Steven Tyler has gone country, but not everyone is jazzed about it.
In a new interview with Billboard, Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford says the band won’t be touring much in 2016 because they’ve been “abandoned” by their frontman as he pursues a country-flavored solo career.
Aerosmith’s spring and summer 2016 tours across North America have been scrapped, according to Whitford, as Tyler prepares to release his solo record, which he’s currently recording in Nashville. The first single from Tyler’s LP, “Love Is Your Name”, dropped in May and hit Number 19 on the Hot Country Songs chart.
“Steven doesn’t want to do it,” Whitford tells Billboard about any future Aerosmith tours. “It’s unfortunate. We kind of feel a little bit abandoned by him. I guess he seems to think his solo career is going to go great guns, and he doesn’t seem to realize that — in my opinion — his fans around the globe want to see him in the context of Aerosmith and don’t really care for whatever he thinks he’s gonna do.”
Oh damn.
“I don’t know if he gets that,” Whitford adds, “but, hey, that’s what he wants to do. I can’t put a gun to his head. It’s just pretty disappointing.”
Whitford will soon release new music of his own under Whitford St. Holmes, the reunited project featuring him and Ted Nugent singer/guitarist Derek St. Holmes. Reunion will be released “in the near future,” writes Billboard, and the band will head out on a 10-date tour this week. Whitford describes the sound of Reunion as along the lines of classic Aerosmith albums Rocks and Toys In The Attic. “It’s a classic rock album — modern classic rock,” he says. “I mean, that’s what we do. We’re all rockers, and we’re not gonna try and do anything else but what we know and what we love. I think a lot of Aerosmith fans are really going to enjoy this record because all I ever hear is, ‘When you gonna do another Toys? When you gonna do another Rocks?’ That’s what this album is. It’s very straight-ahead, stripped-down classic rock.”
Another burn.
In other Aerosmith news, guitarist Joe Perry is working on a new solo record after a stint in Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp’s Hollywood Vampires project, while drummer Joey Kramer plans to open a new rock and roll-themed restaurant up in Maine. Menu items include “Livin’ On A Wedge” and “Janie’s Got A Bun.”