Aerosmith Tours With an "Arsenal," Says Black Keys Drummer

Aerosmith Tours With an "Arsenal," Says Black Keys Drummer

In its nearly 50 years as a chart-topping rock band, Aerosmith and its band members have explored many ventures outside music, including video games. 

While many of us are familiar with the band's hit Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game, fewer are familiar with the band's Revolution X game from 1994. 

Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney explained to the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast that he always regarded the rail shooter-type game as a puzzling footnote on the band's history. Though the game is branded with Aerosmith's name and image, its lack of plot and singular goal of shooting bad guys always seemed odd, if not unsettling, Carney suggests.

But the drummer revealed that he got some insight into what might have inspired the game after a chance meeting with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry backstage at the MTV Movie Awards several years ago.

"[After our performance] we're standing outside behind the amphitheater in Los Angeles," Carney recalled. "It's Dan, Johnny Depp, Joe Perry, Steven Tyler and me."

In the presence of a movie star and two of the biggest rock stars of all-time, Carney said he felt like the "odd man out," but he also wanted to make conversation. 

"Then there's just this thing; I've just started thinking about the Aerosmith video game and then I'm looking at these guys and they start talking, just Steven Tyler to Joe Perry," recalled Carney. "They're like, 'How are we gonna get the stuff — our stuff — out to Minnesota?' And I'm just so nosy, I'm like, 'Oh, well...you guys have a show in Minnesota?'

"They're like, 'Yeah, we have a tour; we're playing a Minnesota state fair.' I was like, 'Well, what do you have to get out there?' He's like, 'You know, just some stuff.' I was like, 'Well, what? Can't you just fly it.'"

To most rockers, you would assume "stuff" is code for drugs. Not so.

"Joe Perry's looking at me, he goes, 'We tour with a goddamn arsenal.' Then Steven Tyler looks and me, he's like, 'Hand grenades, machine guns.' 

"I was like, 'What?!'

"He's like, 'Yeah, our buses are loaded down with guns. You can't travel around this country without weaponry.' And I'm thinking, 'That f---ing Aerosmith video game is real life! It's not just some bulls--t.' I'm glad I learned that.'

The clues as to the former Toxic Twins' affinity for firepower have been around for a long time, but it seems Tyler and Perry have mostly kept this aspect of their lives private. 

Perry has been photographed at shooting ranges and even once appeared on a gun enthusiast television show.  

In 2002, a top NYPD official was investigated for helping Tyler and Perry get pistol licenses in return for VIP treatment. 


Photo: Getty Images


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