that just melts into him.’ Liv would visit with her father and whenever they could not sleep, they would sit up all night discussing face creams and the like. Liv must be about the only girl who could - or would want to - purloin a pair of her snake-hipped father’s jeans!

Having modelled for less than one year, Liv turned her sights on acting, and stepped determinedly into that tough industry. She later confessed: ‘I had never been to an acting class in my life.’ Yet in 1994, at seventeen years old, Liv was cast in the psychological thriller
Silent Fall
, written by Akiva Goldsman, directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Richard Dreyfuss and Linda Hamilton. In the early days of Liv’s acting career, film critics nicknamed her Liv Taylor because with her dark hair and blue eyes she apparently reminded them of the legendary Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor. Liv commented bluntly: ‘It’s cool to be compared to her but, honestly, who gives a damn?’ Steven was immensely proud to see his eldest child set out on this career path.

On his own front, Aerosmith played more dates that summer, took a brief break, then hit the road again. Twenty-five years earlier, as a twenty-one-year-old bombed out of his skull, along with hundreds of thousands of rock fans, Tyler had attended the fabled Woodstock festival in Bethel. In 1994, Aerosmith headlined Woodstock II, held between 12 and 14 August at Winston Farm in Saugerties, New York. Over thirty acts took part in this festival, including Joe Cocker, Nine Inch Nails, Green Day, the Spin Doctors and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Having shunned the original 1969 event, Bob Dylan performed on the third day of this musical extravaganza. Tyler led his band through knockout renditions of ‘Dude (Looks Like a Lady)’, ‘Walk This Way’, ‘Love In an Elevator’, ‘Janie’s Got a Gun’ and ‘Livin’ on the Edge’, among others, radiating an intensity that made his wired audience forget their mud-caked condition. For the hundreds of thousands of people, the amazing finale was crowned by an impressive fireworks display.

Aerosmith hung around New York to attend the MTV Video Music Awards held this year at the Radio City Music Hall on 8 September. Nominated in nine categories, the band won three trophies, all for ‘Cryin’ - Best Group Video, Viewers Choice Award and the coveted Best Video of the Year. Tyler made their acceptance speeches and later displayed to photographers the lipstick imprint on his left cheek of the kiss he had received from Madonna.

Neither Tyler nor any of his bandmates normally displayed any political affiliations, but days after the MTV awards show, the band hosted a fundraising event for the veteran Democrat Senator Edward Kennedy at Brad Whitford’s Massachusetts home. Setting off on the final leg of their world tour then, the band trekked around several US states, pitching up in Texas, Arizona and California among other places.

November saw the release of the compilation album
Big Ones
. Chock-a-block with some of Aerosmith’s best-loved hits, it also included two new songs - ‘Blind Man’, written by Steven and Joe with Taylor Rhodes, which had been recorded at New York’s Power Station Studio, and ‘Walk on Water’, recorded on the Isle of Capri after the European leg of their tour. Said Joe: ‘We wrote “Walk on Water” with Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw. We wanted to include a couple of new tracks on the record because it has worked so well for other artists recently.’
Big Ones
peaked at number six in America, one place higher than its best in Britain. It quickly went double platinum and fulfilled Aerosmith’s contract with Geffen Records. Columbia Records simultaneously released the box set
Box of Fire
, comprising a CD of every Aerosmith album released by that label, as well as a CD of rare cuts.

That same month, at the inaugural MTV European Music Awards staged at the Pariser Platz in Berlin, Germany, Aerosmith made off with the Best Rock Band and Best Rock Act awards. Close to Christmas, the
Get a Grip
world tour finally came to an end. Although Steven was exhausted, he was up for the opening on 19 December of Mama Kin’s Music Hall, a club on Lansdowne Street in Boston, which was co-owned by the band and the Lyons Group. Aerosmith performed before an audience of just under three hundred; it was picked up for live broadcast by two locally based radio stations. Boston continued its love affair with the band when, at the city’s annual music awards, they won the Outstanding Rock Band of the Year award for the seventh consecutive year. They also collected the Right to Rock trophy, and Tyler took the prize for Best Male Vocalist.