Aerosmith Lives ‘Nine Lives’ Album Stretches America’s Party Band To Limit, But May Be Their Best Ever

Nietzsche was not talking about making albums when he said, “That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.” But the members of Aerosmith feel as if the German philosopher could have been talking directly to them. Seldom have records been birthed in as troubled circumstances as was Aerosmith’s “Nine Lives.”

During the course of making the album, the band split with its longtime manager, Tim Collins, and scrapped the first version of the record, made with hot producer Glen Ballard, who produced Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill.” Additionally, drummer Joey Kramer suffered from a severe depression that left him temporarily unable to go into the studio.

“This was just the most gut-wrenching record we’ve ever made,” says vocalist/lyricist Steven Tyler.

“We went through so much. So much went down other than the music, I mean with management and other stuff. So it was nuts. This album has taken me as far as I’ve ever wanted to go and gotten me back again.”

Out of the chaos has emerged one of the band’s tightest, most spirited albums in its 25-year history. “Nine Lives,” which reunites Aerosmith with Columbia, its label from 1972 until 1983, will be released Tuesday.

The band entered a Miami studio with Ballard in early 1996 to begin work on its follow-up to 1993’s “Get A Grip,” the group’s last studio album for Geffen Records and, astonishingly, the band’s only record to reach No. 1 on The Billboard 200. Absent were Kramer and the band’s longtime guru, John Kalodner, Columbia senior vice president of artists and repertoire.

“Joey was going through a blue-funk period,” says Tyler. “His father had passed away, and he was asking himself a lot of questions, so we had to get to work down in Florida and we made a decision to start without him.”

Kalodner was told to back off the project by then-manager Collins.

“In January, Tim Collins informed me that he was putting me on the bench,” says Kalodner, who says that he never received a reason why he was being cast out. “That was the last time I saw or heard from the band or him until the end of June.”

Collins says he was merely following band orders. “Every record, Steven went through a lot of drama with John. So in January, Joe (Perry) and Steven instructed me to fire him. So I told him I wanted to put him on the bench, and I knew I would bring him back in when the time was right. The manager’s job is to put the best team together to support the artist on their journey, and nobody in my mind does it better than Kalodner.”

Kalodner was brought back in June as it became apparent that a confluence of events, including the brewing problems with Collins and Kramer’s slump, would lead to the band’s months of hard work with Ballard being abandoned.

“The whole (management) thing started bubbling down in Miami, and it threw this spin over the whole project,” says Tyler. “There was a lot of fear, and, simply said, it wasn’t the Aerosmith that everyone was used to. It was the big whoops.”

However, the band has nothing but good things to say about Ballard, who, although stripped of his producer’s credit, is represented on the album with two songs. Ballard co-wrote with Tyler and guitarist Perry the first single, the catchy rocker “Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)” and the Eastern-flavored “Taste Of India.” Both feature Aerosmith’s finely tuned grasp of the double-entendre.

“It was a really hard time for us,” recalls Perry. “It’s still a hard time for us. Creatively, I think, Glen has no equal as far as being a (musician/producer). You read interviews with all the different artists that he’s worked with, you know, and they all say the same thing about him: He’s a musical soulmate. On that level, it was really hard to say ‘OK, we’re going to go and try something else.’ I think he did the best he could do with the hand he was dealt, but it was really hard.”

Adds Kalodner, “I thought (the record) didn’t sound like Aerosmith. Glen is a lovely, talented, incredibly intelligent person. I would use him any day to do a record. The real fact is, in all the years I’ve done records with artists, it just happens sometimes that it doesn’t work out.” Ballard did not return phone calls by press time.

In the midst of the studio crisis, Aerosmith summarily fired Collins July 31 during a hastily called meeting that lasted less than 15 minutes. The band members gave no reason for the dismissal of their manager, who had been with the band for 12 years, and with Perry for 14.

Because of ongoing legal action, the band declined to comment further on the parting with Collins, who has been replaced by Wendy Laister. For his part, Collins says that his and Aerosmith’s attorneys are working on an out-of-court settlement. “I haven’t filed a lawsuit,” Collins says. “I’m hoping the lawyers will settle.”

Looking back on the split, he says, “Obviously it was time for them to move on, and that’s OK. It could have been handled differently, but I still think they’re the best rock ‘n’ roll band in America.”

With the management situation handled and Kramer ready to play again, the band switched from Miami to New York and began the process of re-recording everything with producer Kevin Shirley (Journey, Silverchair).

It also began the arduous task of cutting the more than two-dozen songs it had written for the album to the 13 that would appear on the U.S. release.

“That’s where a lot of trauma comes in between me and Steven especially,” says Kalodner. “He feels the songs are his children and that I’ve killed some of his children.”

But, as Perry points out, most songs cut from the album will appear as B-sides, as unreleased selections in later boxed sets, or on international versions of the album.

Despite the stress of song selection, the band felt immediately energized not only by its move to New York, but by the support it felt from the Columbia regime. “There’s something really magical about having the bigwigs, the higher-ups, so supportive of you,” says Tyler.

He and Perry stress that, as long as Columbia had waited for the band’s return (the label signed a contract, supposedly worth more than $30 million, with the band in 1991), no pressure was put on Aerosmith to turn in the record before it was ready. Original word was that the album would be out in September, then by Christmas, before it became clear that a 1997 release was in the offing.

“They just kept saying, ‘You gotta be happy with it,”’ says Perry. “We’ve got enough demons to fight about getting a great record out without having to fight with the label.”

The compact disc version of “Nine Lives,” which features pictures of hairless cats on its cover, is an enhanced CD.

Included on it are interview segments, lyrics, and guitar lessons on how to play the new material, all of which are accessible through a computer.

A number of TV appearances are being planned for the band; the most immediate is a slot on “Saturday Night Live” March 22.

Aerosmith will start a world tour May 8 in Goteborg, Sweden, with a five-week European jaunt that will feature labelmate Kula Shaker opening the continental dates.

A U.S. tour will begin in July and last through October. Plans are in the works for another European leg by the end of ‘97, to be followed by dates in Japan and Australia in 1998. The band is also writing a book, an autobiography about 25 years of making music together.

“So many unauthorized things have come out, and some of them are good and some of them are bad and some of them miss the point,” Perry says. “We’re really honest about what we do and what we’ve been through, so this isn’t going be some whitewashed ‘We was great and everybody else was (messed) up’ (book). It’s not going to be one of those.”