One night at New York’s Record Plant in 1973, guitarist Steve Hunter stepped out into the lobby for a cigarette, taking a break from another session.
Across from him, the door to Studio C opened.
Out walked producer Jack Douglas.
“You feel like playing?” Douglas asked.
Within minutes, Hunter was inside the room with Aerosmith — cutting a solo that would end up on “Train Kept A Rollin’,” one of the breakout tracks from the band’s early career.
Joe was a guy who played from the gut. All feel, and at that time, very little technique, but the greatest feel ever.”
— Jack Douglas
The moment was casual. The stakes, for the band, were not.
Douglas, who died May 11 at age 80, made one of his most consequential studio decisions that night. Although he had been hired as the engineer on Get Your Wings, he quickly established himself as its producer. The record helped define Aerosmith’s early identity, but it also exposed where they needed to improve.
At the center of it was guitarist Joe Perry.
Douglas later described Perry’s playing as raw, instinctive, and unpredictable — a strength in some contexts, a liability in others.
“Joe was a guy who played from the gut,” he recalled on The Magnificent Others With Billy Corgan. ”All feel, and at that time, very little technique, but the greatest feel ever.
“And dangerous. Really, because he didn't care what key he went into, and sometimes that was great.”
But certain tracks demanded something tighter.
“A couple of those songs needed the discipline that they didn't have at that point,” he said.
It was hard for Joe, but it was only a couple of tunes: ‘Same Old Song and Dance’ and ‘Train Kept a Rollin.’”
— Jack Douglas
Douglas’s solution was decisive — and controversial. He brought in outside guitarists to handle key solos.
He turned to two seasoned session players, Hunter and Dick Wagner, both known for their transformative electric guitar work with Alice Cooper and Lou Reed.
Before making the call, Douglas checked in with frontman Steven Tyler.
“When I approached Steven about it first, he was like, ‘Absolutely, I totally get it. You know, I totally get it. You sell it, but I get it.’”
For Perry, however, the decision landed hard.
“Joe took it really badly,” Douglas said. “It was hard for Joe, but it was only a couple of tunes: ‘Same Old Song and Dance’ and ‘Train Kept a Rollin.’”
Hunter’s involvement came almost by accident.
Speaking to Guitar Player, he recalled stepping away from another Record Plant session when Douglas appeared in the hallway.
We kind of made a deal with the devil because we wanted our shot at a second record.”
— Joe Perry
“I went out into the lobby to have a cigarette,” Hunter said. “And right across from me is the door to Studio C, which is the smaller studio. The door opens and it’s Jack Douglas. He looks at me and says, ‘You feel like playing?’”
Hunter walked into the studio, met the band, and cut the solo in just a few takes.
“I never got any bad vibes off of anybody,” he recalled. “They all seemed kinda tired, like they had been working really hard to finish the album. But I never got any kind of vibe about whether they liked me being there or not.”
Behind the scenes, the decision created friction.
“Of course we were on the fence about bringing in sidemen to play some of the stuff, but we kind of made a deal with the devil because we wanted our shot at a second record,” Perry later told Total Guitar. “Brad [Whitford] and I weren’t happy about it, but that’s what it was going to take to keep us on the label and keep us going.”
“For better or worse, we opened that door, but that was certainly the last time.”
Whitford recalled to Guitar World that Douglas had the unenviable task of breaking the news to the band.
“And of course, that went down like a lead balloon.
I wanted to know more than I knew. I wanted to play more than I was capable of playing, and I wanted to realize a sound that eluded me.”
— Joe Perry
“At first you fight, and you’re a little bit angry, and then you get sad to where you’re like really bummed out that you can’t do it. And the thing was that we’d done some good stuff and could play good stuff, but the tracks required some real finesse.”
In time, both guitarists came to see Douglas’s decision differently. What felt like a setback during the making of Get Your Wings ultimately became part of the learning curve that helped Aerosmith sharpen its identity.
“In this early phase, I faced great frustration,” Perry wrote in his autobiography, Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith. “I wanted to know more than I knew. I wanted to play more than I was capable of playing, and I wanted to realize a sound that eluded me.
“Jack Douglas helped enormously. He became a great teacher. But Jack can only work with what we gave him, and I wanted to give him more. We all did.”
