AEROSMITH Guitarist JOE PERRY - "I've Got Time To Work On My Solo Stuff, Which I've Been Doing"

ArtistDirect.com recently caught up with Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry to discuss his new memoir, Rocks: My Life In And Out Of Aerosmith. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Do you tend to read a lot of biographies?

“I’m a very voracious reader, and I tend to lead towards historical novels and science fiction. When I started to do this project, I read quite a few autobiographies to decide who to get to write with me and also see how other people did it. I read 70 percent music autobiographies, and the others were politicians or sports figures. I probably read 20 or 30 books. I read some good ones and some bad ones. That helped a lot with how I felt about how I was going to approach this one.”

Have you been writing more music?

“I have to say songwriting has been as much of a hobby as anything else. Obviously, it’s one of the ways I make money to live. It’s also what I do to relax and get things off my chest. There are a bunch of reasons I’m always writing. Doing the book, I could see why I liked certain records better than others. More importantly, I had to put my studio time on the shelf for a while because it took so much time to do the book. We went on the road twice during the course of the book so I had to put it aside for a while as well. I’d probably have a lot more songs written if I wasn’t writing the book. I’m glad to be pretty much done with it. I’ve got time to work on my solo stuff, which I’ve been doing.”