Aerosmith’s Joey Kramer – HuffPost 4.30.14
Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?
Joey Kramer: I don’t know man! It’s so different now than it was when we started and when we were young. The only thing that I can say really is that if you have a dream, which is what it was for us, you have to want it so f**king bad that you go for it in every way, shape and form that you possibly can. You breathe it, you sleep it, you don’t do anything but it for the whole time that you’re awake and alive. That’s what we did and that’s what happened. But I don’t know that that kind of love and that kind of energy and that kind of want or desire is still there. It gets talked about a lot. I hear it talked about a lot but I don’t really see it in form. I don’t really see it come to be.
MR: Is it a different kind of work ethic?
JK: I think to a large extent it is, don’t you? It’s got to be, because this is the land of, “If you want it, you can have it.” That’s all people do, is talk about it, but there’s so many kids today who are subjected to so many different things in so many different ways whether it’s TV or radio, violence has no bearing on their lives, stealing has no bearing on their lives, people going hungry has no bearing on their lives because we’re all so spoiled and we take everything so for granted that why woudl we expect them to want to work really hard to accomplish a goal that they say they really love? Everybody is entitled.
MR: Entitlement is a big issue.
JK: It is! It’s the worst thing in the world and we’re pretty much our own worst enemies when it comes down to it.
MR: What do you think about American Idol and these other singing game shows?
JK: Of the kind of music that we’re talking about? Real rock ‘n’ roll? There hasn’t been an American Idol for bands. There’s American Idol for singers, there’s The Voicefor singers, everybody wants to be a star. It’s easy for me to see because i’m a drummer; I see everything that goes on. I’m a team player. I’m not the quarterback but I can appreciate what the quarterbck does. I’m on the line making the quarterback happen. I’m one of the springs in the back of the clock that enables the clock to tell time, but nobody really gives a s**t about that. Everybody wants to be the singer because that’s what everybody’s attention is focused on. There are lots and lots of other people who really get excited, as I do, about being a part of a team when the team is successful. But the team is only successful when everybody is pulling their weight. That’s just not the way now, so you get a boy band because you’ve got five guys that want to be the lead singer.