Читать книгу Hell Bent for Leather: Confessions of a Heavy Metal Addict - Seb Hunter - Страница 18

Aerosmith came out of Boston in 1972, fronted by two men known as the Toxic Twins because of their vast appetite for drugs: Steven Tyler on vocals and Joe Perry on guitar. They played a slightly more aspirational Rolling Stones brand of rock music, but with their twisting guitars turned up much louder. Their songs were low-slung authentic blues-sounding, but were anthemic enough to appeal to us kiddies in need of such sweeteners. The success of their third album, Toys in the Attic, meant that they could buy as many drugs as they wanted, which they did, and they managed to look extraordinarily cool while on them (in fact the more zonked-out they became, the more they began to look like pirates). At the height of this giant plane of excess, the band entered a studio called the Wherehouse outside Boston and recorded their fourth album, the one Dominic had lent me, which they somewhat ironically titled Rocks.

Rocks is the greatest rock album of all time, by anyone, ever. I don’t know how Aerosmith managed this considering the state they were in while they were making it. When asked about the record these days, even Tyler says that all he can hear are the drugs. It sounds like something from another dimension; entirely otherworldly, a hazy sonic entity unto itself. It swirls and swaggers but feels arid and fragile at the same time, and although they’ve had their odd decent moments since, this is the only Aerosmith album you honestly need to buy – it’s a rawhide goddamn masterpiece. Its final song, the faux doo-wop coda ‘Home Tonight’, features my all-time favourite guitar solo; it’s a weird and unique thing – a guitar solo that makes me cry.

As Rocks slowly released its charms, Kiss slipped off the end of my radar, and thus began a holy tumble into an abyss of dark stuff – music made by outlaws in eyeliner, high on drugs. Aerosmith had opened another big door for me – the gateway to the defining Metal giants of the 1970s. In America this era belonged mostly to Kiss and Aerosmith, but in the UK it belonged to the really big boys, the guys who were so big that they became known as dinosaurs. This was the decade where Heavy Metal started on solids, learned to walk, and grew into the monster that conquered the world, East and West. The 70s were where Metal found itself, where the sacred texts were hewn from the death of innocence in the 60s, lines were carved thick in the sand, amps were cranked up to their limits, and the rules of the game were conceived, practised, and stuck at for over 25 years. Let’s take a deep breath and enter the Houses of the Holy.