AEROSMITH legends Steven Tyler and Joe Perry will be honored with the Founder's Award for songwriting at this year's ASCAP Expo, to be held next week in Los Angeles. It's part of a banner spring for the duo, who were also selected for induction into the Songwriting Hall Of Fame and are co-headlining in Australia with VAN HALEN. Shortly before takeoff, the veteran rockers sat down with Rolling Stone at NightBird Recording Studios in West Hollywood, where they discussed the pleasures of live performance and how they dealt with early criticism, which Tyler admits, "Hurt the first few years."

Q: Awards offer an opportunity to reflect. When you look back, which moments stand out?

Steven Tyler: "We come from an era when 'Sweet Emotion' and 'Back In The Saddle' were considered dark and we weren't accepted. We were just a B-side album band. We were never a singles band. Then the 80s came along with 'Dude (Looks Like A Lady)'. I listen to that now and I think, 'What?' It's fun to hear, kind of like 'Wooly Bully', but were we trying too hard to be a singles band? It doesn't fucking matter. We've been strung out and sober. We've sold in and we've sold out. Some days we didn't even sell at all. What matters is we're still together as a band."

Joe Perry: "One of the things that really hits the nail on the head is the time Steven and I got a phone call from our manager telling us we went to number one with 'I Don't Want To Miss A Thing'. That was our first number one single. We looked at each other and said, 'Holy shit! That's great, but I thought for sure we had a number one in there somewhere.' And then we just put the phone down and went back to what we were doing. We've been such a live band for so many years, the only time I remember thinking, 'Wow, we've got something,' is when we aimed for something that would carry the day live. 'Cause that's what we do – we're here to entertain the crowd."

Read more at RollingStone.com.

Tyler and Perry will be inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall Of Fame at this year's Opening Night at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, June 22nd, at 8 PM.

The songwriting team have sold more than 150 million albums worldwide, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and are the recipients of countless awards including four GRAMMYs, eight American Music Awards, six Billboard Awards and 12 MTV Video Music Awards, among many other honors. Tyler and Perry first appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in May of 1999, with subsequent appearances in 2002, 2006 and last year's sold-out performance.

Following their induction during this season's Hollywood Bowl Opening Night concert, Tyler and Perry will perform with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, led by Thomas Wilkins. Other special guests are to be announced.

Proceeds from the evening benefit the LA Phil and its education programs, which reach more than 120,000 children, teachers and adults every year.

100.7 WZLX's Tim Staskiewicz is reporting that Aerosmith have scheduled their first US tour date this year, on July 10th at the MGM Grand Theater at Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut.

Before playing in the woods of Connecticut, Aerosmith will roll through Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on a spring tour, which kicks off on April 20th and 21st at the Stone Music Festival in Sydney Australia.

Tickets for the Foxwoods show are on sale Friday morning (April 12th) at 10 AM through Foxwoods.com.