Joe Perry "Ready to Rock" After Motorcycle Crash

Aerosmith are only five days away from launching their new tour and guitarist Joe Perry wants fans to know he'll be taking the stage alongside his bandmates despite being rear-ended on his motorcycle last week. "Just like the name of the tour, I am 'Cocked, Locked and Ready to Rock,' " he said in a statement. As Rolling Stone reported, Perry was hospitalized after a woman driving a Chevy Malibu crashed into his Ducati Monster near his home in Massachusetts. Aerosmith start an 18-city tour — a trek that includes a homecoming show at Fenway Park that sold out in a mere 23 minutes — Friday night in Oakland.

Perry was discharged from Morton Hospital and Medical Center a few hours after the accident on Thursday, and is injury free. His motorcycle was less fortunate. "It was a close call; my bike is smashed but I am OK from head to toe," he said.

Perry's good health is no doubt a huge relief for Aerosmith, who suffered a number of mishaps during their 2009 tour. After losing guitarist Brad Whitford to a head injury and bassist Tom Hamilton to surgery, Aerosmith eventually had to cancel the rest of the tour after Steven Tyler fell off of the stage at a South Dakota show and broke his shoulder. "I want to thank all of the fans for their emails and support," said Perry.

Speaking to Rolling Stone last month, Perry said the band is pumped for its big return to the U.S. "Steven is singing better than I've heard in a long time and the shows have just gotten better and better," he said. "It feels like 1971 again. We've had a lot of ups and downs in the past, and we're up-ing right now." Aerosmith played a short South American and European tour to prepare for their U.S. gigs, and plans to head back to the studio in late 2010 or early 2011.

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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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