A Conversation with Aerosmith’s Joey Kramer – HuffPost 4.30.14
Mike Ragogna: Hey Joey. You’ve got the Let Rock Rule tour coming up with special guest Slash.
Joey Kramer: Yeah. In my opinion, Slash is probably one of the last of the iconic guitar players carrying the torch of what it’s really all about.
MR: Speaking of carrying the torch, I think Aerosmith has been that torch for a long time now, and you’ve all been very dedicated. Just look at the projects and tours you’ve done, like going overseas in support of Japan when it had the nuclear disaster. You guys are pretty dedicated to keeping that Aerosmith flaship going no matter what. Why is that?
JK: I think the common denominator is the love of what we do, bottom line. We could be fighting or disagreeing or having whatever’s going on, and Lord knows there’s lots of drama, but when it comes time to play and get on stage and do what we do, everything else kind of gets dropped to the wayside and the common denominator, like I said, with us is the love that we all have to play and entertain people.
MR: You’re also carrying on the legacy of the type of music you play. Aerosmith is a solid brand of rock.
JK: Yes it is, and I’m the one that’s responsible for that. A band is as solid as its drummer is.
MR: How would you say Aerosmith has evolved over the years?
JK: I think that we’ve taken the original idea that we had, which was a rock blues band forty years ago, and we’ve kept that torch burning and its originality without deviating too far from what it’s really all about to begin with, like a lot of bands have and a lot of the music world has. That’s why music is what it is today. I think it’s kind of pitiful that music is disposable today and that there’s not a whole lot of bands making records anymore. Call it whatever you want, whether it’s hip-hop or cult music or pop music, but to me, it’s all pretty disposable. I don’t think that the music of Nikki Minaj or Justin Beiber is going to be played on the radio twenty-five years from now. I just think that a lot of these people came along at a time when they could do what they’re doing. If there were lots of bands like there were twenty years ago, there’d be no room for stuff like that because there was only room for stuff that was real. That’s what keeps us together. We love music.
MR: Yeah, there’s a lot built out of fashion and devices.
JK: It’s built around drama! I don’t give a **t what his father does or what his mother does or what Nikki Minaj’s uncle does. Show me the music! Let me hear the music. Music speaks and their music doesn’t speak to me.
MR: What do you think is missing? What got lost?
JK: That’s a very good question. What’s lost in it for me is soul. It’s got no soul. It’s got no emotion. It’s got no love. It’s got no schmutz, it’s got no grease…at the same time, if you talk to a kid today that’s sixteen or seventeen years old, he doesn’t know squat about The Beatles or The Dave Clark or the Zeppelin. Where do you go with that? It is what it is, but it’s a damn shame because it’s already happened and it’s too late to stop it. The only thing we can hope for is to let rock rule.
MR: Perfect, that brings us back to the Let Rock Rule tour. This particular tour is kind of important for you guys, isn’t it.
JK: It’s always an important tour, man! There’s never one that’s not important!
MR: Right on. Joey, how do you explain your longevity? As you said, it’s all just about the music and about the quality of it, huh?
JK: That’s pretty much it, yeah. It’s the love of it that we have that keeps us going. It’s like I said to you before, nothing else really matters when it comes time to get on stage and play because that’s the original source of energy. Fortunately for us we’ve been able to stay in touch with that and there’s nothing better than that and there’s nothing more exciting than that and there’s nothing that can ever replace that and as long as you know that, which we all do because everybody’s got their heads on straight, that’s what it’s all about. There’s nothing else. If we didn’t have Aerosmith, what would we do? Work at McDonald’s. We can’t do that, right?
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
JK: 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.
MR: [laughs] What’s your perspective on Aerosmith’s place in music?
JK: It’s very difficult because opinions are voiced to me by friends and acquaintances and strangers of how they compare us to the Stones or the Zeppelin or The Who. When I was growing up and I was idolizing the guys that I was idolizing, that gave me the desire to do what I wanted to do, it was those gusy. Granted those guys are not that much older than we are, but at the same time I could never in a million years ever put myself at the same level as the Zeppelin or as The Beatles. I don’t relate to it that way because those are the iconic guys that I followed. When people tell me that it’s a very difficult thing for me to relate to. I see the bands that we influenced coming down the line. You’ve got everything from Bon Jovi to Cinderella to Ratt–all the hair bands of the eighties. Yeah, we were an influence on all of those people and I hear that but I just find it difficult to relate to because I like to think of myself as a humble person and I don’t like to toot my own horn. If I get a compliment or if somebody tells me how much they love what I’m doing, that’s great because that makes me a success because that’s what I’m striving for, and that’s more important to me than the other.
MR: You guys have been Letting Rock Rule for quite a while now. This is just going to keep going, isn’t it.
JK: Yeah! It’s still ruling for us, man, that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. It always ruled for us.
MR: Aerosmith is just going to keep going and going.
JK: I don’t see any reason why not, other than one of us dropping dead. It’s not that kind of a thing that just goes poof in the night and is gone. It’s too strong an entity for that to happen to.
MR: How do you see the next couple of years? Are you guys working on new projects?
JK: At the moment, I think we’re going to do this tour and it would be a healthy thing for everybody to take some time and do a project on their own because whenever you do stuff on your own, when you come back to the mothership, it makes everything bigger and stronger.
MR: What’s on your own creative agenda?
JK: Well, I’m doing my coffee. It’s a complete opposite thing for me because instead of dealing with the sort of people I deal with on a day to day basis, I’m dealing with completely different people. It’s in the business world and it’s a really big challenge for me. I love a challenege and I love to work hard and I love to put myself in the middle of everything. I’m very hands on with the company, I’m not one to just put my name on something and sit back and try and collect a check. I take part in every aspect of the company, I have a great team, all the people that I have working for me believe in the product and it’s going really well. I would love to take that further. Not only that, but it’s something that people enjoy. I love doing something that makes people happy.
MR: And you’ve been doing that for a long time.
JK: I know, that’s what my life is.
MR: As a longtime Aerosmith fan, thanks, Joey.
JK: “I’m happy, I hope you’re happy, too.”
Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne