Aerosmith's "Draw the Line": When the Drugs Took Hold

Aerosmith drawn with lines

By the time Aerosmith had finished touring in February, 1977 in support of their amazing Rocks album, the rock 'n roll lifesytle had caught up to them.

The drugs had taken a firm hold, and the band was worn out after years of non-stop touring and recording.

But they had to go in and write the follow-up to what was arguably their best album.

"Draw the Line was untogether because we weren't a cohesive unit anymore," guitarist Joe Perry said in the Stephen Davis band memoir Walk This Way. "We were drug addicts dabbling in music, rather than musicians dabbling in drugs".

Knowing drugs had a hold on the band (cocaine and heroin), the plan was to try and avoid them while working on what would become Draw the Line. To that end, the band rented an old estate known as the Cenacle, a 300-room former convent near Armonk, NY., where they would be isolated without drugs around so they could focus on writing new songs.

But drug dealers deliver, and deliver they did.

As vocalist Steven Tyler said in his autobiography Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, the band was climbing up a mountain of cocaine carrying backpacks of heroin. Drummer Joey Kramer said of that time: "I don't know if we did any of those sessions, or made any of that record, straight."

Heck, even the album cover, depicting the band drawn with lines, is a nod to all the cocaine they were consuming, according to Tyler.

Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry were pretty out of it, and didn't contribute much in terms of songwriting together on Draw the Line. The band was also fighting amongst each other a whole lot as they recorded from June-October 1977.

Aerosmith in 1977

The only songs contributed by Perry and Tyler were the amazing title track, "Get it Up" and "I Wanna Know Why". Perry didn't even play on "The Hand that Feeds" as he decided to stay in bed that day.

In fact, the process was so slow, producer Jack Douglas had to step in and contribute some lyrics, which included the words to "Critical Mass", which came from a weird dream he had at the Cenacle. He also co-wrote the "Kings & Queens" lyrics with Tyler.

Perry came up with the edgy "Bright Light Fright", a punky track about running out of "zoom", but the rest of the band didn't like it. Perry ended up singing it since Tyler presumably wanted nothing to do with the song.

While many critics hated Draw the Line, it's still a pretty good album. The title track is pure Aerosmith and a song like "Kings & Queens" shows the band spreading its collective wings to churn out a drug-induced medieval track that is just a great effort with a sublime Joe Whitford solo.

Draw the Line would ultimately be a huge turning point for Aerosmith as Perry would leave the band during recording of the follow up Night in the Ruts in 1979. He didn't return until 1984.

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"Rocks" - Inside Aerosmith's Greatest Album

Aerosmith have pumped out a bunch of amazing records over their long and stellar recording career.

But when you throw on Rocks, there's just something about it that makes it stand out from the rest. Certainly part of what makes Rocks such a great album is Aerosmith wore everything on their sleeve and crafted it into some amazing music.

Coming off their highly successful breakthrough Toys in the Attic album, the Boston rockers were flying high in 1976 - figuratively and literally - and had found their groove with American audiences.

They had been touring their asses off and were reaping all the benefits of the rock' n roll lifestyle. So when it came time to record Rocks, the band was a well-oiled machine because the heroin and cocaine hadn't taken them down, as was the case when they began work on Draw the Line in 1977. It took just two months to record Rocks.

"There's no doubt we were doing a lot of drugs by then, but whatever we were doing, it was still working for us," recalled Joe Perry.

They set up in the Wherehouse in Waltham, Mass. with the Record Plant's mobile recording truck. Again, they enlisted Jack Douglas to help with production (he did Toys as well). Douglas notes that this was a time when bassist Tom Hamilton and guitarist Brad Whitford took more of an active role in writing songs.

Rocks was the album where Tom [Hamilton] and Brad had a lot more input," said Douglas, the unofficial sixth member of Aerosmith. "This was a big album for Aerosmith. It had to make a big statement about how loud and hard they were, how unapologetic they felt about being who they were - this brash, rude, sexual, hard-core rock band."

Rocks Rolls with Stellar Songs

Aerosmith in 1976

Whitford helped write "Last Child", while Hamilton was key in creating "Sick as a Dog", a song rumoured to be about meeting Mick Jagger, although it makes more sense that's it's about meeting Keith Richards, given his heroin addiction at the time.

Rocks also features the amazing Joe Perry-penned "Combination", which sees him writing a phenomenal riff and sharing lead vocals with Steven Tyler. Perry said he wrote the song about "cocaine, heroin and me" to make the combination. Tyler loved the song and the lyrics, saying in his memoir "Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?" that the line "Walkin' on Gucci wearing Yves St. Laurent/Barely stay on 'cause I'm so goddamn gaunt" was the best lyric Perry ever wrote: "It was the truth, it was clever, and it described us to a tee".

There's also "Back in the Saddle", which comes from a riff Perry wrote while stoned on heroin. Tyler's sexual innuendo lyrics are perfect with the western feel of the song - all the while "riding high".

Another great song is the highly underrated apocalyptic "Nobody's Fault" which Tyler lists as being among his greatest efforts as a member of Aerosmith.

While Rolling Stone magazine said in its 1976 review the album was filled with "mediocre material", the album was a major influence on the likes of Slash, James Hetfield, Kurt Cobain, and Nikki Sixx, to name a few.

Check out our in-depth look at Black Sabbath's Sabotage album.