Joe Perry's New York Times bestselling memoir of life in the
rock-and-roll band Aerosmith: "An insightful and harrowing roller
coaster ride through the career of one of rock and roll's greatest
guitarists. Strap yourself in" (Slash).
Before the platinum records or the Super Bowl half-time show or the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, Joe Perry was a boy growing up in small-town
Massachusetts. He idolized Jacques Cousteau and built his own diving rig
that he used to explore a local lake. He dreamed of becoming a marine
biologist. But Perry's neighbors had teenage sons, and those sons had
electric guitars, and the noise he heard when they started playing would
change his life.
The guitar became his passion, an object of lust, an outlet for his
restlessness and his rebellious soul. That passion quickly blossomed
into an obsession, and he got a band together. One night after a
performance he met a brash young musician named Steven Tyler; before
long, Aerosmith was born. What happened over the next forty-five years
has become the stuff of legend: the knockdown, drag-out,
band-splintering fights; the drugs, the booze, the rehab; the packed
arenas and timeless hits; the reconciliations and the comebacks.
Rocks is an unusually searching memoir of a life that spans from the
top of the world to the bottom of the barrel--several times. It is a
study of endurance and brotherhood, with Perry providing remarkable
candor about Tyler, as well as new insights into their powerful but
troubled relationship. It is an insider's portrait of the rock and roll
family, featuring everyone from Jimmy Page to Alice Cooper, Bette Midler
to Chuck Berry, John Belushi to Al Hirschfeld. It takes us behind the
scenes at unbelievable moments such as Joe and Steven's appearance in
the movie of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (they act out the
murders of Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees).
Full of humor, insight, and brutal honesty about life in and out of one
of the biggest bands in the world, Rocks is "well-paced,
well-plotted...a mini-masterpiece" (The Boston Globe).
