NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — There's been a lot of back and forth this week on the status of Steve Tyler and Aerosmith – will he leave the band? Will Aerosmith find a replacement singer?
An odd surprise appearance by Tyler, who took to the stage at Manhattan's Irving Plaza on Tuesday night during a gig by Joe Perry seemed to put the matter to bed. Tyler grabbed a mic and told the crowd "New York, I want you to know I'm not leaving Aerosmith. Joe Perry, you are a man of many colors. But I, motherf—er, am the rainbow." Tyler and Perry then went on to perform the Aerosmith classic "Walk This Way" leading many to believe that the story had just been rumor..that conclusion may have been a little hasty.
Perry, in a subsequent interview with Rolling Stone that Tyler's appearance on stage had been a "shock" to him and that it certainly didn't mean that things had been resolved.
here was all this commotion during our encore break and somebody said, 'Steven is here.' " Perry told Rolling Stone. "And I was like, 'What?'" The two performers then engaged in some brief chit chat before Tyler asked to sit in for an encore of "Walk this Way." Perry says he agreed and the two took to the stage but that was the last he saw of Tyler.
Tyler's on-stage claims to the contrary, Perry told Rolling Stone that Aerosmith is still considering touring recording without Tyler.
"He wants to take two years off from the band," Perry says. "The rest of the band wants to keep on working. We have so many different options to fill up that time. Anything is possible at this point. Basically, any communication that we’ve had over the last couple of months has been through managers, so that’s been pretty strange."
The controversy between Tyler and Perry centers around the direction for the iconic band. Perry reportedly wants to see the band return to the bluesier sound of their earlier recordings while Tyler favors the pop-influenced sound that characterized some of their later efforts. – CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
