The History of The Joe Perry Project
The Project played
six nights a week on the road in the fall of 1980. In
november, they started a six week tour opening for Heart,
which took them around the country. Joe was home in
Boston one night when Jack Douglas called him. Joe was
glad to hear from him, because he was originally going to
produce the second Project album and it hadn't worked out.
But Joe was not prepared for what Jack said. Jack told
Joe that John Lennen was dead. Jack was working on the
Lennen album "Milk And Honey" at the time, he
had just said good-bye to mim. It really shook Jack up.
It shook everyone up. In the spring of
1981, The Project started working at Joe's house on the
new record. Then they moved back to the wherehouse, where
they developed songs by Charlie Farren ["East Coast,
West Coast] and David Hull ["Dirty Little Things"
and "Buzz Buzz"]. They also cut a version of
Elvis's "Heartbreak Hotel", intended as a
single [which never happened]. Joe took a 30 second
Shuffle he and Aerosmith did and turned it into "South
Station Blues". The record, originally titled "Soldier
Of Fortune", was produced by Bruce Botnick, who had
worked with The Doors as an engineer and had produced
their last great album, "L.A. Woman". They
brought the Record Plant's truck back up to Boston,
parked it on Washington street in front of the Boston
Opera House, and cut the album inside the elegant but
decrepit old theater. They mixed the album at the Record
Plant in Los Angeles. Columbia released the album as
"I've Got The Rock'N'Rolls Again" in June of
1981 and promptly buried it. The album only got up to #100
on the charts. To pay the bills, they went out on the
road, playing with Heart, ZZ Top, and The J. Geils Band,
who had a hit record with "Centerfold". The
Project worked again in the fall of 1981, and through the
rest of 1982, constantly on the road. By 1983, Charlie, David and Ronnie had all left the band. The last version of The Project was totally insane, and so was the year they spent together on the road. The new singer, Cowboy Mach Bell, was a rock'n'roll guy who grew up in the next town over from Joe and had a group called Thundertrain. He loved to rave and be in a band, so he replaced Charlie Farren. They auditioned Danny Hargrove and he replaced David Hull on bass. Joe Pet replaced Ronnie Stewart. Joe said: "It was just fun, a good-time band, no illusions about the group going strait to the top. they were young guys who didn't give a shit, like wild men, fuckin' pirates. Just get in the van and go". Now by this time Tim Collins was their manager, Joe and his wife were split, and his son was two years old. Joe was free, single for the first time. He went out on the road and went berserk for the first time in his life. Wine, women, and song. Exotic dancers, a Playboy Bunny, he had never done that stuff before. One night on the road, the band was driving from New Orleans to Florida in this beautiful air-conditioned van and had stopped for the night at a Holiday Inn Family Resort. Since Joe was wasted in the back of the van, they wrapped him in a blanket, carried up to his room, and put him into bed. The band and their road sluts went swimming in the hotel pool, drunk out of their minds. These crazy roadies started to moon the tourist moms and dads, who supplied them with the horrified reaction they needed. Then this lunatic roadie got on the diving board, and people started to sampede on out of there as he pissed in the pool. Mach Bell was parading around nude and out of control. The police arrived, arrested Mach Bell and The Roadie, and threw the band out of the hotel. Joe was comatose, so The Roadies wrapped him back up in his sheets and carried him across the street-asleep - to another motel, where he wakes up, not realizing he had been moved. Mach Bell called Tim Collins up from jail saying: "Tim, what do I do?" Tim freaked out, "What the Fuck am I doing with My life?" Tim called Joe, who was completely wasted & slurring his words. He told Tim: "Tim, take it easy. What are you yelling about? Everything's fine. We're in the Holiday Inn". Tim says: "Joe, look at the phone". "That's weird, it says Ramada Inn". "How did I get here?" Tim just hung up and called another road manager, Earthquake (Greg Mortin), who flew down, got them out of jail so they could finish their tour dates, and come home. In early 1983, Tim booked The Project in Venezuela, where they spent two weeks snorting the indescribably fresh products of nearby Peru and eating delicious and cheap steaks. In Caracas, Joe met a hospitable girl named Adrianna who got a song named on The Project's next album. Mach Bell introduced Joe to a hairdresser named Glenda [which explains why Joe looks like he does on the third album cover]. Joe moved in with Glenda so at least he had a roof over his head. Tim Collins got a record deal for The Project with MCA, and that spring they had made their third and final album "Once A Rocker, Always A Rocker" at Blue Jay Studios in Carlisle, Mass., with Joe co-producing with Michael Golub. Joe liked that record. It sounded unproduced and was basically live. The song "Four Guns West" was what the band was all about. "Bang A Gong" was the old T. Rex riff they used to worm up on. They played it at live shows and saw the kids really getting off on it. "Women In Chains" came from a band in Nashville. Joe thought it was cool to do a pro-woman song after all the heavy metal misogyny that was around. Joe never liked that stuff. The band put a disclaimer on the back of that record. "There are no synthesizers on this album". Halfway through the record, MCA tried to drop them. MCA had a new president {Irving Azoff} and he just didn't want to know. In the end, they figured it would be cheaper to finish the record - and bury it - than to buy out Joe's contract. Joe didn't really care, he just wanted another record so he could go out on tour. "Once A Rocker, Always A Rocker" was released in september of 1983 and went unpromoted and unheard. Although it did manage to sell 40000 copies. When it came time to choose the video for the album, they chose the song "Black Velvet Pants". The story line involved a girl putting on a pair of black velvet pants and going to see The Project, eventually ending up on stage playing sax with the band. The video didn't get much airplay, but Joe did meet his future wife Billie on the set. By october of 1983, everyone knew that "Once A Rocker" had bombed and that Joe's solo career was going down the tubes. Aerosmith's Brad Whitford {Now out of Aerosmith himself} came and worked a bunch of shows with The Project, which contributed an amazing burst of energy, but it was getting harder to book The Project without any record company support. It was a low period. Joe hit bottom in Los Angeles, while The Project was playing some gigs at the Country Club on Reseda in January of 1984. The Project played there before and done well; now they couldn't even sell one gig. They had severe IRS problems, child support problems that threatened to send him to jail. Tim Collins was trying to get Aerosmith back together. After the Joe went back to his apartment Tim had rented while he was dealing with MCA. Joe didn't look happy. "Tim," - he whispered, - "Throw everybody out. I'm bummed. We've gotta talk". And he just opened up: the pain, the separation from his family, the fighting, the drugs. He just broke down. Nobody had ever seen that before from Joe. Tim told him to call Steven Tyler, and he did. Joe went to see Aerosmith in february of 1984 and they talked about getting back together. The press picked up the story and the rumor mill was started. In april of 1984, nothing much was happening except rumors, although joe was getting support from The Project to get back with Aerosmith. Mach Bell told Joe: "Go Ahead, Man. We don't wanna stand in your way". Joe said: "They were really good guys, who where probably more aware of what Aerosmith had meant to people than we were". By this time Tim Collins got a call from Alice Cooper, who wanted Joe to help him write some songs for his next album. This really freaked Steven Tyler, who said "How can you be fuckin' be working with Alice? You need to be here!" Joe agreed and re-joined Aerosmith. Although The Project still toured though may of 1984, everyone knew the it was over. Tim Collins still tried to get The Project another record deal. He sent a tape of "Once A Rocker, Always A Rocker" to various record companies. One of the record companies was Geffen Records {Which eventully hired the reunited Aerosmith}. Now, John Kalodner {from Geffen Records} listened to the tape and called Tim and said: "I got your tape. It completly sucks. How could you even send out a piece-of-shit tape like this? I love Joe Perry, you've got a real artist here, but this tapes just blows". All of the other records companies just said: "Hey! Joe Perry! Great tape! No deal". So that spelled the end of The Joe Perry Poject. In later years, Joe and Aerosmith would see great success with years with Geffen. They would sign a contract coming back with Columbia for $30000000! Columbia Records re-released the first two Project albums in the late 80's and early 90's. Most of the members of The Project kept working, especially Charie Farren, David Hull, Danny Hargrove, and Joe Pet. Joe has made some little steps to going solo again. He worked with Alice Cooper on his 1989 album "Trash" and he did a version of "Blue Christmas" on the 1997 {Steve Vai put together} Christmas compilation "Merry Axemas: A Guitar Christmas". And he has sung lead vocals on two songs in the past few years - "Walk On Down" and "Falling Off." Only time will tell if The Project will see the light of day again. If not, we can all dream can't we?
|
* HISTORY * ALBUMS * MEMBERS * AEROSMITH * LINKS * GUESTBOOK * |
