LEFT – Musician Sammy Hagar performs in the grandstands prior to the start of the the NASCAR All-Star Race on June 13, 2021 in Fort Worth, Texas. RIGHT – Steven Tyler attends Steven Tyler’s Third Annual Grammy Awards Viewing Party on January 26, 2020 in Los Angeles, California.(Left – Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images: Right – Photo by Jean Baptiste Lacroix/Getty Images)
With every great success story comes struggle, and in the late 00’s Aerosmith was once again in a tumultuous spot. A situation that temporarily left the band without a singer and the remaining members left to hunt for a replacement for the bombastic Steven Tyler.
In a recent interview with Ultimate Class Rock, Sammy Hagar recounted this time in Aerosmith history in a way not known before. According to Hagar, he was approached by guitarist Joe Perry to join the group after Tyler had begun to skirt calls by the band and had begun to gear up for a solo career back in 2009.
“The Aerosmith hint … came around that time when Joe Perry tried to get me to join that band, and the management asked me to go to South America and try it out,” Hagar told Ultimate Class Rock (UCR). “I almost did it. I think if I would have done both those things, I would have been the guy that replaced the guy. You know, always the guy replacing the guy, and that’s a strange legacy for a guy like me, you know what I mean?”
In classic Hagar style, he went down to Mexico to mull over the offer.
“The problem is, I would have taken the toxicity out of the whole thing!” he continued laughing. “It probably would have bombed, because I’m not a toxic kind of guy. When the arguments start, I’m outta here. I can’t be in a bad situation like that. But that was real tempting there for five minutes. I got down to Cabo, and I really relaxed and thought about it. I was listening to all of the tunes and all of this stuff. I was thinkin’, ‘“Livin’ on the Edge,” I’ll fuckin’ kill that song!’ And then I woke up on the beach and said, ‘You know what? I can’t do this.’ So that was it.”
The strange part of it all was that Perry doesn’t remember extending the invitation to Hagar.
“The whole looking around for another lead singer thing, as soon as that raised its head — and I don’t know where it was quoted — but I don’t even know. Maybe I did, I don’t know,” Perry told UCR when asked about Hagar’s story. “But I’m usually the one on the other end of the phone when it comes to Aerosmith stuff. I don’t even know if I talked to Sammy. I’m not sure. I know it got out there, but we knew him, and I know him. He’s a really mellow guy, easy to get along with.”
At the time Perry was under the impression that Tyler was not returning so they group had begun their search, which included names like Lenny Kravitz, Paul Rodgers, Chris Cornell, and Billy Idol. Eventually the band would mend things, as they always had done, but this break had allowed for Tyler and Perry to try different creative avenues, Tyler joining American Idol in 2011 and releasing his memoir, and Perry releasing his own solo record in 2009, which some have attributed to the current peaceful relationship of the band.
Though Perry doesn’t remember extending the invitation to Hagar explicitly, he was definitely not knocking the Red Rocker’s abilities.
“He definitely had the pipes to interpret Aerosmith songs,” he continued. “I can see why that idea had been floated. But we also had a short list [of other potential singers] at that point. Things went the way they did, and everybody got out of their system what they wanted to. Then we slowly glued back together. I mean, you could say that the band split apart more than when I left [in 1979] and then [guitarist] Brad [Whitford] left [in 1981]. There were other times when we were like, ‘Okay, that’s enough. We’ve done enough.’”
“You don’t keep a band together without a lot of bumps and grinds,” Perry concluded. “That’s what it takes to keep it together. But as of today, I consider [Steven] the brother that I never had. We’re probably as close together now as we’ve ever been. We’re looking forward to getting back on the road together. It’s a long journey, man. The steps go sideways.”