Joe-Perry

Well, when we were in Europe, I was playing "Freedom Fighter" and because of what's going on in the world, we basically made a decision not to get into politics (the band, as a whole) because we all have different attitudes about that, but that particular song, I had to write the lyrics, and I really wanted to put it in the show, and so when we were in Europe, I played it right through to the end, and then actually some of the shows in the States, that was important for me to play the song because of the message, but from a guitar point of view, I love playing "Rats in the Cellar" because it has such a great jam at the end and it's different every night.

I think that overall, when we first started to make it, when we first started to realize that people were listening to our records, and weren't listening to the critics, and weren't listening to all the naysayers and whatever, and were just taking us for what we were, and we started having fans that were really listening to us - and I think that was the most exciting time. I think it's the most exciting time for ANY band that is fortunate enough to make it. That period of time when you go from calling all your friends to show up at the club to having more people trying to get in than can fit - that is a moment that never feels the same. There's NOTHING you can do in your career that feels more exciting than that.

The book tour. No, seriously! Doing the book tour was - there were a lot of parallels between doing a book and doing a record, but doing the book tour was really intense. But the other thing - I mean, that just comes with the territory. The thing that was the hardest was re-living some of the parts of my life that I would just as soon forget. I'd figured I'd dealt with that stuff and put it away in a shoebox never to be opened again, but I had to deal with that stuff, sometimes multiple times, and it was really hard to cut open that part of my soul and my heart, to let people into that, because in order for this book to be what it is, I had to let that stuff out.

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. 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.

Wow.

Well, thanks for the support, for all the years, and for the - just, I wouldn't be here doing this if it wasn't for you and people like you! I'm a fan first, and I feel like every time I do something, I think about how the fans are gonna like it, or perceive it, or enjoy it or not, and I gotta say thanks for that.

But that's an interesting question, because very often, when I'm in the middle of working, there are times when I feel really inspired and I can go down and riffs come flying off. And there are other times I'm sitting there going "look, i wrote some of the best rock songs i ever wrote, what else is there to say?"

But if I look back in history, I'm sure Leiber and Stoller, the great songwriting team that wrote so many great songs for Elvis like "Hound Dog", I'm sure there were times they felt like they'd written the best stuff they could ever write and look at all the songs that have been written SINCE then, not just by them! So there's an infinite number of riffs out there, of melodies - It's about tapping into that creative place, and pretending you've never written a song before, and then things start to flow. But I've had that feeling a few times, more times than I can count, frankly.

I really can't comment on "Walk this Way." 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.

Well, it's kind of a really - it's an amazing thing, to have that. I mean it's one of those things you never kind of expect when you're playing in clubs around Boston just trying to make it and get people to listen to your music. It's probably one of those things where if somebody said "In 30 years, you're gonna have a rollercoaster at DisneyWorld" - it's just so unexpected! But the thing is - they let us design the music for it, I wrote it side-by-side with Steven almost 50 times just to get the music right. But it's also a good analogy for the band's career, because it's... when they count down and you take off, that rush is like, incredible - that's like the rest of the ride is great, but that first rush is like when you play in a club and the place is packed, and then everything after that, you go through, you know, traveling, through cities and you know, almost upside down, and it's kind of like a 3 minute analogy to our career.

It's kind of funny.