Steven Tyler has left Aerosmith after a recent concert in Abu Dhabi, according to guitarist Joe Perry.
“Steven quit as far as I can tell,” Perry said to the Las Vegas Sun. “I don’t know anymore than you do about it. I got off the plane two nights ago. I saw online that Steven said that he was going to leave the band. I don’t know for how long, indefinitely or whatever. Other than that, I don’t know.”
Perry says that he would know more if Tyler returned his phone calls.
“He’s notorious for that,” Perry said. “That’s one thing I’ve learned to live with. I try to overlook it. I like to pick my battles. Frankly, the last few months I’ve been wanting not to rock the boat. I don’t want him canceling any more gigs. We really wanted to do these last four. We just kind of didn’t want to call him out or anything and get him anymore pissed off, for whatever reason. So we just let things lie. So we did the gigs and, like I said, I got off the plane and saw this online. That’s how I know about it.”
Perry seems unimpressed with Tyler’s recent behaviour and says he has probably been planning to leave the band for some time. “Obviously he hasn’t been giving 100 percent to this thing for a long time,” Perry said. “He’s obviously had this planned for a long time. To disregard his brothers to the point where we have to find out about it on the Internet – it’s like, ‘See you later, Bud.’ I still care for him as a person, or at least the person I used to know. But things change.”
Perry says he hopes to keep Aerosmith together, with or without Tyler. “I really don’t know what path it’s going to take at this point, but we’ll probably find somebody else that will sing in those spots where we need a singer and then we’ll be able to move the Aerosmith up a notch, move the vibe up a notch.”
