While Cactus and Mountain were each at times called “America’s Led Zeppelin,” The Clash, “the only band that matters” and the Stones, “world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band,” well, Aerosmith were given the title “America’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band.” It’s a label that most definitely stuck for many years and for good reason, and here they are in their 60s, fighting as hard as ever to hold onto that status, especially when it comes to the stage, where routinely Aerosmith seem to have tapped some legendary elixir of life. Ergo there goes a package called Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014, which begins life as a theatrical release on February 26th, with a DVD release to follow later this spring.

“Joe is much more physical than I am,” chuckles guitarist Brad Whitford, asked who the characters in this film are. “I’ll get out and move around the stage, but he’s so much fun to watch. I don’t know, I’m definitely more reserved and I guess I’m just concerned with getting it right (laughs), just laying it down, laying it down, laying the foundation down. And Steven’s just Steven. The guy is always on (laughs). Whether it’s a small club or a giant arena, he loves to present our music and this band. He has so much boundless energy for it, so much boundless passion. What you see is not a character—that’s Steven.”

Actors or not, Aerosmith’s passion play is on display for the UK, through a set list that is a whirlwind of rock history, but one that oddly celebrates and waxes nostalgic over the ‘70s and... the ‘90s.

“Yeah, well, the ‘80s was a dark time. A lot of stuff was going away and a lot of stuff was coming in to fill the slot. The hair metal bands were big, if you recall, and also dance bands were getting huge, and we were wondering how we fit in, where we fit in, and were we still relevant. It was a matter of questioning who we were, and we didn’t really need to. We started to re-establish ourselves and I guess found a little more faith in what we were doing. Done With Mirrors was a difficult album to make, and I don’t really feel like it got the best of our efforts. We were still finding out, again, who we were, and we were still regrouping and getting back together. I felt that for some of it, we weren’t really giving it our best efforts. Maybe we weren’t ready. We were still in our party period, where it was still just one long Friday night (laughs).”

 

 

A corner was turned, through the bells and whistles pageantry of Permanent Vacation, with the next two records, Pump and Get A Grip breaking the bank, no small thanks to the guidance of song guru John Kalodner. “Love In An Elevator,” “Eat The Rich,” Livin’ On The Edge,” “Janie’s Got A Gun,” “Cryin’”... these are all here and more from that era.

“Well, John was a tremendously huge force,” notes Brad. “We signed a new record deal with Geffen Records, and John convinced us to expand our horizons and he felt that our formula of how we were operating and how we were writing was tired—it was. We had sort of just emptied that glass out (laughs), and he said to Steven and Joe, you should try writing with some of these people I know, some of these songwriters that I like. And this didn’t fit well or didn’t sit too well with the band at first. I mean, we don’t like that shit. It was a little hard to take. But we did end up exploring that, and we did end up with some great songs, some great material, that allowed us to carry on. And John was the driving force behind all that. He was part of the process all the way. He would come in and if he didn’t like something, he would say, ‘I don’t like it!’ (laughs). You know, and if he liked something, he’d say so. So he kept pushing us to expand our writing horizons and to try and do better and to be better musicians. So he had a huge effect—huge.”

But Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014 contains much of the band’s patented blues-infused roots metal as well, in demonstration of a formula that is near and dear to the hearts of this institution of nearly 45 years.

“It’s hard to pick a set,” says Whitford. “We’re still doing a 90 minute to two hour show, and we can’t do all the songs we want to do. It’s always tough for us to sit together and... we’re constantly going over that trying to coming up with a perfect set (laughs). You know, we’re going out on tour this summer, and our goal is to try to pull out some other… I don’t want to say, obscure, because it’s not that they don’t know them, if they are deep fans of Aerosmith, but maybe songs we haven’t done in a long time. Could be fun—it’ll be a lot of fun for us.”

 

 

“But you’re right, I think we all have an anchor in the blues,” continues Whitford. “We’re all fans of certainly many types of music, but certainly the basis of where we came from was this deep appreciation of blues-based hard rock, really. We were huge fans of a lot of what was coming out of England at the time. Like so many of our contemporaries, so many of us were blown away by people like the Stones and The Yardbirds, and we so desperately wanted to do our own version of that. We were just huge into Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck—still are. We basically became just a two guitar band just like that. And although we were never bored with the blues, we also had this love and enthusiasm for Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, the stuff with a real hard edge. But the blues has a real soul to it, and any time we could take that and combine it with the harder stuff, and come up with these fresh ideas, we would take it. And sure enough, that’s what we did.”

 

 

(Band shots by Ross Halfin)