In June of this year Rolling Stone met with Aerosmith‘s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry in the Nightbird studios of Los Angeles’ iconic Sunset Marquis hotel. At the time, Tyler discussed with us his excitement about making a solo album.
This past Saturday, Tyler was back at the Marquis to celebrate the hotel’s 50th anniversary in a star-studded VIP concert that also included a rocking 30-minute set from Vintage Trouble and the Doors‘ Robby Krieger sitting in with the cover band Bitch. Tyler also gave us another update and informed us that his solo album is moving forward.
“I’m working on it,” he said. “I just got back from Russia. Tour was over last week, so I set up my studio, and I had dinner with Rick Rubin last night.”
While their working together is not yet confirmed, Tyler seemed confident about Rubin’s involvement when asked about the likelihood. “We did do ‘Walk This Way’ with Run-D.M.C.,” he said. “That was his idea.”
When we spoke with Tyler in June, he was immersed in EDM — he’d just had dinner with Deadmau5 and was excited about exploring the synth world on his solo material. But given Rubin’s success in recent years doing raw, stripped-down songs with Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, the thought of Tyler going in that direction is intriguing.
“We’re going all them places, on the piano,” he said. “I love the album by C2C. If you listen to that and the song ‘Down the Road,’ that’s where I’m going – down that road.”