LiveDaily contributor Christina Fuoco-Karasinski reports:

AEROSMITH bassist Tom Hamilton sees his summertime Guitar Hero-sponsored jaunt with ZZ TOP as a sign of the times.

"Actually, before ZZ Top, we're putting together a huge Guitar Hero contest in each city," Hamilton said via telephone from his "little studio in his backyard" during an interview with LiveDaily. "The leaders of the competition are going to come up on stage before ZZ Top goes on and they're going to play live on the giant screens. That's going to be a freak fest for these people. I just think it's so funny and ironic that you can get so good at a game that you can get up on a stage and be doing it in front of the crowd. It's really funny."

Aerosmith is taking a break from pre-production for its next album to hit the road with ZZ Top, starting in Mansfield, MA, on June 16th. From what he calls his "lair," Hamilton spoke to LiveDaily about working with knob-turner Brendan O'Brien on the new material, what fans can expect from the live shows, and what has kept Aerosmith together after 40 years.

Q: What's it like to be working with Brendan O'Brien on new material?

A: "He's somebody we've wanted to work with for a long time. He actually mixed our Get A Grip album. The guy works at lightning speed, so he's got very close tolerances with his schedule. We did about eight weeks of pre-production, including about two weeks with Brendan. We did have a date we were aiming to go down to New York and go in the studio, but we just got delayed a bit. Steven [Tyler, singer] had sort of a pneumonia thing. I don't know if it was pneumonia or a bad bronchial infection, but it was enough to sort of screw up the schedule. We decided to put the album aside and go into getting-ready-for-the-tour mode."

Q: So it was going well with Brendan?

A: Well, yeah, we got a bunch of stuff done. We worked really fast and concentrated really hard, piled up a bunch of really great arrangements for some of these originals we want to record. We've got that on ice. It's ready for us to continue polishing it and finishing it and getting it ready to record."

Q: When do you plan on going back in the studio?

A: "It would probably be some time in the fall unless the tour gets extended. We'll either put it off again or just do the crunch and try to get it done at the same time."

Q: Describe the songwriting process for the new album.

A: "Some songs evolve from jams. But everybody has a pile of riffs. As far as this album goes, it's hard to predict how that's all going to come down. Speaking for myself, I've been bearing down pretty hard on just becoming more of a rounded, self-contained entity, where I can write songs, and, if they don't appeal to Steven as tracks, I can think of my own vocal ideas. I've been working really hard on that. But my scenario is to get in the studio with the band and just see what shakes out. We didn't have enough time to cover stuff that everybody wants to work on. Hopefully we'll get back to that and everybody will have a chance to pipe up."

Read the full interview at LiveDaily.