Steven Tyler Reveals ‘Many Years’ of Anger at Aerosmith Bandmates
Steven Tyler has revealed that he spent “many years” being angry at his Aerosmith bandmates for sending him to rehab in the ‘80s — although he later became “grateful” for their decision.
He also claimed that some of the executives surrounding the band in the past liked the fact that most of them were too intoxicated to ask probing questions about their finances.
“Aerosmith made it from ’72 to ’79 not necessarily stoned, but beautiful … Then we all became very fucked up,” Tyler told Haute Living in a recent interview. “There were no such things as rehabs; there were mental institutions. I went away in ’84 and ’86, and I didn’t really get it. The early ’80s were terrible, and drugs took us down. I was the first one to get treatment.”
He continued: “There was a moment in ’88 where management and the band pulled an intervention on me. They thought, ‘Get the lead singer sober, and all our problems would be over.’ So, I got sober, and you know, it took me many years to get over the anger of them sending me to rehab while they went on vacation. But today, because of that moment … I am grateful and owe a thanks to them for my sobriety.”
The singer said that, when asked about having been a heroin addict, he used to answer, “Yeah, but that’s nothing compared to when a band writes their own songs and plays them and hears them back in a recording studio on these speakers that are bigger than life. Then, you are on the radio … There is no drug stronger than music.’”
Tyler went on to say that Aerosmith had “never really told the truth” about their negative experiences in the music business. “Do you want to go into it? Or do you want people to just love that album?” he reflected. “Do you want to make that [album] a big-deal story, or do you want people to know what you didn’t know because you were high on drugs, and your managers and your record label fucking loved that about you?”
He continued: “They loved that about the band. Our first managers loved that we were stoned. Our record label, they loved that we were stoned ’cause they knew we weren’t looking at any of the money transactions. And oh, isn’t that how it’s always been … That side of the music business that is just a fucking dark, dirty, trench of lies, of lawyers.”