Though he’s been on the road with the Joe Perry Project, guesting at the VMAs, lending a hand to Bad Company at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and recording the newly released One More Time EP with old friend Steve Tyler and new pal Yungblud, Joe Perry still craves more.
He’s 75, but he refuses to rest on his laurels. The guitarist — who told us the top 10 records that changed his life — insists that, while he might take a moment to catch his breath at the end of 2025, he’s looking ahead to 2026.
Unfortunately, it may not include Aerosmith, whose future is uncertain. There are whispers of a final show, and maybe even a documentary about the band’s journey, neither of which Perry will dismiss. But in the meantime, his focus is on One More Time,.
Beyond that, he managed to find time to dig in with Guitar Player, where he peeled back the onion on lessons learned from — and friendships with — Alice Cooper, Johnny Winter, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Slash.
Alice Cooper
“The first time I met Alice was when we were making the Sgt. Pepper movie [Aerosmith recorded a highly praised cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together” for the star-studded 1978 feature film, in which Cooper appeared the character Father Sun]. Around 1980 or ’81, when I was away from Aerosmith, my manager got us together to see if we could write some music for Alice’s next album.
“So we got to hang out and got to be friends. When they were working on the first Hollywood Vampires record, they asked me to sit in on a couple of songs. I ended up becoming part of the nucleus of the band.
“Years before, I remember reading that he was supposed to be the reincarnation of a 400-year-old witch — you know, that was part of his thing. But that paved the way for a lot of bands to make performance art part of their show, on top of playing great rock and roll.
“The nice thing about the Vampires is that he didn’t have to put on that persona. He got a chance to just be a real rock singer and talk to the audience, so it was a whole different thing for him.
“The process of making albums with Alice was really easy. He’s not interested in ego; his ego is in his back pocket. For him, it’s about whatever is best for the band. It’s a reflection of his personality, and he's just a really good guy.
“Of all the lead singers that I’ve worked with, I have to say that he’s neck and neck in terms of most fun. And that’s not to cast aspersions on some of the other guys. He's just got a great sense of humor.”
Johnny Winter
“I remember seeing him live with Rick Derringer. That band was killer, and I remember seeing him play at the old [Boston] Tea Party club, which was probably 800 seats, and he just killed it. He played slide most of the night.
“Back then, our paths never crossed, but the bus driver that we had for almost 11 years had been Johnny’s bus driver, so I had a couple of secondhand stories about him.
“When he was in L.A., I had a chance to meet him. He remembered that we had played our first big gig at the Academy of Music. They put us on the bill with Humble Pie and Edgar Winter and Johnny. I think this was his first appearance since he’d gotten out of rehab, and that was an amazing show to watch. We got to watch him, and when his brother announced that he was coming out to play, the roof just came off the place.
“Johnny was really personable and really nice. When you get a chance to meet somebody like that, who you’ve worked up to and admired for decades, it was just really great to be able to shake his hand.”
Jimmy Page
“I’ve been influenced by Jimmy. I mean, he was a real pioneer, not only with the music he was making but with his production and writing. Jimmy was at the forefront of all that was happening in rock.
“For a while in the 1960s, he was like the most sought-after young studio guitar player. That’s how he made his living and learned to produce from being in the studio all of the time. He knew how to get what he wanted out of a recording session. I don’t think he gets enough credit for that. Everybody puts him in the guitar hero bag, but his production skills… there aren’t many guys who can do what he was doing.
“That’s one of the things that I learned from him, along with how used instruments and wrote those songs and use the blues format — although there’s a lot of Zeppelin that doesn’t sound anything like the blues. They were into world music from Morocco and India, and they brought those sounds into the mainstream.
“It meant a lot to befriend Page. When they don’t have guitars in their hands, these guys are just another person.”
Jeff Beck
“When it came to using the whammy bar, Jimi [Hendrix] was at the forefront of that, but Jeff took it further. You know, you put some Super Slinky strings on there, and you adjust the whammy bar, and you can do things and get sounds that no one ever heard before from not just the electric guitar but any instrument.
“Jimi used it for an effect, but Jeff used it more as a musical tool than anybody. He was two steps ahead of everybody else.
“That’s just what Jeff was about. He had a sense of melody and dynamics, where some of the most beautiful music on any instrument was played by Jeff Beck on a Stratocaster. And I think that when he put down the Les Paul and really started using the whammy bar, that’s when he started finding his voice.
“But he never could really work with a singer. He tried once in a while, and would play some one-off stuff as his career went on, but really, in the last 20 to 25 years of his career, he really started doing things with the guitar that no one had ever heard before.
“But they’re all people. You know, they say that you should never meet your heroes because you might not find the person that you think they are. It’s like, ‘Wow, man, if I could just get in a room with him, and party with him…’
“I’ve been lucky to meet some of the guys that I really respected in terms of ability and their career, and they were also really nice guys — like guys I would give the keys to my house to. Jeff was one of those guys.
“So it was really cool being able to meet Jeff. He had a wicked sense of humor, but he was quiet for the most part. I got a chance to spend enough time with him to find out what kind of person he was, and he and his wife are pretty cool and a really nice couple.”
Slash
“And Slash is one of those guys I’d give the keys to my house to. When I first heard Guns N’ Roses’ music on Appetite for Destruction, I was like, “Okay, this is it. This is a great fucking record.” They paid their dues, and that summer they opened for us, and we saw them going from learning and being a club band to becoming an arena band.
“They learned how to carve their own space, because you can do things really differently, like Kiss or Alice [Cooper], you know, by bringing performance art, but still rock out. And I hand it to Kiss — they were fucking amazing, and different. But we just wanted to play rock and roll, and that’s what Guns ’N’ Roses was all about, too.
“They were all about just getting out there and rocking and giving the audience something to fucking see. And then they left the arena, or club, or theater, or whatever; they were two feet off the ground, you know? I could always tell if we did a good show or not — because we always thought that we weren’t as good as we should have been — was we’d be sitting in the dressing room, and as the kids were leaving, if I heard bottles breaking, and kids laughing, I knew we did a good show.
“Slash and Axl Rose would come into our dressing room, and they’d just rocked the shit out of the audience, and they’d talk with us and ask us questions about this, and that. That’s how I got to know Slash. They were still young, and trying to find their place in the hierarchy, and you’re always wondering if you’re ever gonna be as good as the headliner, you know?
“I mean, jeez, we opened for so many bands, and a lot of them were bands we really liked. We’d always wonder if we were ever going to be able to keep doing it, thinking, How long will it last? But they were finding their way, and they did, and they came out of that by the end of the summer and were ready to blow the top off the world, which they did, and still do.
“And a lot of that has to do with Slash and his guitar playing, you know? You can tell that with the kind of guy that he is, he never gives it up. You can never accuse him of phoning it in. I can’t say that about all the people that I’ve bumped into.
“You gotta have respect for someone who can make it in this business as a career, but the music business is a bitch, man. You can have talent dripping out of your fingers, but you can get passed right by. But getting to know Slash over the years, and finding out what he’s all about, even with their ups and downs, and breaking up and all that, it’s been really cool.”
