In Sickness And In Health, Aerosmith Rocks On

Four decades, give or take a year or so, is a long time rockin’. With that in mind, I suppose that the health problems the various members of Aerosmith have been dealing with lately should not be unexpected. These guys, after all, are all in their late 50’s or early 60’s, and the rock and roll lifestyle does tend to take its toll through the years.

Recently, bass player Tom Hamilton talked the Sun Chronicle about his battle with throat cancer and how he has come to the conclusion that the experience has actually improved him as a musician and resulted in a sort of wake up call for the 57-year-old rocker.

Having to sit out a 2007 tour due to his illness Hamilton reflected on that time. “What I had to go through was the band going out on tour without me. And so I had a taste of that, the negative feelings of that,” he said. “So it was a terrible thought, but I had to learn that there were some things that could be worse than not having the band.”

Since then, Hamilton’s band mates have had to deal with medical problems of their own. While working on their new album, the group was forced to put a halt to the work when frontman Steven Tyler got sick with pneumonia and guitarist Joe Perry had to undergo knee surgery.

Tyler has also endured both throat and foot surgery in recent years.

With their summer “Guitar Hero” tour just getting underway with ZZ Top, the veteran group has been dealt yet another blow which takes guitarist Brad Whitford out of the lineup while he recovers from surgery. The exact nature of Whitford’s surgery has not been revealed, but he is expected to recover in time to join the tour before it concludes. In the meanwhile, Bobby Schneck will be standing in for Whitford.

As contrary as it may first appear, Hamilton does look back on his experience with cancer in a positive light. “But you know, sometimes you have to think like some day is coming. I think going through that cancer experience, it kind of grabbed me by the head and made me look at a lot of stuff and just sort of in general, you think of things you always wanted to do some day,” he said.

“Well some day is here. So I got a lot of that, which I think is a positive thing because it really focused me. And I’ve come a long way musically since that happened. It was almost a gift of the whole process that I’m probably a better player, writer, recorder now than I would have been if I hadn’t gone through that.”

For now, work on the new album is going to have to wait until the tour is over. Hamilton does reveal that fans can look forward to an album with a sound that is more like the raw, hard-rocking Honkin on Bobo as opposed to the more highly-engineered approach that was applied during the production of an album like Just Push Play.

The current tour comes to an end during September, and the group is expected to convene in the studio to finish up work on the new album. As long as they remain in good health, that is.

To read the entire interview with Tom Hamilton, visit the Sun Chronicle.