Joe Perry is reportedly recovering from a health episode that caused him to collapse last Sunday at a gig with his band Hollywood Vampires.
But his longtime Aerosmith bandmate Steven Tyler is worried. He says he’s reached out to Perry, but so far he’s heard nothing back.
“It’s starting to scare me a little bit,” Tyler tells Billboard.
Perry passed out backstage during the Vampires’ Sunday-night show at the Ford Amphitheater in Coney Island, New York. Page 6 reported that the 65-year-old Aerosmith guitarist went into cardiac arrest around 9:30 p.m. He was rushed to Coney Island Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. The cause of his collapse remains unconfirmed.
While Tyler doesn’t know what caused Perry to fall, he has a theory that the guitarist’s grueling work habits are to blame.
“I know they’re putting out nothing but ‘He’s recovering, he’s really good, he fainted, exhaustion,’” Tyler says. “But I know my brother. He’s just about the only other guy that’s as passionate about his art as I am. He’s always asking me to do three, four shows in a row, and I can’t. I’ll blow my voice out. I know how to maintain my career, my health, and Joe’s passionate. I don’t think he knows how to.
“I think he’s out there and someone’s overbooking him. They’re doing like eight or nine shows in a row, or five in a row. I think they’re all a little burnt. I think they may need to look at that.
“Not young anymore, y’know?”
The Vampires have continued their tour without Perry. The group’s publicist confirms that Perry will rejoin the group at a later date when he’s well again.
Perry and Aerosmith are also scheduled to begin a South American tour on September 29. But Tyler—who is currently touring behind his country solo album, We’re All Somebody from Somewhere, which comes out Friday, July 15—says his only concern for now is Perry’s health.
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“I don’t give a shit about the band,” Tyler says. “I want Joe to live. I’m really concerned and worried right now that I’m not getting any news. I’m a little bummed out, and that scares me. I don’t know whether it’s heat prostration or whether he’s been working himself too hard, or getting off on wrong things passionately. I don’t know what it is, but I know that nobody’s talking to me. I can only tell you that Joe’s my brother and I love him so much.”
Christopher Scapelliti is editor-in-chief of Guitar Player magazine, the world’s longest-running guitar magazine, founded in 1967. In his extensive career, he has authored in-depth interviews with such guitarists as Pete Townshend, Slash, Billy Corgan, Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren, and audio professionals including Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott. He is the co-author of Guitar Aficionado: The Collections: The Most Famous, Rare, and Valuable Guitars in the World, a founding editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine, and a former editor with Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician and Maximum Guitar. Apart from guitars, he maintains a collection of more than 30 vintage analog synthesizers.
