I have a big ego, but I don't buy into it. I can't live off the ego. It's an honor that I get to be that guy onstage. It's not something I earned.
— Steven Tyler
Schools, the first thing they cut is music programs. They don't realize how important music is to kids.
It doesn't feel good when you're put down, and especially for no uncertain reason.
Guitar players never listen to lead singers.
I've seen whales calving in the waters off Maui, and I've watched my children being born. But music is the most beautiful thing of all.
My toes are all squished. During an operation, they had to take nerves out.
If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing.
We may need to change the way we think. As in Israel, I think there should be a mandatory draft, where you go away for the service of your country for three years.
Nothing is ever a barometer. Nothing is ever for sure except that this band has been around forever.
If you take all that I've learned from Joe and all that Joe has learned from me, and you throw all that into a song, not only are you using the gifts that God gave you, but also all the experiences you've had.
I'm not sure about the selling part, but I've always found that the things I've worn on tour have moved over to what people wear every day. Sometimes the things I wore in the beginning before I had money were things I put together.
I like to come up with the melodies, and I have a lot of ideas as far as structure goes.
I grew up in New Hampshire. My closest neighbor was a mile away. The deer and the raccoons were my friends. So I would spend time walking through the woods, looking for the most beautiful tropical thing that can survive the winter in the woods in New Hampshire.
Great melody over great riffs is, to me, the secret of it all.
But you've reached them, and I've always wanted to reach people. I'm the first one to say I love my fans because they love that I took a chance.
As good as I am, I'm nothing without my band.
Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.
I grew up with the smell of the lake and the feeling of the woods.
Through song you learn, and I think school systems need to learn that. Through the rhythm you can learn better, through melody, with something you need to learn; it's a vehicle for it.
My feet have been my best friend for the last 40 years. I've just been a dancing fool on stage, and after awhile you just kind of wear them out.
I think if you were to really peek under the hood of what got Aerosmith back again for our second life in the Eighties, you'll find out that it's exactly this, it's the willingness to take a risk.
I love the woods even more than the ocean.
Dogs have a lot of love.
When that second airplane hit the building, we all changed. We need to get back to some serious thinking.
The band's never taken a year off. Last August we decided to take one, and three months in I was bored to tears.
My wife and I had decided not to let anybody take pictures of our home because it was just the last place on earth we had that was unscathed. But people have climbed over the fence; they've taken aerial shots. They've gotten my address and put it on the Internet.
I've got scarves and boots from' 1970 that I still wear.
I quit my band in New York City in 1969 and I got really angry at them. I got angry at one of my guitar players and I dove over the drum set and we got into a fight.
I have to get inspired by something that touches my soul, or rocks my soul.
I don't mind being a grandfather; I've been a mother for so many years. You just can't believe what it's like being a father. Especially when you come out of the chaos of the road to getting married and having children.
Fake it until you make it.
Back then it was nothing like today. So you'd go to the bowling alley. We bowled and you could be in the back and you could make out, you know? And you know how hot it was to make out.
You have no idea how expensive it is to look this cheap.
The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first.
Music expresses what cannot be put into words I like to think, and I think the band makes a good go at it.
I had been on the junior Olympic team in high school for trampoline; I could do twenty-six back flips in a row.
Why not share with the world the way it is and tell them my feelings about my cat, and how I played with my kids, and how addicted to Christmas time I am, and the smell of pine needles and hearing my kids laugh.
Maybe life is random, but I doubt it.
I can't live off the ego.
I don't think anything is forever, but when my kids tell me they love me, that's forever.
We need to go back to the way it was 30 years ago, when everybody had Grandma and Grandpa, and we were willing to pass moral judgments about right and wrong.
Now I'm way into suits that I can put on whether I took a shower or not, and wear barefoot and paint my toes black or whatever color the suit is. It's very cool to wear suits like that. Roll up the sleeves and just say yee-haw.
It was very difficult for me to be the only lyricist in the band.
I'm really just a country boy.
I mean, as long as it doesn't have a bra attached, guys can take a risk and wear stylish things that went out of style 30 years ago. As things go around, they come around.
I had gotten one of the first Korg synthesizers with 300 presets.
Humility is really important because it keeps you fresh and new.
Drugs will get you out of your own way, but we lived it, and that's dangerous. It can actually turn around on itself and steal your soul, and that's what happened.
As you know, I'm androgynous. I can wear a jacket that most guys wouldn't put on. But you make it in guys' sizes, and suddenly they're wearing them. I think styles should get back to getting people to wear things that look so good that they don't care.
I'm grateful for doing those drugs, because they kept me from getting laid and I would have gotten AIDS.
