Pulling a trick from the Farnsey Book Of Touring Tricks (Allen and Unwin), Aerosmith are soon embarking on what is being billed as their farewell tour, despite the fact that they will not be breaking up, and will continue to record albums, tour, and exist as Aerosmith.
Talking to NME, Aerosmith rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford was quite baffled at the “farewell” billing. “Oh gosh, I’m not really sure”, he said, when asked about it. “I don’t know, I think it was a general business decision, between the promoters to the management to the band.
“I don’t actually feel like we’re gonna be shutting the whole thing down at the end of it, but I think there’s a lot more life in the band. But, I guess you’ve got to start somewhere. So, we’re just starting to put the farewell label on things.”
The line “So, we’re just starting to put the farewell label on things” doesn’t quite follow on from, “You’ve got to start somewhere”, but you’ve gotta admire how bluntly Whitford started answering that question before attempting to reel it back towards the end. He basically admits it was a ploy from promoters, which management put to the band. All three parties shrugged and okayed it.
In fact, rather than putting the farewell label on things, the band will actually be hitting the studio next month.
“We haven’t been in the studio in a while, and I think we’re gonna be in the studio a little bit next month. We’ll have a better idea of it all, when we get together and do that – of whether we’re gonna record any new music. I know we would like to.
“And I know that we probably have quite a bit of music that we’re sitting on. Whether we actually follow through on that, how much we’re gonna do, whether it would be a couple of songs or more, is yet to be seen, but it sure would be fun!
“I’d say the band is playing really well, people are writing a lot, there’s a lot of music that’s being created on the sidelines, in home studios and all that sort of stuff. It would be fun to just have something new to do. We’ve just got to take it organically, if it feels good we’ll go ahead and do it.”
Something new. This certainly doesn’t seem like the end of anything. Let’s listen to ‘Janie’s Got A Gun’.
