Anthony Joseph Perry (Joe Perry)
Real Name: Anthony Joseph Perry
AKA: Joe Perry Birthday: September 10, 1950 Origin: Massachusetts, USA Music: Hard Rock Bands: Aerosmith |
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The paternal side of Perry's family are Portuguese, originally from Madeira. His grandfather changed the family's name from Pereira to Perry upon arriving in the United States of America. His maternal side is Italian, more specifically Neapolitan. Perry and his younger sister, Ann-Marie, grew up in the small town of Hopedale, Massachusetts. There, his father was an accountant and his mother a high school gym teacher and later an aerobics instructor. She later retired to Arizona while Perry's father died in 1975.
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During Joe Perry's early years he formed a band with Tom Hamilton, the bassist of Aerosmith and was called The Jam Band. Joe Perry joined Aerosmith at its formation in 1969. While initially dismissed as Rolling Stones knock-offs, the band came into its own during the mid-1970s with a string of hit records. Chief among these successes were Toys in the Attic in 1975 and Rocks in 1976, thanks largely to the prevalence of free-form, album-oriented FM radio. The group also managed hit singles on the AM dial with songs like "Dream On," "Same Old Song and Dance," "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk This Way." During this time, Perry and Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler became known as the "Toxic Twins" for their notorious hard-partying and drug use. Hard core drug dealers made a cash grab following Aerosmith around the country knowing there would be an unlimited supply of customers. The crowd was nicknamed "The Blue Army" by the band for the endless amount of teenagers in the audience wearing denim jackets and blue jeans. The audience was abundantly male with extremely long hair, one of the loudest of its day. |
Following Rocks, the group began to stumble - drug use escalated and the creative process became hampered by strained relationships within the band. They managed another hit record in 1977 with Draw the Line, Perry actually was featured on the frenetic "Bright Light Fright," one of the album's highlights. A fall of 77 tour was scheduled, but as the crowds got more dangerous, violence followed. An m-80 was thrown onstage in Philadelphia at the Spectrum in October 77, injuring both Perry and Tyler. Summer of 1979 saw the band headline over Van Halen, Ted Nugent, AC/DC and Foreigner during the world music festival concerts. An argument backstage in Cleveland resulted in Joe Perry's wife throwing a glass of milk at Tom Hamilton's wife. That was the end: Perry left to form his own band, taking his collection of unrecorded material with him, that would become the bedrock for his "Let the Music Do the Talking" album.
By the end of the year, Perry had formed his own band - The Joe Perry Project. Their debut record, Let the Music Do the Talking, reached #47 on the Billboard album charts, selling 250,000 copies domestically. While sales and reviews were respectable, the group mainly thrived as a live act. It managed to do so even after its second album, I've Got the Rock'n'Rolls Again, went largely ignored. In the end, the Project never solidified a lineup; all three studio releases would feature a different lead vocalist and the entire roster was replaced before their final effort (1983's Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker.) Even a brief stint with then-former Aerosmith rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford failed to ignite things again and the group found themselves with minimal label support by 1984. |
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In 1984, manager Tim Collins worked to get Perry back in contact with his former band mates in Aerosmith. He was eventually invited to rejoin the group, which he did - along with the also-estranged Brad Whitford. This restored the band's classic lineup and resulted in a lucrative reunion tour. Perry and Tyler collaborated with Run-DMC in a remake of their 1975 hit "Walk This Way," which brought their band renewed mainstream attention. After completing drug rehabilitation, Aerosmith went on to collaborate with various big-name songwriters and producers to launch their true comeback. Another string of successful albums (most notably the triple-platinum Pump in 1989) and many hit singles followed. Perry and Tyler resumed their tight friendship, again co-writing songs and performing very close together on stage. In 1998, Perry helped conceive the group's first number one single, "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," with pop songwriter Diane Warren. It appeared on the soundtrack to the hit film Armageddon. From 2001 to present, Aerosmith has been heavily active in the music scene, and has toured every year. In 2006, Perry performed alongside Steven Tyler for a three-song medley ("Dream On", "Walk This Way", "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing") with the Boston Pops Orchestra as part of a nationally-televised event to celebrate the Fourth of July in Boston, Massachusetts.
He released his first bona fide solo record, the self-titled Joe Perry, in May 2005. Recorded at his home studio (The Boneyard) in suburban Boston, with every instrument but the drums played by Perry himself, the album was greeted with enthusiasm by fans who felt that his classic rock "edge" had been stifled on recent Aerosmith releases. Critics also responded favorably; Rolling Stone magazine crowned it with three-and-a-half (out of five) stars, declaring "A Joe Perry solo joint? about time!" He was also nominated for "Best Rock Instrumental" at the 2006 Grammys for the track "Mercy" but lost to legend Les Paul.