Joe Perry just released his memoir, Rocks, so it was only natural he hopped onto Reddit for an Ask Me Anything conversation to promote it. Fans showered him with questions about Aerosmith, concerts and drugs, among dozens of other things, like a prosthetic leg ... But most answers somehow found their way back to the new book, which Perry said was an answer to the band's 2003 autobiography Walk This Way.
"I really can't comment on Walk this Way," he told fans. "That book was so out of our hands, I can't even comment on some of those things because they were edited, the book was edited beyond our control, if you read my book, you'll see how far out of our hands so many things were. And because of the slow process of that happening, it was hard for us to see what the big picture was, but that book, to me, is like kind of ... it's cute, at the least. And so I really can't answer that question because I really don't know, I mean, I'm finding out things that were in that book even now that were so wrong, I was glad to have the opportunity to set the record straight with MY book."
The AMA highlights were many, including a story about a prosthetic leg.
"Well, there's one time — we were playing someplace, and a fan, I mean, they were up and they are excited and they are standing and that's part of the fun of being up onstage, you get to see the kids cut loose, I mean, that's what we do, we're the fire that people dance around," Perry wrote. "Well this one fan had a prosthetic leg, and he had taken it off and was waving it around in the air, and then he threw it up onstage ... of course, it was his way to get back to meet the band, and we were stunned — we'd had sneakers thrown up there, or pieces of clothing, you know, everything from bras to socks, but a prosthetic leg, that was a little over the top. And it was basically his way — he came around backstage after the show and said "Can I meet the band, I need to get my leg back" and so of course we met him, and it was pretty different. Let's just put it that way."
Aerosmith racked up drug transactions like Hermione racks up points for Gryffindor, which led to an honest bit of Q&A.
"I know it damaged our careers, but it also forced us to take a look at the big picture, about what we had and what the band had — if I hadn't left the band, and we had let things go the way they went, after going through that period of time when we were letting the partying take over, I don't think we would be the band we are now," Perry wrote. "Because we came to a new appreciation for the magic that we have and had at that time, because I think we were taking it for granted, frankly. And without that period of time, of us standing back and being able to look at our personal lives and then look at our professional lives, we wouldn't be where we are today.
"Aside from that? I'm just glad that we never got so close that — I'm glad that i never got so close that I ended up killing myself, though I came close more oftentimes than I would like to admit."
