Latest / DISGRACELAND / Aerosmith: Toxic Twins, M-80s, Cocaine Eyeliner, and Living on the Edge

Transcript

Aerosmith: Toxic Twins, M-80s, Cocaine Eyeliner, and Living on the Edge · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:16
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith are insane. Their mere presence incited riots and violence
0:22
Speaker 1: among fans. They mixed target practice with black tar heroin.
0:27
Speaker 1: They trained roadies how to feed them cocaine on stage.
0:31
Speaker 1: Frontman Stephen Tyler claims he spent six million dollars on
0:35
Speaker 1: coke alone. They lived on the edge and nearly teetered
0:39
Speaker 1: over it more times than anyone can count. And at
0:43
Speaker 1: their peak, Arrowsmith was sex, drugs, and rock and roll
0:47
Speaker 1: in the flesh and wrapped up in spangly scarves and jumpsuits.
0:52
Speaker 1: Then they swapped some of the sex for more drugs,
0:55
Speaker 1: and at their lowest they traded their rock royalty status
0:59
Speaker 1: for a few more pills and thrills, and nearly lost
1:02
Speaker 1: their crown in the process. But their inevitable comeback in
1:06
Speaker 1: decades long career transformed Boston into a renowned rock city
1:11
Speaker 1: in a way that none of their predecessors could. Because
1:14
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith made I can't believe I'm going to say this
1:19
Speaker 1: great music. There are a few bands out there that
1:22
Speaker 1: I have as much of a love hate relationship with
1:24
Speaker 1: as Arrowsmith.
1:25
Speaker 2: But I digress.
1:26
Speaker 1: Great music, Okay, but unlike that loop at the top
1:29
Speaker 1: of the show that wasn't great music. That was a
1:32
Speaker 1: preset loop from my melotron called sinniped Diddy MK two.
1:38
Speaker 1: And I played you that loop because I can't afford
1:40
Speaker 1: the rights to No More Tears, Enough Is Enough by
1:43
Speaker 1: another Bostonian, Donna Summer, and also Barbara Streisand and why
1:48
Speaker 1: would I play you that specific slice of Breakup Disco Cheese?
1:52
Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
1:54
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:57
Speaker 1: December sixth, nineteen seventy nine. Then that was the day
2:01
Speaker 1: that Stephen Tyler, in the middle of a seizure, had
2:05
Speaker 1: to be dragged off stage again on this episode, Riots
2:10
Speaker 1: and Violence, Target Practice in black Tar, heroin spangly scarves
2:14
Speaker 1: and jumpsuits and Arrowsmith. I'm Jake Brennan, and this this Disgraceland.
2:53
Speaker 1: You could tell from the audience it was a seizure.
2:56
Speaker 1: Stephen Tyler spasmed on stage, jerky movements like an insect
3:00
Speaker 1: stuck on its back, one leg doing the jitterbug, his
3:04
Speaker 1: other limbs limp as a rag doll. Moments ago he
3:07
Speaker 1: was peacocky, shaking his hips, ribcage popping out through his
3:11
Speaker 1: skin tight jumpsuit. He was a blur of limbs of
3:15
Speaker 1: feral animal, but somehow still smooth enough to steal your
3:19
Speaker 1: girl and her best friend. Arrowsmith had barely started their
3:23
Speaker 1: sold out show in Portland, Maine, on December sixth, nineteen
3:26
Speaker 1: seventy nine. The Stephen was halfway through screeching their new tune,
3:30
Speaker 1: Refirheaded Woman, when he went from Energizer bunny too dead
3:35
Speaker 1: meat about to be dead meat anyway if no one
3:38
Speaker 1: did anything fast enough, Arrowsmith guitarist Brad Whitford knelt over
3:43
Speaker 1: Stephen's body as he played on. Not that it mattered
3:46
Speaker 1: if the band stopped. No one knew this fucking song anyway.
3:49
Speaker 1: The lead guitar player didn't flinch. He kept his back
3:52
Speaker 1: turned to the twitching pile of hair and bones on
3:55
Speaker 1: the ground, ice cold. This wasn't Joe Perry, Joe was
3:59
Speaker 1: gone fired. Depending on which band member you asked, this
4:03
Speaker 1: was Joe's replacement, Jimmy Crespo. Sometimes the kids could get
4:08
Speaker 1: into his wrists, but more often than.
4:10
Speaker 2: Not they heckled the hell out of him.
4:12
Speaker 1: Across the country, they used the same refrain, Hey.
4:16
Speaker 2: Where's Joe fucking Perry?
4:18
Speaker 1: Actually, where the hell was Arrowsmith. This cluster fuck in
4:22
Speaker 1: front of sixty seven hundred fans couldn't be the same
4:25
Speaker 1: band that gave them rocks just a few years ago.
4:28
Speaker 1: This band was all blow and no joe. Except for tonight.
4:34
Speaker 1: Stephen's cokestash ran dry before showtime. He relied on the
4:37
Speaker 1: blow to keep him upright after his ritual of chugging
4:40
Speaker 1: two double Beefeeder martinis, the booze and the coke it
4:45
Speaker 1: practically canceled each other out, but there was nothing soaking
4:48
Speaker 1: up the gin in his stomach. Tonight, the quadruple dose
4:51
Speaker 1: of Beefeaters sank him after only a few songs. Nobody
4:55
Speaker 1: needed to know that. Right now, Stephen shook sick as
4:59
Speaker 1: a dog on the floor and kept up the charade.
5:02
Speaker 1: Anything to get the gig canceled, and anything to get
5:05
Speaker 1: high again, LSD, heroine, speed kuway ludes. Every day with
5:14
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith was a day with a buffet of drugs in
5:16
Speaker 1: your face, even in the early years when they were
5:19
Speaker 1: a pack of young punks performing as city teenagers at
5:21
Speaker 1: high school dances. If you wanted to make it in
5:24
Speaker 1: Boston in the early nineteen seventies, you needed all the
5:27
Speaker 1: help you could get. Boston was not.
5:29
Speaker 2: A rock city.
5:30
Speaker 1: It was the opposite of a rock city, so opposite
5:34
Speaker 1: that the genre was literally banned across town during its
5:37
Speaker 1: formative years. Blame that on Chuck Berry and Alan Freed. Instead,
5:42
Speaker 1: nearby Cambridge blossomed does a folk haven lousy with barefoot
5:46
Speaker 1: people in their mellow acoustic guitars, and Arrowsmith was none
5:50
Speaker 1: of that. They weren't subtle, and they weren't soft. They
5:54
Speaker 1: dressed with shredded rags and tattered scraps.
5:57
Speaker 2: Of hippie garbon. It made it all look gritty.
6:00
Speaker 1: They stopped around, screeched, and made sexual innuendos out of
6:04
Speaker 1: anything that could be measured in inches. Arrowsmith had the
6:07
Speaker 1: songs and the swagger. Some said they were a poor
6:11
Speaker 1: man's rolling stones. For what it's worth, Stephen Tyler and
6:15
Speaker 1: Mick Jagger kind of had the same big lip mug.
6:18
Speaker 1: Another said they were jacking the New York dollshtick. And
6:21
Speaker 1: what I said about mc jagger is also true about
6:23
Speaker 1: Stephen Tyler and David Johansson. But Arrowsmith was all Boston.
6:29
Speaker 1: They crammed into an apartment together on combat practiced in
6:32
Speaker 1: the belly of a bu basement, worked on new material
6:35
Speaker 1: in the Bruins locker room at the Garden. They played
6:38
Speaker 1: in New York City sometimes, sure, and that's where Clive
6:40
Speaker 1: Davis discovered them in nineteen seventy one. But when Columbia
6:44
Speaker 1: Records had them sign along the Dotted Line, Arrowsmith didn't
6:47
Speaker 1: bail on Boston. They doubled down and recorded their debut
6:51
Speaker 1: album on their home turf at Intermedia Studios on Newbury Street.
6:56
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith was Boston or Boston demanded the right tree to
7:00
Speaker 1: keep their train a rolling towards stardom. Ludes, hash coke joints,
7:06
Speaker 1: rolled like massive Jamaican spliffs. All this remained within reach
7:10
Speaker 1: even when the band was barely scraping by. Reach into
7:13
Speaker 1: the freezer and grab some crystal mess to stick up
7:16
Speaker 1: your nose. Find some LSD to shoot, Yes, shoot shooting LSD.
7:22
Speaker 2: Need some pot Have a brownie?
7:24
Speaker 1: Well, unless a dog eats them all and is so
7:26
Speaker 1: comatose you have to carry him outside so that he
7:28
Speaker 1: can take a piss bomber. Even when Stephen laid down
7:32
Speaker 1: the sweepy melotron notes that's right melotron on Dream, on
7:35
Speaker 1: one of the band's most endearing songs, he snorted lines
7:39
Speaker 1: of Crystal thhc as he played Aerosmith had drugs for
7:43
Speaker 1: every occasion.
7:45
Speaker 2: You could count on it. The cops certainly did.
7:51
Speaker 1: Stephen Tyler didn't have time to think, not that he
7:53
Speaker 1: thought much before he acted, anyways.
7:57
Speaker 2: He hissed in Brad's direction.
7:59
Speaker 1: The entire band was lined up in a New Jersey
8:01
Speaker 1: police station, handcuffed to a bar in the hallway. Two
8:04
Speaker 1: state troopers found a few joints and pot seeds in
8:07
Speaker 1: their van on the New Jersey Turnpike. What the cops
8:10
Speaker 1: didn't find was two ounces of weed in Brad's pocket,
8:14
Speaker 1: some roaches in a film canister, and Steven's hash coffin
8:18
Speaker 1: full of nematoh and the final bag of weed, which
8:21
Speaker 1: just so happened to be down Stephen's pants at the
8:23
Speaker 1: moment the cops would be back, and they definitely were
8:27
Speaker 1: going to frisk him again. Stephen could hold his own
8:31
Speaker 1: he'd shove weirder things down his pants before, that's for sure.
8:33
Speaker 1: But those two ounces and Brad's jeans were a dead giveaway.
8:37
Speaker 1: They had to make the pot disappear pronto. Stephen had
8:41
Speaker 1: already managed to free one hand from his cuffs, and
8:45
Speaker 1: all he needed now was a distraction. Cops were suddenly
8:50
Speaker 1: sprinting down the hallway. They grabbed shotguns as they shouted
8:53
Speaker 1: over each other something about a black panther riot in Newark.
8:56
Speaker 1: Officers poured out of the station and droves perfect timing.
9:02
Speaker 1: Stephen urged Brad to slip in the bags of weed.
9:04
Speaker 1: Brad didn't have time to argue. He wriggled the bags
9:07
Speaker 1: from his jean's pocket and into Stephen's free hand. Then
9:10
Speaker 1: Stephen tossed each one through an open doorway and into
9:13
Speaker 1: a dark room without thinking twice about it. The band
9:17
Speaker 1: exhaled with relief until they were pulled into the fingerprint room,
9:22
Speaker 1: the same room where Stephen tossed the weed. Incredibly, both
9:26
Speaker 1: baggies landed right on an officer's desk. Arrowsmith put on
9:31
Speaker 1: their poker faces one by one. The band walked right
9:35
Speaker 1: by the bags, backed in casual looking elsewhere, and the
9:38
Speaker 1: cop took their prints and didn't say a word. He
9:41
Speaker 1: was either that blind or that incapable of connecting the
9:44
Speaker 1: dots didn't matter. What mattered was that the band was
9:48
Speaker 1: only booked on misdemeanor churches. They'd be speeding down the
9:52
Speaker 1: turnpike again by evening, with just enough time to rush
9:55
Speaker 1: down to Pennsylvania for a gig, Arrowsmith piled to the
10:00
Speaker 1: van and floored it until they pulled up to the show,
10:04
Speaker 1: strapped their guitars on, stepped on stage in the naked time,
10:07
Speaker 1: gazed into the audience and saw twelve people. This gig
10:12
Speaker 1: wouldn't even cover the fucking gas money. But it wouldn't
10:16
Speaker 1: be like this for long. Soon Aerosmith would be soaring
10:20
Speaker 1: in front of big crowds and with some big names.
10:23
Speaker 2: Shit. Soon Aerosmith would be soaring.
10:25
Speaker 1: Above the big names, and money would be the least
10:29
Speaker 1: of their problems. No way, we're going to fly this thing,
10:57
Speaker 1: Aerosmith's head of flight operations examined the sad excuse of
11:01
Speaker 1: a plane in front of him, a creaky old convey
11:04
Speaker 1: a death trap with wings. Two pilots smoked and passed
11:08
Speaker 1: a bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth in the cockpit.
11:12
Speaker 1: The smell of stale nicotine clung to the cabin. Arrowsmith
11:16
Speaker 1: needed to charter a private plane for touring.
11:18
Speaker 2: But they didn't need it this badly.
11:20
Speaker 1: The band's accountant snapped back at him, Yes, they were
11:24
Speaker 1: going to fly this thing because it was going to
11:26
Speaker 1: save them thirty grand on this leg alone. The head
11:29
Speaker 1: of flight oppos stood his ground. He was an Air
11:31
Speaker 1: Force pilot. He could smell more than smoke on this
11:34
Speaker 1: convey He smelled gore tragedy. If you're flying them in
11:38
Speaker 1: this airplane, I'm resigning effective immediately. Arrowsmith passed on the plane.
11:45
Speaker 1: Leonard Skinnered did not. Later that year, the same plane
11:50
Speaker 1: went down in Mississippi and took the members of Leonard
11:52
Speaker 1: Skinnered with it. Cheaping out was costly in the end,
11:56
Speaker 1: and by the mid nineteen seventies, Arrowsmith wasn't sheeping out
12:00
Speaker 1: on anything. There's drug money, then there's designer drug money,
12:07
Speaker 1: then there's people hired just to serve you drugs money.
12:11
Speaker 1: For years, Aerosmith just had regular old drug money, enough
12:15
Speaker 1: to keep their fridge stocked with chunks of meth and
12:17
Speaker 1: their noses full of blow. Life's simple pleasures for a
12:20
Speaker 1: little rock and roll band from Boston. Then they made
12:23
Speaker 1: an album called Toys in the Attic and everything changed.
12:29
Speaker 1: Toys in the Attic wasn't Aerosmith's first album, but it
12:32
Speaker 1: was the first album to give them an international lift off.
12:36
Speaker 1: Songs like Walk This Way had fans sprinting to record
12:39
Speaker 1: stores and snapping out concert tickets. The real money started
12:42
Speaker 1: pouring in, and better money meant better drugs. Better drugs
12:46
Speaker 1: made your heartbeat harder and your teeth gnash harder, and
12:49
Speaker 1: they made you rock harder. And by nineteen seventy six,
12:52
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith danced to a whole new beat.
12:56
Speaker 2: It's the year Aerosmith.
12:58
Speaker 1: Recorded Rocks Can of whoop Ass that straddle the line
13:02
Speaker 1: between hard rock and heavy metal. The sound was what
13:06
Speaker 1: other people call cutting edge tough. As one of the
13:09
Speaker 1: five glistening diamonds on the album's cover, the album peaked
13:13
Speaker 1: at number three on the Billboard two hundred and They're
13:15
Speaker 1: unprecedented high on the charts funded unprecedented highs for the band,
13:20
Speaker 1: the kind of highs you never wanted to come down from,
13:22
Speaker 1: the kind you do anything to hold onto for a
13:24
Speaker 1: few more minutes, especially when you're shuffling between states and
13:28
Speaker 1: stages on tour.
13:30
Speaker 2: And that's what the roadies were for.
13:32
Speaker 1: Members of Arrowsmith's crew were trained in keeping the band
13:35
Speaker 1: as high as possible for as long as possible. These
13:38
Speaker 1: guys were full surface, highly skilled, always in motion. Steven's
13:43
Speaker 1: microphone stand must remain wrapped in his scarves at all times,
13:47
Speaker 1: you know, the ones that looked like they were ripped
13:49
Speaker 1: off a hippie's back after a weekend in Woodstock. And
13:51
Speaker 1: that's not just style, that's a fashion stash. Each scarf
13:55
Speaker 1: is laced with the little pockets full of tune alls
13:57
Speaker 1: and quayludes to pop during the show. Remove the scarves
14:02
Speaker 1: past some NUDI photos of groupies to the amps. Put
14:04
Speaker 1: a bottle of jack on the drum riser. Keep that
14:07
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty proof white rum nearby for Steven
14:09
Speaker 1: as well, even though he'll probably hand it off to
14:11
Speaker 1: the kids in the firm row. Those little fuckers have
14:14
Speaker 1: never swallowed rock and fuel like that before, and they'll
14:16
Speaker 1: be puking all over each other in no time.
14:18
Speaker 2: But that's not your problem.
14:18
Speaker 1: You get enough shit to deal with backstage.
14:20
Speaker 2: This is just the calm.
14:21
Speaker 1: Before the storm. The storm is already here though, tearing
14:24
Speaker 1: up the rooms. If said backstage, it just hasn't blown
14:27
Speaker 1: your specific way just yet. In the background, someone's gonna
14:30
Speaker 1: yell Arrowsmith's new catchphrase, and that is tied for a
14:34
Speaker 1: production meeting, and that's just code for time to do
14:36
Speaker 1: some more blow. And boy, howdy is there blow? Sometimes
14:40
Speaker 1: it's kept in a room with a cop standing guard outside.
14:42
Speaker 1: Keep fucking believe that a cop guarding a bunch of blow.
14:45
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's a fat fucking amount of it next to
14:47
Speaker 1: the deli platters. But whatever, take a breather rest, you're
14:50
Speaker 1: gonna need it. It's gonna be a long night.
14:52
Speaker 2: But fuck these divas.
14:53
Speaker 1: You steal a few slices of deli meat to wipe
14:55
Speaker 1: your ass with and sneak them back into the spread,
14:57
Speaker 1: and the band is none the wiser, and they're gagged
14:59
Speaker 1: up of the brains, too gack to even get laid.
15:02
Speaker 1: And that's good news for you, because the ladies are
15:03
Speaker 1: lining up around the block who want to get backstage.
15:06
Speaker 1: Sharing some love is the one way to get a
15:08
Speaker 1: tour lamb in it. You know, they can share their
15:10
Speaker 1: love with you. The guy who has the access, the
15:12
Speaker 1: guy who has the access to the rock stars. Anyone
15:15
Speaker 1: in line who thinks they're above this sort of exchange
15:17
Speaker 1: can talk to the tour manager. But that's going to
15:20
Speaker 1: set them back an entire stash of coke. First it
15:22
Speaker 1: was a gram, then an eight ball. Now it's an
15:24
Speaker 1: ounce and not a gram less and the band has
15:26
Speaker 1: no idea about this particular price of admission, and that
15:29
Speaker 1: mound and catering is supplied by desperate fans and sold
15:31
Speaker 1: to the band at full price.
15:33
Speaker 2: Did you follow all that? I barely followed all that.
15:36
Speaker 1: Whatever doesn't matter, as long as you're not bored in
15:38
Speaker 1: comatose shit is Steven Tyler comatos the promoter's handling that now,
15:43
Speaker 1: he says, Steven's awake, sort of. He'll need a ride
15:45
Speaker 1: onto the stage on your back. At least he's lighter
15:48
Speaker 1: than any amp you had to push around, So you
15:50
Speaker 1: sit them down at the center of the stage, prop
15:52
Speaker 1: them up, guide him to that trusty set of scarves.
15:54
Speaker 1: The lights go up, show time, well not so fast, roady,
16:00
Speaker 1: work isn't over yet. You're Joe Perry's right hand man
16:03
Speaker 1: on standby with a cup of blow and a straw,
16:05
Speaker 1: and when the lights dim between songs, that's your cue.
16:08
Speaker 1: Rush over to him, guide the straw right up to
16:10
Speaker 1: his nostril and let him take a few toots, and
16:12
Speaker 1: then remove the straw and rush back into your corner
16:15
Speaker 1: quick the motherfucker before the lights come up. Steven's doing
16:17
Speaker 1: the same on his own. He's got his own quote
16:19
Speaker 1: unquote medicine cabinet at the front of the stage, hidden
16:22
Speaker 1: inside a drumhead, and that's where he keeps his Dixie cups,
16:25
Speaker 1: one full of jack and one full of coke, not
16:27
Speaker 1: actual coke, not Coca cola cocaine. He tosses a towel
16:31
Speaker 1: over his head to disguise himself as he slurps in snorts.
16:34
Speaker 1: Not that he's fooling anyone. They don't call Steven and
16:36
Speaker 1: Joe the Toxic Twins for nothing. They'll take any drug
16:39
Speaker 1: you put in front of them anytime, sometimes at the
16:41
Speaker 1: exact same time. And that's all right, because the show's
16:44
Speaker 1: running smoothly so far. Steven is happy with the sound,
16:47
Speaker 1: which means Steven hasn't touched a monitor at a security guard.
16:50
Speaker 1: No one's hurling any bottles and trash on stage, and
16:52
Speaker 1: that's good.
16:53
Speaker 2: Good.
16:53
Speaker 1: Now, you just set your flashlight down on this hand
16:55
Speaker 1: for a moment, and shit, he just knocks some fat
16:58
Speaker 1: lines onto the floor, as you not noticed those were there.
17:02
Speaker 2: So after all that, you're fired.
17:06
Speaker 1: Life on the road with Arrowsmith was so toxic that
17:09
Speaker 1: the band developed two rules. One except nothing but blowjobs
17:14
Speaker 1: ten days before the tour ends, So you don't take
17:16
Speaker 1: any diseases home to your girls. And Steven had already
17:19
Speaker 1: contracted the clap twice by nineteen seventy six, and once
17:22
Speaker 1: shared a nice family of crabs with Joe Perry. And
17:25
Speaker 1: nobody wanted to see or hear about any more of that.
17:28
Speaker 1: And the second rule was just for the crew. They
17:30
Speaker 1: called it the twenty four hour rule. If you hadn't
17:33
Speaker 1: seen a member of the band in twenty four hours,
17:35
Speaker 1: you found their hotel room and broke down the door,
17:37
Speaker 1: not to get their ass up to perform, but to
17:39
Speaker 1: make sure they weren't dead. And if you could point
17:42
Speaker 1: to an item on tour, there are usually drugs inside.
17:45
Speaker 1: Like I said before, Steven scarves Joe's customs suits arriving
17:48
Speaker 1: with pockets full of blow and them fake fan mail,
17:50
Speaker 1: put together solely to create the illusion that fans were
17:53
Speaker 1: setting the massive quantities of drugs. That trick was particularly
17:56
Speaker 1: helpful at Customs, but the truth was that Arrowsmith's fan
18:00
Speaker 1: could be just as dangerous as the drugs. October nineteen
18:07
Speaker 1: seventy seven, Philadelphia, a bomb soared toward the stage from
18:12
Speaker 1: the sea at Enim Jackets. Someone in an Arrowsmith's.
18:15
Speaker 2: Blue Army just declared war.
18:17
Speaker 1: The Mighty erupted as the band climbed the stairs to
18:20
Speaker 1: the stage for an encore, and the cherry bomb snapped
18:23
Speaker 1: like a shotgun.
18:23
Speaker 2: Blast, smoke, then chaos.
18:27
Speaker 1: Stephen Tyler staggered around in circles, one hand over his eye,
18:30
Speaker 1: screaming that he couldn't see. Turns out the bomb singed
18:33
Speaker 1: his cornea blood was spurting from Joe's hand, spilling.
18:37
Speaker 2: From an open artery.
18:38
Speaker 1: The band packed up without ever starting the encore A
18:41
Speaker 1: get a police escort to the nearest hospital. The m
18:44
Speaker 1: eighty was a demented welcome to receive from Philadelphia a
18:47
Speaker 1: twisted taste of Arrowsmith's medicine. Fans didn't need to share
18:51
Speaker 1: stories about the band's bad behavior. They could see it
18:53
Speaker 1: right in front of them. Those towels and scarves weren't
18:56
Speaker 1: fooling anyone. If the bad boys of Boston could break
18:59
Speaker 1: the land on plain view, then their fans could misbehave
19:02
Speaker 1: just as hard. When Arrowsmith performed at Boston College, fans
19:06
Speaker 1: who couldn't get tickets started a riot and broke into
19:08
Speaker 1: the venue using railroad pins. When dozens of fans were
19:12
Speaker 1: arrested for drinking and smoking in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Arosmith
19:15
Speaker 1: announced to the crowd that they'd pay for their bail,
19:18
Speaker 1: but it was Arrowsmith's crew who really paid for the
19:20
Speaker 1: band's bad behavior. Their roadies were dropping like flies by
19:24
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies, one dead from cirrhosis, another.
19:28
Speaker 2: Took his own life well.
19:30
Speaker 1: One of the most trusted crew members left the band
19:32
Speaker 1: because he loved Joe Perry so much that he didn't
19:34
Speaker 1: want to be the person who found Joe dead. And
19:36
Speaker 1: if he stuck around, he was sure that that very
19:38
Speaker 1: thing would happen. Arrowsmith was sex, drugs and rock and
19:42
Speaker 1: roll in the flesh, emphasis though on the drugs, and
19:46
Speaker 1: that man Arrowsmith was a fucking hazard. They needed to
19:50
Speaker 1: reform rehab without the actual rehab. Arrowsmith needed to get
19:55
Speaker 1: away before they went away forever.
20:00
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this. We're were were?
20:09
Speaker 1: They called it the Senecal three hundred barren rooms, one chapel,
20:14
Speaker 1: countless cobwebbed fireplaces, Shadows of nuns and habits scurried across
20:19
Speaker 1: the pealing walls. The massive former convent branched into wings
20:23
Speaker 1: on a ninety eight acre plot of rolling planes.
20:26
Speaker 2: In New York.
20:27
Speaker 1: Not a soul for miles just you and the Holy Spirit.
20:32
Speaker 1: Back in the day, women came to the Senecal to
20:34
Speaker 1: escape from worldly temptation and to look within. They tuned
20:38
Speaker 1: out all the noise and tuned into the Senecal's divine silence.
20:42
Speaker 1: If you focused hard enough, you might just hear a
20:45
Speaker 1: higher voice being whispered to you, instructing you on how
20:48
Speaker 1: to turn your life around. And all you had to
20:50
Speaker 1: do was commit to change. All you had to do
20:53
Speaker 1: was pull the trigger. Joe Perry rested as Thompson's sub
21:00
Speaker 1: machine gun down in his lap. He squinted until the
21:02
Speaker 1: target at the other end of the attic came into focus.
21:05
Speaker 1: No bull's eyes, too bad, He consoled himself with a
21:09
Speaker 1: swig of a double black Russian aka breakfast, Well, probably breakfast.
21:15
Speaker 1: It was hard to know for sure. Time didn't exist
21:17
Speaker 1: at the Senecal, only long moments, stretches of time defined
21:22
Speaker 1: by whatever chemicals you stuffed your body with. Hours of
21:25
Speaker 1: drunken stupors afternoons and beds strung out on black tar
21:29
Speaker 1: heroin days without sleep. Outside of the cenacle, time was
21:34
Speaker 1: still very real. Arrowsmith had six weeks at the old
21:38
Speaker 1: Convent to record.
21:39
Speaker 2: A new album.
21:40
Speaker 1: In the eyes of Columbia Records. The Senacle would be
21:43
Speaker 1: like rehab without actually sending the band to rehab, a
21:47
Speaker 1: place where the bad boys of Boston would be isolated
21:50
Speaker 1: from the fast life. Rocks already proved how catastrophic drugs
21:54
Speaker 1: were for the band's creativity. The album sounds flawless, almost
21:59
Speaker 1: two flaws, and that's because the band was so fucked
22:02
Speaker 1: up that they couldn't get through a clean take of
22:04
Speaker 1: any song. Each track had to be recorded thirty even
22:07
Speaker 1: forty times, cut up, and sew them back together using
22:10
Speaker 1: the best takes. Columbia thought nothing could be more inefficient.
22:14
Speaker 1: Columbia thought wrong. The snicle didn't isolate Aarosmith from drugs,
22:19
Speaker 1: It isolated them from each other. Joe's constant target practice
22:23
Speaker 1: with his toys in the attic shattered the silence more
22:26
Speaker 1: than the actual music did. The band practically wrote in
22:29
Speaker 1: recorded music and shifts. Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton, and
22:34
Speaker 1: drummer Joey Kramer pulled most of the weight. Regular deliveries
22:37
Speaker 1: of black tar heroin were making Joe Perry will He
22:41
Speaker 1: slurred during sessions, his nose running, sometimes puking. Some days
22:46
Speaker 1: he showed up so incoherent that the band turned him away.
22:49
Speaker 1: He'd crawled back to his room and used the dismissal
22:52
Speaker 1: as an excuse to not re emerge for days. Then
22:56
Speaker 1: Stephen emerged to write some lyrics, or attempt to write
22:59
Speaker 1: some of theirs, if he could manage to find the
23:01
Speaker 1: right room and.
23:02
Speaker 2: Keep his body upright.
23:03
Speaker 1: Gobbling down his daily regiment of two and all's left
23:06
Speaker 1: him seeing triple, if that's even possible. Three pens, three
23:11
Speaker 1: pieces of paper, three versions of each bandmate, nagging him
23:15
Speaker 1: to write down something clever. It was so dizzying he
23:18
Speaker 1: kept one hand over his eye to c straight, and
23:21
Speaker 1: as the band drifted apart, other characters cycled through the
23:25
Speaker 1: senecal Joe Perry's buddy, the former New York Dolls front
23:28
Speaker 1: man David Johansson, brought dope. Hired chefs, handled the catering
23:33
Speaker 1: and dosed the food. Dealers made regular drop offs. Steven's
23:37
Speaker 1: guy Raymond brought copcaine straight from New York City. He
23:41
Speaker 1: was the kind of dealer who sampled too much of
23:43
Speaker 1: his own wares. The squealing was coming from Stephen's room.
23:50
Speaker 1: It sounded pained inhuman, and Stephen's ears perked up as
23:54
Speaker 1: he snickered to himself. Everyone in the band had meal
23:57
Speaker 1: time rituals. Joe drank his breakfast with a gun in
24:01
Speaker 1: his hand. Stephen finished his dinner with two lines of cocaine,
24:04
Speaker 1: which he laid on his nightstand in advance. One day,
24:08
Speaker 1: he caught that guy Raymond with his nose pressed to
24:11
Speaker 1: the night stand, sucking up a line like a hoover.
24:14
Speaker 1: Who did he think he was? This wasn't milk and
24:16
Speaker 1: cookies left out for Santa Claus, so Stephen left out
24:20
Speaker 1: something special for Raymond.
24:21
Speaker 2: The next time he came around.
24:24
Speaker 1: Raymond yelped like a wounded animal. He stumbled down the stairs,
24:27
Speaker 1: clutching his nose, and those nostrils were used to inhaling
24:30
Speaker 1: the finest blow money could buy. But tonight's powder dessert
24:33
Speaker 1: wasn't blow. It was decades old plaster that Stephen scraped
24:37
Speaker 1: off the ceiling. Raymond learned the hard way that Arrowsmith
24:42
Speaker 1: didn't share. They didn't share a vision either, and they
24:45
Speaker 1: didn't share a sound. Really, as their new album made
24:48
Speaker 1: crystal clear, they didn't even share a sleep schedule, and
24:52
Speaker 1: they certainly didn't share their drugs.
24:54
Speaker 2: Not anymore.
24:56
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith adopted to get your own policy, especially Joe. When
25:01
Speaker 1: Stephen stash ran low, he used to be able to
25:03
Speaker 1: count on Joe to spot it, but ever since Joe
25:06
Speaker 1: got hitched to that Alyssa jarre chick, he only shared
25:09
Speaker 1: his stash with her, and Stephen took the rejection personally.
25:12
Speaker 1: All of Aerosmith were supposedly brothers, but he and Joe
25:16
Speaker 1: were the toxic twins, and weren't twins supposed to share
25:20
Speaker 1: everything right down to their DNA. Alicia didn't care if
25:24
Speaker 1: they were joined at the hip spouse is Trump's siblings.
25:28
Speaker 1: She happily hogged Joe's drugs and his attention. Melissa's sway
25:32
Speaker 1: over Joe was strong enough to inspire Steven's barb lyrics
25:35
Speaker 1: in sweet emotion. Alyssa wore things nobody else did, like
25:39
Speaker 1: cocaine as eyeliner, which wasteful much. She talked about things
25:44
Speaker 1: nobody cared about, but still somehow found ways to regularly
25:46
Speaker 1: insult members of the band and sneak in off color remarks,
25:50
Speaker 1: I mean, what kind of nasty stuff do you have
25:51
Speaker 1: to say to a fender man his crew? To Stephen Tyler,
25:54
Speaker 1: he think two people with big miles would get along,
25:57
Speaker 1: but I digress, the selfishness and the didn't start with Alyssa,
26:01
Speaker 1: but she certainly.
26:02
Speaker 2: Helped it spread.
26:04
Speaker 1: When Draw the Line hit the shelves in late nineteen
26:06
Speaker 1: seventy seven, fans understood where the band drew the line
26:10
Speaker 1: in between themselves. Lines between me and you and mine
26:13
Speaker 1: and yours, no tauching, no CROSSI, and get the fuck
26:16
Speaker 1: away from my line. The record sold one point five
26:19
Speaker 1: million copies in the first six weeks, but never cracked
26:22
Speaker 1: the top ten of the Billboard. Two hundred people assumed
26:25
Speaker 1: Draw the Line would be Rocks two point zero, but
26:28
Speaker 1: it wasn't. Colombia didn't care. One point five million record
26:32
Speaker 1: sales was a mighty number, regardless of what the music
26:35
Speaker 1: sounded like. The band entered the studio a normal studio
26:39
Speaker 1: to start work on the next record in nineteen seventy nine,
26:43
Speaker 1: and when they left, they left without Joe Perry. His
26:46
Speaker 1: departure didn't come down to drugs. It didn't come down
26:49
Speaker 1: to the sound or to record sales either. Instead, Arrowsmith
26:54
Speaker 1: ruptured over spilt milk for real. The band avoided death
26:58
Speaker 1: once when they rejected that see sack of a plane
27:00
Speaker 1: that took down Leonard Skinner, that didn't mean they wouldn't
27:03
Speaker 1: crash and burn. All the same tension fueled Arrowsmith at
27:08
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy nine World Series of Rock. Tension over drugs,
27:13
Speaker 1: tension between Stephen and Joe, tension between Alyssa and literally
27:17
Speaker 1: everyone else. It hung in the air backstage at Cleveland
27:20
Speaker 1: Stadium like a foul odor. Then Tom's wife made a
27:24
Speaker 1: comment that Alyssa didn't like. Alyssa kept her mouth shut
27:28
Speaker 1: for once. She threw a glass of milk on Tom's
27:31
Speaker 1: wife instead. The tension lifted, the spark was lit, an
27:35
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith imploded instantly. Steven shouted at Joe to control his woman.
27:42
Speaker 1: Stephen claims he fired Joe then and there, and he
27:45
Speaker 1: swore never to share the stage with his toxic twin again,
27:48
Speaker 1: even if it meant worse music, even if it meant
27:52
Speaker 1: fewer people at shows and more hecklers, even if that
27:55
Speaker 1: meant that in just a few months, Stephen would be
27:58
Speaker 1: splayed out on a stage faking a siezure, half dead inside,
28:02
Speaker 1: just like his band. Stephen Tyler didn't care if he
28:29
Speaker 1: lived or died. Panic thoughts rushed through his mind, but
28:33
Speaker 1: he didn't say a word.
28:34
Speaker 2: He couldn't.
28:36
Speaker 1: Stephen Tyler had finally shut his trap because his mouth
28:39
Speaker 1: had the barrel of a pistol inside of it. Another
28:43
Speaker 1: night on the street, shuffling down Eighth Avenue in New
28:45
Speaker 1: York City, walking like a ship faced man on stilts,
28:49
Speaker 1: Stephen asked the wrong guy if he was selling dope tonight.
28:53
Speaker 1: The crook's finger trembled over the trigger. Give me your money,
28:56
Speaker 1: and give me the fucking rings to Stephen considered this
29:00
Speaker 1: for a moment. Giving up his money meant no heroin tonight,
29:04
Speaker 1: and no heroin tonight meant he'd be stuck in a
29:07
Speaker 1: cycle of anxiety for hours on end. Anxiety is so
29:10
Speaker 1: bad it felt like dying.
29:12
Speaker 2: He might as well take the bullet at ys Ray.
29:15
Speaker 1: Nah.
29:16
Speaker 2: Fuck that.
29:17
Speaker 1: Stephen silently slid the rings off his fingers and tossed
29:20
Speaker 1: his wallet on the ground. It's not like he had
29:22
Speaker 1: much that people could steal these days, anyway. Steven had
29:25
Speaker 1: a strict new allowance twenty dollars a day. He was
29:28
Speaker 1: supposed to limit his drug intake. Stephen hacked that real fast.
29:32
Speaker 1: He requested extra cash from his team every day and
29:35
Speaker 1: said it was a tip for the limo driver. Stephen
29:38
Speaker 1: then gave his driver fifty bucks and pocketed the rest
29:40
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty dollars three times as much. It's
29:44
Speaker 1: no wonder that the chauffeur was Stephen's last luxury. His
29:47
Speaker 1: Porsche already went up his nose, and so did his
29:50
Speaker 1: private plane in his house. Twenty million dollars earned fast
29:54
Speaker 1: and spent just as fast. Supposedly, six million dollars of
29:59
Speaker 1: that sum was just for cocaine. Stephen devised other workarounds
30:03
Speaker 1: to fund his worsening dependency. Aerosmith's new album built cocaine
30:08
Speaker 1: into the budget, disguised as funds for twenty four track
30:11
Speaker 1: reels of tape. Aerosmith poured one point five million dollars
30:15
Speaker 1: into their first album without all of its original members,
30:18
Speaker 1: and it didn't pay them back. Aerosmith's nineteen eighty two record,
30:22
Speaker 1: Rock in a Hard Place, was born out of desperation.
30:26
Speaker 1: No singles, no love from that new craze MTV and
30:30
Speaker 1: no Joe Perry, and the Blue Army dwindled. When they
30:33
Speaker 1: couldn't sell out stadiums, Aerosmith downgraded to club shows, and
30:38
Speaker 1: then they couldn't even sell those out. Toys in the
30:40
Speaker 1: attic and rocks gathered dust like relics buried under the
30:44
Speaker 1: face melting force of stadium filling bands at the time,
30:47
Speaker 1: like Iron Maiden in Judas Priest. There was a changing
30:51
Speaker 1: of the guard in rock and Arrowsmith was getting phased out.
30:55
Speaker 1: They needed something major to amp up their presence in
30:57
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. A reunion, no better, a reinvention. Stephen
31:07
Speaker 1: Tyler wanted to know how the fuck Joe Perry could
31:10
Speaker 1: be working with Alice Cooper.
31:13
Speaker 2: You need to be here, he screamed into the phone.
31:16
Speaker 1: It was true, Joe already agreed to write new music
31:19
Speaker 1: with Alice. His own band, the Joe Perry Project, was
31:22
Speaker 1: doing just as well as Arrowsmith, which is to say
31:25
Speaker 1: it wasn't doing well at all. His nineteen eighty three
31:28
Speaker 1: album Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker couldn't even sell
31:31
Speaker 1: fifty thousand copies.
31:34
Speaker 2: It was time to admit that both.
31:35
Speaker 1: Bands were back at square one, But they weren't gonners,
31:39
Speaker 1: not just yet. The rubble of their former empire was
31:42
Speaker 1: still lying around, and they just needed to cut the
31:44
Speaker 1: shit and clean it up. Steven took his Crooked Walk
31:48
Speaker 1: to rehab for the first time in the mid eighties,
31:50
Speaker 1: and Joe Perry hopped back in the Saddle with Arrowsmith
31:52
Speaker 1: around the same time Joe was in and drugs were out.
31:56
Speaker 2: But it's never that simple.
31:58
Speaker 1: Drugs would have to be kicked out of arrow Smith
32:00
Speaker 1: over and over again before the sobriety would stick.
32:04
Speaker 2: But when it did stick.
32:05
Speaker 1: Supposedly, it stuck to the charts with records like Permanent
32:10
Speaker 1: Vacation Home of huge hits.
32:13
Speaker 2: Like rag Doll and Dude Looks Like a Lady.
32:15
Speaker 1: And then Pump Get a Grip nine lives with massive
32:19
Speaker 1: singles like Jamie's Got a Gun which I actually love,
32:21
Speaker 1: crying crazy and I could go on and on, but
32:24
Speaker 1: I won't. But all of that almost didn't exist, all
32:28
Speaker 1: because of egos, stubbornness, selfishness, cheesy rock star behavior, and
32:33
Speaker 1: because some so called bad boys from Boston lived a
32:36
Speaker 1: little too close to the edge. I'm Jake Brennan and
32:42
Speaker 1: this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly, and
32:59
Speaker 1: it's pretty dust in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for
33:02
Speaker 1: this episode can be found on the show notes page
33:05
Speaker 1: at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland
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Speaker 2: Rock a Roller, He's the Mann