Aerosmith's Kramer Speaks Out About Aerosmith Singer Search

At a book signing Saturday afternoon at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer confirmed the band is experiencing "personal differences," and will seek a new singer should Steven Tyler depart to pursue "brand Tyler," as the frontman recently told Classic Rock magazine. "What kind of singer? A real, real good one," Kramer said.

"Just like writers write and dancers dance, we're musicians," he added. "We make music. That's what we want to continue to do, so whatever we have to do to move forward in that direction, that's what will happen."

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Kramer, promoting his new book Hit Hard, took questions from about a hundred fans from a stage in the casino's smoky lounge. While Kramer said he wishes Tyler the best in pursuing a solo career, he said the band does not want to wait for him. "[Steven] wants to do what he wants to do," Kramer said. "That's great. I support him. I will always love him. I have always supported him … but we want to play too. I can't sit around for two years and not play my drums — or not function as a band."

Kramer said he has specific criteria in mind for a new vocalist. "There's a difference between a singer and what I call a frontman or a performer," he said. "Luckily for us, Steven is both of those and probably the best out there. If he chooses to go pursue a solo career for a while, then it would have to be somebody that can in my opinion have to do both — that would have to be able to perform the songs as well as sing them."

Kramer added earlier, "I'd love to hear suggestions."

One fan told Kramer he hopes the band will work things out and again write heavy, guitar-driven material picking up where 1976's Rocks left off. Kramer agreed. "I suppose it would work if we could get all the personal differences out of the way," he said. "I live in drama-rama. My life has been in drama-rama for the last 40 years because that's what this band is all about."

Earlier this month, Tyler revealed to Classic Rock he wanted to take a break from the band, and Joe Perry later told the Las Vegas Sun, "Steven quit as far as I can tell." The back-and-forth climaxed last week when Tyler showed up unannounced at Perry's solo club gig in New York and proclaimed: "I am not leaving Aerosmith."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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