E-Mail This Article to a Friend Mr. Aerosmith goes it alone Joe Perry lets his voice do the talking BY TED DROZDOWSKI

To rock-and-roll fans, Joe Perry’s half the front line of Aerosmith, a position he’s held since founding the group with Steven Tyler in New Hampshire in 1970 and moving to Boston to achieve fame. To Aerosmith fans, Perry’s the group’s rock-and-roll soul — a strong, silent, guitar-slinging bad-ass who’s always let the music do the talking. All the same, Perry spoke to us about his debut solo album, a slide-fueled slam-and-soothe affair with the no-frills title Joe Perry that comes out this Tuesday on Columbia. Nobody’s going to call him the new Dylan after hearing the disc’s dozen numbers, which are dominated by love songs and instrumentals, but the power and the craftsmanship of his playing are transfixing.

Holding court in his well-appointed South Shore home studio, the Boneyard, the soft-spoken Perry talks about guitars, songwriting, romance, album making, Aerosmith, and his newly discovered true singing voice. He’s always sung harmony with Tyler, and he took the lead for a few vocal tracks on Aerosmith’s 2004 blues tribute, Honkin’ on Bobo (Columbia), but when he last stepped outside the group — from 1979 to 1984 with his Joe Perry Project — it was with vocalist Charlie Farren. This time, he not only sings all his lyrics, he plays everything on Joe Perry except drums and keyboards.

Q: Given Steven Tyler’s proclivity for writing smash ballads and being in the spotlight, many Aerosmith fans thought he’d be the first band member with a solo album.

A: He’s talked about it, but I’m always in the studio writing and recording. In fact, the song "Ten Years" I wrote 10 years ago for my wife Billie’s and my tenth anniversary. That’s how far back some of these songs go. A lot started as licks that were recorded and sitting on a shelf saying, "Finish me!" Sometimes those licks are run by the band and end up being the basis for an Aerosmith song, but out of 20 ideas, we might use three and the rest sit there.

I have favorite ideas and riffs that I’ll drop on a mini disc so I can take them with me. And when I get a spare minute, I’ll come down here and bring one of them up to the level of a song. Two or three years ago, I realized I had a big pile of instrumental music I’d written that never got used for songs. I thought, "If I run off the road on my Harley and I’m dead, Billie’s gonna have nothing to put out — just a bunch of guitar licks. I should finish some." Because they’re not really songs until you get a vocal on them.

When the band took a year off, it felt like the time to finish this stuff. And when I started mixing, what was written six months or a year ago felt more immediate to me. So I wrote "Shakin’ My Cage" and "Push Comes to Shove" and "Lonely." I put the last guitar tracks down in December.

Q: You’ve always been a band player — someone who feeds off the energy of other musicians to get inspired. What was it like playing all the tracks yourself?

A: Paul, the engineer, was also the drummer, and we brought a keyboard player in for some overdubs for about three hours, but otherwise it was me. It’s funny, because we have a "making of" video in the CD package as well as a Dolby 5.1 mix on the B-side and two U-Mix-It cuts, "Push Comes to Shove" and the instrumental "Mercy," that fans can remix on their computers. Paul and I worked together so long that it got kind of boring, so we had to do little things to liven the video up. We used home movies from the road, and I did a bit where I played both parts of a band fight.

For most of the songs, I’d have an idea for a riff and Paul and I would work up a drum loop I’d use as a springboard for working out the arrangement. Then I’d usually put bass down to flesh it out, then a vocal or a guitar. Once I figured out where the vocal would go and had the chorus worked up, Paul would play real drums and I’d get deeper into the guitars.

There’s a certain feel that happens when musicians do all their own tracks. I could hear it when McCartney did it or when Stevie Wonder played drums on his own songs. I noticed I played the bass with the same kind of attack I have on guitar. It’s like you’re in a band and have tremendous rapport. "Wow! I can read the other guy’s mind!" It sounds like I’ve been playing with him for nearly 45 years, since I started playing when I was 12.

Q: If there’s any sound that’s a signature on this album, it’s ripping slide guitar. How did you get into playing slide?

A: The first time I saw anybody play slide was Jeff Beck, who played in standard tuning. The guy I really saw rip it up in open tuning was Johnny Winter. He had his big Firebird going through four Fender Twin Reverb amps and it was great. He’s always been a big influence. I’ve studied Ry Cooder and Muddy Waters. Ron Wood is a great electric slide player. They’re all part of my vocabulary. I love to play slide and lap steel. I’ve had a few goes at pedal steel, but it’s a hard instrument. I’ve even had a pedal steel made with just six strings, but it’s a whole different animal.