Aerosmith Bio(s)

Aerosmith Bio(s) by Roxanne McDonald

Not one of the “Bad Boys from Boston” is actually from Beantown. They put the band together and based it from Boston outward, but the members are from neighboring states.

Steve Tyler
Front man dynamo and dreamboat to millions, Tyler was born Steven Victor Tallarico in New York, New York, on March 26, 1948. Happy birthday, Aries Steven! Tyler (Tallarico, then) began not as a lead singer but as a little drummer boy. He changed up his ambitions from drumming to singing when he heard the Beatles, Stones, Yardbirds, and other rockers. He moved to Boston in the late 60s.

Joe Perry
With the band during its inception and early growth years, from 1970 to 1979, Perry the Virgo was born Anthony Joseph Perry in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on November 9, 1950.

Joey Kramer
With Aerosmith from the start, Joseph Michael Kramer came to us by way of a New York, New York hospital, on June 21, 1950. He also brought his experience as a Berklee College of Music [dropout].

Tom Hamilton
With Tyler and Kramer, Hamilton is the third to be with the band from its start. From Colorado Springs, on December 12, 1951, then New London, New Hampshire, where Hamilton was living when he met the other original band members, we get one of the finest bassists to ever grace our listening.

Brad Whitford
1971 to 1980 is as long as Whitford stayed with Aerosmith. But thanks to his coming into the part of the world known as Amherst, Massachusetts (right down the road a piece from Boston), on February 23, 1952, we have an Aerosmith that started with a rocking rhythm guitar lead that hasn’t stopped even though Whitford has.

So, back in those years when Rock was getting a second wind, Steve Tallarico was doing 60s gigs as a drummer and backup singer in marginal groups such as The Vic Tallarico Orchestra, The Chain, The Strangeurs, and others bands going nowhere.

On break in New Hampshire, he met Steve Perry (who is said to have been working in an ice cream parlor and/or washing dishes at The Anchorage in Sunapee). Tallarico joined Joe Perry on guitar and Tom Hamilton on bass, in what was then the burgeoning Jam Band.

Having moved to Massachusetts, and having left drummer David “Pudge” Scott behind, Perry and Hamilton found Joey Kramer, who reportedly also had a desire to work with Tallarico; then, adding strength to the already jamming guitar work of Perry, they brought in Ray Tabano, hooked up with Tallarico, and renamed the much revered local group Aerosmith—at much the same time Tallarico turned Tyler and Aerosmith opted for Boston as their home base (In 1970).

Once Tyler got his way as lead singer, refusing to do drums or back-up (1970), and once Brad Whitford (also a talented Berklee alumnus) came to replace Tabano on guitar, by 1973, they were bringing us the best rock we had ever heard and were getting a rep for being, as, of all people to say so, Jerry Garcia is determining Aerosmith to be the “druggiest bunch…” he’d ever seen. And changes, as they will, challenged them. Aerosmith went from a hiatus where Perry and Whitford split (1979) to Perry returning (1984) thanks to a relentless manager, Tim Collins, to clean sobriety/ recovery of every single member since then…to being what many of us would assert is the greatest American Rock band of all time.

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