Joe Perry: the Aerosmith guitarist who walked out, then came back | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

JOE PERRY and Aerosmith went straight in at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1998 with I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, and stayed there for four weeks. It was number 1 in Australia too, and in Germany, Ireland and six other countries.

That was nearly 30 years into Aerosmith’s life, and almost 20 years after he had quit the band. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame calls Perry and Steven Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) a “combustible, magnetic duo”.

Early life and training

Joe Perry was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on 10 September 1950 and grew up in Hopedale. Jimmy Page, Who’s Who number 32, is named as one of the big influences on the way he plays.

Before Aerosmith he played with bassist Tom Hamilton in the Jam Band, a summer band that played The Barn in Sunapee, New Hampshire. Steven Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) saw them there in August 1969.

Aerosmith came together in Boston in 1970. The first line-up was Perry, singer Steven Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon), bassist Tom Hamilton, drummer Joey Kramer and a second guitarist, Ray Tabano. Brad Whitford took Tabano’s place in 1971. According to Perry’s official bio, he was living at 1325 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston when the band started, and the building was declared a historic landmark in November 2012.

Boston didn’t exactly throw its arms around them. Aerosmith played their own songs rather than covers, and the club scene wasn’t keen. “We were never really a Boston band,” Perry told the Boston Globe in October 2026.

Career chapters

1. 1970Co-founded Aerosmith in Boston
2. 1975Toys in the Attic
3. 1979Left Aerosmith after a row in Cleveland and formed the Joe Perry Project
4. 1980Let the Music Do the Talking
5. 1984Back in Aerosmith
6. 1986Walk This Way with Run-DMC
7. 1998I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, number 1 in the US
8. 2001Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Aerosmith
9. 2013Songwriters Hall of Fame, with Steven Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon)
10. 2024Aerosmith retired from touring
11. 2025One More Time EP

The Tyler and Perry partnership 1970s

From the start Perry was more than the lead guitarist. He was Tyler’s, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) songwriting partner, and the two of them would later go into the Songwriters Hall of Fame together.

The records from those years still sell. The RIAA has Toys in the Attic, from 1975, at nine times platinum and Rocks, from 1976, at four times platinum. Get Your Wings is three times platinum and Draw the Line twice.

Cleveland, and the Joe Perry Project 1979 to 1984

The split came on 28 July 1979, at the World Series of Rock at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. There was an argument backstage between two of the band members’ wives before the show. Later Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) and Perry clashed in the band’s trailer, and Perry left Aerosmith.

He formed the Joe Perry Project and released Let the Music Do the Talking in 1980.

Two more Project albums followed: I’ve Got the Rock ’n’ Rolls Again in 1981 and Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker in 1983.

The way back started on 14 February 1984, at a backstage meeting at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre at the end of the Rock in a Hard Place tour. That meeting began the healing that put the classic line-up back together, and Perry was back in Aerosmith by the end of 1984.

Walk This Way 1986

Producer Rick Rubin had an idea: Run-DMC, the trio of Joseph Simmons, Who’s Who number 17 in · Ultimate Hip Hop Reunion (story coming soon), Darryl McDaniels, Who’s Who number 18 in · Ultimate Hip Hop Reunion (story coming soon) and Jam Master Jay, Who’s Who number 19 in · Ultimate Hip Hop Reunion (story coming soon), would cover Aerosmith’s Walk This Way, with the band playing on it. By one account Jam Master Jay, Who’s Who number 19 in · Ultimate Hip Hop Reunion (story coming soon) rang Perry to ask. Aerosmith’s fee was reported as US$8,000.

The single came out on 4 July 1986. It was the first hip hop song to make the Billboard top ten, and the video was the first one Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) and Perry made for MTV.

The New Statesman thinks the claims that it changed the culture go too far. For Aerosmith, though, it was the turning point.

The big years 1987 to 2001

The records that followed sold in huge numbers. Permanent Vacation, from 1987, is now five times platinum. Pump (1989) and Get a Grip (1993) are seven times platinum each.

The Grammys came too. Aerosmith won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal four times, for Janie’s Got a Gun (1991), Livin’ on the Edge (1994), Crazy (1995) and Pink (1999). Then came I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing, from the film Armageddon, and its four weeks at number 1.

In 2001 Aerosmith went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted by Kid Rock. On 13 June 2013 Perry and Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at the Marriott Marquis in New York.

In between, on 4 April 2009 in Cleveland, Perry joined Metallica onstage at their own Rock Hall induction for Train Kept A-Rollin’, alongside Kirk Hammett, Who’s Who number 10, James Hetfield, Who’s Who number 33, Jimmy Page, Who’s Who number 32, Jeff Beck, Who’s Who number 15, Ronnie Wood, Who’s Who number 19 and Flea.

Away from the band he made solo albums under his own name: Joe Perry in 2005, Have Guitar, Will Travel in 2009 and Sweetzerland Manifesto in 2018.

Off the road 2023 to 2026

In September 2023 Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) fractured his larynx at a show in Elmont, New York, and the Peace Out tour stopped after three dates. In August 2024 Aerosmith announced it was retiring from touring, and a rescheduled run with The Black Crowes never happened.

Perry kept playing. On 30 April 2025 he and Tyler, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) played together at a Janie’s Fund benefit in San Francisco. That August the Joe Perry Project played eight shows, from Tampa to Port Chester, New York, with Brad Whitford, Chris Robinson, Robert DeLeo, Eric Kretz and Buck Johnson.

In November 2025 Aerosmith put out One More Time, a five-song EP with Yungblud and the band’s first new music since 2012. “Getting to work with Steven in the studio was awesome,” Perry told Ultimate Classic Rock. He’s honest about where things stand, too. “Everything we do is fragile,” he told Billboard.

Craft, sound and style

Jimmy Page, Who’s Who number 32 gets named as a major influence on Perry’s style. His own take on Walk This Way says a lot about how he listens. In Run-DMC he heard “a direct connection between what they were doing and the blues.”

He’s realistic about his trade, too. In 2026 he said the golden age of the guitar hero had passed.

A Gibson man who liked Strats

In the 1970s Perry called himself “a stone-cold Gibson man”, but he kept drifting to Strats for their range of tones. His first Les Paul was a 1968 Goldtop, bought for $300 to $400, and he later scraped the gold off. He was still looking for it in 2014. A tobacco burst ’59 Les Paul was sold in the 1970s and came back to him around his 50th birthday in 2000. By 2014 the original stayed in a vault, and he toured with Gibson’s relic copy. Gibson’s Gold Rush Les Paul Axcess in 2019 had his “chunky ’59” neck, a single humbucker and a tremolo, and only 150 were made.

On Walk This Way his own accounts differ. He told Guitar World he played the riff and solo on his “beat up” sunburst Strat, and told Guitar Player in 2025 he’d bet at least one track is a Les Paul. He recorded the solo in New York in front of a vintage Marshall, and thinks a Maestro Fuzz Tone was in there too. The groove came from the Meters and James Brown.

Marshalls and clean boosts

By 2012 his tech, Trace Foster, described “20 feet of amps”. In 2014 the heads were four modified Marshall JCM800s and a Morris Mo-Jo, into Marshall 4x12s, a 2x15 and a late 60s 8x10. He hit the amps with boosts: a Klon Centaur, a core part of his tone for about ten years, a Duesenberg Gold Boost and an Option 5 Destination Bump Boost. On Sweet Emotion he played the talk box.

Open A and soundcheck riffs

He writes mostly in open A, and goes to open G for “a whole different palette”. Janie’s Got a Gun is tuned up a half step. In 2014 he used Ernie Ball strings, .009 to .048, Dunlop medium picks and his own Boneyard slides, and he’s played lap steel since at least a 1971 show. Riffs come at soundchecks, or sitting on a 4x12 as it’s loaded onto the truck. “You have to cut your thinking,” he says. And the Strat’s vibrato is “one more color on your paint palette”.

Stories people still tell

1. 1325 Commonwealth Avenue.

   The Boston flat where Aerosmith started was declared a historic landmark in November 2012.

2. An $8,000 session.

   That’s the fee reported for Aerosmith’s part in Walk This Way, the record that put them back on top.

3. Hollywood Vampires.

   Perry plays in Hollywood Vampires with Alice Cooper, Who’s Who number 5 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon), Johnny Depp, Who’s Who number 9 in · Ultimate Gangster Reunion (story coming soon) and Tommy Henriksen. When they opened their UK and European tour at The O2 in London on 12 August 2026, Ronnie Wood, Who’s Who number 19, came out for two songs.

Legacy

The band says Aerosmith has sold more than 150 million albums worldwide. The RIAA has their Greatest Hits at Diamond.

It isn’t over yet. On 7 October 2026 Aerosmith announced two nights at the Hollywood Bowl, on 29 October and 1 November, called California, Dream On: Aerosmith & Friends. Don Was was named music director, with different guests each night. Slash, Who’s Who number 43, and Tom Morello, Who’s Who number 22, were among the names announced, along with Run DMC.

Perry told the Boston Globe that Tyler’s, Who’s Who number 23 in · Highway to Hell (story coming soon) voice “is pretty much there.”