Playing well with others is important - not being too flashy, just keeping good time and of course coming up with cool beats. A good snare drum, kick drum, high hat. Just getting good at the hand feet coordination.
A great solo does not make a great piece. Rather, a great solo in a great song - that's what makes a 10 out of 10. It's the combination of emotional feel and inventive ideas.
For 'Dynamite,' Max and Luke went to dinner and left me with a melody, and then I put it together.
I don't regard myself as a soloist. It's a color; I put it in for excitement. It's not great loss if a solo has to go. We've made songs without solos.
I love performing. The sounds coming at me are dynamic, colorful and multi-layered. The energy from the musicians around me and from the audience is a swirl of excitement. Sometimes, I can feel the stage vibrating under my feet.
Having my son on drums has made a huge difference. I can't stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. That's true on record and on stage.
There was something about the chemistry of the band and we would feed off each other. It was a gang of girls unleashed.
It's not like I'm writing full songs or full parts and setting it aside for Slash because, generally, I like him to make the first move and hear where he's coming from and what his concepts are, and then I build from there.
For me, it's always easier playing with a drummer.
'Are 'Friends' Electric?' was two songs: the verse part and the talking part. Two different songs I couldn't finish. One day I was playing the main verse part of 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and after a few minutes I got frustrated, as normal, then started to play the other song, and realized they went together.
Great melody over great riffs is, to me, the secret of it all.
I saw Al Foster with Miles Davis the other week. It was beautiful. But, the whole thing was, Al Foster played as well as everybody else, but all of them were quite brilliant under Miles Davis' direction.
The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation.
I mean, in the course of an evening, people will take a solo here and there, but generally it's all about the rhythm of that music. Dealing with the rhythm with everything. That's essentially at least my concept of what that group is.
I think one of the most valuable things Aerosmith has is the energy we produce when we all play together.
When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit.
People always want to romanticize relationships within bands. Most of these relationships are based on music first.
Although I'm a lead guitarist, I'd say that a good 95 percent of my time onstage is spent playing rhythm.
I really liked them, not just Syd, but all of them. Roger was very important, I thought, his contribution. And so was Rick's organ playing. It was a good band. It became something else completely, obviously.
Lots of times I'll play lead and rhythm together.
American music comes from the same tree, but sometimes we get to these places in history where we forget where things come from, and they get compartmentalized.
I think that the jazzy approach that I have is based on the way that I hear music and in the way I play a supporting role to the other people in the band.
As a drummer, I always approach things as, 'I want to play just enough to keep other drummers interested, but not enough to go over the average listener's head.'
Being a three piece, maybe it's easier. You only have two other guys, musically, and everything else to contend with and work with.
The limitations and parameters of a band is something I've always enjoyed: so many creative people coming together and raising the music to places we'd never get on our own.
