Although they've never failed to deliver one of the most powerful live shows in rock, Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford credits the bands songs for their 50-year career. Aerosmith recently announced it would be pushing its spring "Deuces Are Wild" Las Vegas residency at Park MGM until later in the year, due to the coronavirus.
Whitford spoke to Guitar magazine and showcased some of his favorite road axes and shed light on how Aerosmith has managed to keep the loyalty of a still growing fanbase across all the decades. Whitford said, "Every part of the song has to be a hook. You can't have any dead spaces. When we were recording, Steven (Tyler) was always pushing for something different. Steven studied the Beatles so intensely he knew what made good songs. He taught me a lot about song construction. He was a perfectionist, but it would always turn into quality. It stands on its own!"
He went on to recall: "It was always very creative in the studio, we were always doing crazy things. We put a big piece of plywood on the floor, Steven put tambourines on his boots, and we recorded it. We used coconuts for the clippity-clop, and Steven did the whip sound from 'Back In The Saddle' with a real whip."
Brad Whitford told us he's comfortable with the numbers that Aerosmith are hitting with its recent releases, especially since they're no longer reaching the same demographic they were even a decade ago: ["A majority of young people that buy records — which is the people that buy records, really — are so heavily influenced by so many other genres of music and stuff. And I think we're moving out of that a little bit — probably not as bad as the Stones had it, because they were never huge album sellers anyway. You start to move into a time where there's just no way you're going to catch certain younger kids just because of how old you are. You can't do it."] SOUNDCUE (:28 OC: . . . can't do it)
Aerosmith's next show is set for June 13th at Milan, Italy's I-Days Festival.