Aerosmith's Brad Whitford reflects on the band's ups and downs

 

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The road to the tour was a long one, emotionally, Whitford said. After falling from a U.S. stage, Tyler lost contact with Aerosmith. Rumors swirled that he was going to be replaced, but then Tyler joined the Joe Perry Project on a New York stage in November 2009. Tyler then entered rehab to manage his addiction to painkillers, according to reports. Upon release and after some discussion, Tyler was again a permanent member of the act.

"It was kind of an up and down period," Whitford said. "It was a rocky road. It really was. I managed to play with some other people during that time. I did the Jimi Hendrix Experience tour. I played with a friend of mine in a blues band that's up in the Boston area. I managed to do some playing. That was always the best thing for my head."

Up next for Aerosmith is an album of new material, its first since 2004's "Honkin' on Bobo."

"We have been trying to record another album probably now for more than five years," Whitford said. "It still hasn't happened. We do have a lot of new material. But the next time we start to work on this, either it will be thrown [out] or morphed into something else. You never know. But there is some stuff that's sitting on the shelves, as we say. What's going to happen to it, I don't know."

Whitford couldn't explain the delay in the new album, other than to say, "something always seems to go wrong. We can't seem to get started on the project when something happens. We just never get anywhere. Being in Aerosmith has a lot of frustrating moments. It always has."

But now its members are just happy to be back on stage.

"The band's never played better," Whitford said. "That's really what it's about. Everybody's just smiling. At the shows, you can expect different songs, different approaches to songs. The band itself is playing better than it ever has."