Aerosmith: Livin' on the Edge

(CBS News) They are still rocking and still fighting 40 years later - the legendary American rock band Aerosmith. One reason Aerosmith is selling out stadiums is because its front man, Steven Tyler, has become an American Idol sensation. The other is because they still make great music, for which Tyler takes much credit. He tells Lara Logan: "I think my perfectionism and my busting everyone's chops is what got this band to where it is today." It's amazing the band is anywhere today. Decades of drug addiction, vicious arguments, and serious illness have destroyed many other bands of their generation, but Aerosmith rocks on.

The following script is from "Aerosmith" which aired on March 11, 2012. Lara Logan is the correspondent. John Hamlin, producer.

After 40 tumultuous years together, Aerosmith is one of the last great American rock bands standing. But by the standards of rock music, the band should be long gone. Survivors of legendary drug problems and vicious arguments, the kind of which have taken down so many other groups of their generation.

Yet, with the help of singer Steven Tyler's over-the-top personality and his job as a judge on American Idol, they remain one the most popular concert draws in music. With us, they discuss all of it -especially each other - with brutal honesty, perhaps even hurtful candor, rarely heard on the record.

They travel with their kids, wives, future wives, even ex-wives. At first glance, it looked like one big, happy, 40-year-old family. Twenty million dollars for 10 shows in South America brought them together, and they arrived in each country like conquering heroes.

Lara Logan: How good a band is Aerosmith today in 2012 compared to the last 40 years?

Steven Tyler: This band is better than it's ever been.

Tyler: It's not because I'm old now and the band's been around forever and it's our last tour. Bullshit. It's because this band's that good.

Their music is guitar driven and melodic, with lots of sexual innuendo.

Tyler: We're going out, and we're wowing 80,000 people. To do that and do it well is really an art form.

It's the clothes, the rock star posing, the energy...all longtime Aerosmith calling cards, four decades in motion.

Singer Steven Tyler is now 63. Lead guitarist Joe Perry, 61.

Logan: You've been described as the greatest American rock band. Is that how you feel?

Joe Perry: We've been around long enough that we have seniority. I don't know, there have been other bands that have been great, you know, and come and gone. But we're still here.

Backstage, all five members make accommodations for their age before every show: 61-year-old drummer Joey Kramer tapes his hands to prevent blisters. 60-year-old guitarist Brad Whitford gets help loosening up a tight shoulder and 60-year-old bassist Tom Hamiliton protects his precious hearing.

Logan: Without those would you be deaf by now?

Tom Hamilton: I went for a long time, you know, playing, you know, standing next to Joey, our drummer.

Logan: Is he really loud?

Tom Hamilton: Oh, he is horrendous.

Hamilton has survived throat cancer, Kramer a nervous breakdown, all five of them severe drug and alcohol abuse. They told us they're all clean now, but Steven Tyler's health remains an ongoing threat to the band's existence. He's battled Hepatitis C, torn his ACL and had surgery on his vocal chords and both his feet.

Tyler: My feet from dancin' around.

Logan: You're getting old.

Tyler: Yeah. Yes, I am. Thanks for pointing that out.

At this concert in Sturgis, South Dakota in 2009, Tyler was once again addicted--this time to prescription painkillers his doctors gave him for his feet. He fell off the stage and nearly broke his neck. The tour was cancelled and triggered a series of events that caused the future of Aerosmith to spiral out of control.

Logan: Were you angry with Steven when he fell off the stage?

Joe Perry: To be honest, I was expecting it. I mean he wasn't in good shape. Yeah, I was pretty pissed off at that point, you know, that it-- he let himself get that far.

Logan: And that he was doing drugs again?

Perry: Yeah.

Steven Tyler had a broken shoulder and 20 stitches in his head. Brad Whitford admits that he and his band mates purposely didn't check on him for weeks.

Brad Whitford: Everybody's life dramatically changed in an instant because he was, in my mind, irresponsible. And I was very angry at him.

Logan: Do you see why they were mad at you?

Tyler: Oh, positively. Not quite to the extent of not calling me for 27 weeks.

Logan: So were you high? Were you using again?

Tyler: Oh yeah. Oh, I was.

Logan: And that's why you fell?

Tyler: I was-- but wouldn't you think, after 40 years, the guys would come around go, "Look it-- I'm pissed off at you. But did you break your neck? You alright?"

I was hurt by that. And I went away to get well and I came back a sober and better person while two of them were still high.

While Tyler was recovering, he found out the band was looking for a new lead singer. That was when American Idol asked him to be a judge.

Logan: Why did you decide to do American Idol? Why did you want to do that?

Tyler: I was pissed off at the band for trying to find some other lead singer. I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay with the band because of their behaviors.

[Tyler on American Idol: Just the right amount showing. That's nice.]

Steven Tyler's decision turned out to be yet another point of contention. The others were upset that he never consulted with them but Tyler was embraced by the American Idol audience and Aerosmith album sales soared.

Logan: Aerosmith doesn't just have its old fans. It has a whole generation of new fans today. Is that in part because of Steven's, you know, presence on Idol and the prominence and celebrity that that's generated for not just him but also for the band?

Perry: I mean, there's no denying American Idol's a part of it but he wouldn't be on that show if it wasn't for the band, you know-- him being part of Aerosmith.

Tension and drama have always been part of Aerosmith. They formed in 1970 and cut their teeth playing clubs and high schools around Boston. Within five years they were selling every ticket they could print, peaking in 1978 when they headlined sold out football stadiums across America.

By that time they were all drinking heavily and using hard drugs. Tyler and Perry were so hooked on heroin and cocaine they were dubbed the toxic twins.

Logan: Isn't it true that night after night, you were just sometimes so high that you were terrible out there?

Tyler: Oh, sure?

Logan: Do you think you'd get away with that in this day and age?

Tyler: It's what we did. It was accepted back then. That was the rock and roll. Everybody was high.

So high, Perry and Tyler were often at each other's throats.

Logan: The guys talked about chairs flying, that kind of thing.

Joe Perry: Well, they're being pretty accurate, I think. There were dressing rooms that just got destroyed. It'd be like two silverback gorillas and they, like, tear branches and rip up the ground and scream and yell. But they never actually get any closer than this, you know.

By 1980, the bands ongoing conflict tore them apart. Four years later, millions they'd made were gone. So they reunited, got clean, and by the mid 1990's they were as

popular as they'd ever been.

Logan: What makes Aerosmith great?

Brad Whitford: It takes somebody so over the top, and in our case with our lead singer, Steven Tyler, who's this amazingly gifted musician. He has perfect pitch.

Logan: I'm watching you two over here. You're exchanging looks. What does all that mean?

Joey Kramer: Well--

Logan: You were rolling your eyes--

Kramer: I'm not--

Logan: --inside? Joey.

Kramer: Huh?

Logan: You're rolling your eyes inside at the mention of Steven Tyler's greatness.

Kramer: There's no doubt about Steven's greatness. When you ask what makes the band great, I think that it's a combination of all of us. What that was right now, I can't tell you.

Tom hamilton: I think a lot of it is he's unbelievably competitive. You know he's competitive with us. With each member of the band.

[Tyler: How was it? Was it as good for you as it was for me?]

Steven Tyler does everything he can to control the band and he tried to control our cameras too.

He's also quick to entertain, always unfiltered and spontaneous.

[Tyler: Love in an elevator.]

Now living in Los Angeles to work on American Idol, he is a workaholic, juggling television while writing new Aerosmith music at the same time.

Logan: So you will actually write lyrics while you're driving?

Tyler: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know what, I'm ADD personified.

Logan: And OCD?

Tyler: I'm not sure about that. But I'm ADD.

Tyler: Now I forgot what I was saying.

Logan: Sorry. I interrupted you.

He is obsessive about the band and their music. He presses them hard for perfection. Sometimes too hard, they say, and diplomacy is not his forte.

Tyler: They ride my coattail 'cause they know I care.

Logan: And you're not supposed to say that they ride your coattail 'cause that'll drive them crazy.

Tyler: Well, maybe. But I just tell the truth. That's why they don't like me.

Logan: All the guys said that they respect you incredibly. And it was clear. They also said they love you. But they also had some very harsh things to say. Joey, for example, he said, you tortured him. Tom said, you can be "unspeakably cruel," were his words. Brad said that you can be extremely demanding and sometimes impossible to talk to.

Tyler: They're 100 percent right. I've said many things to all those guys that I should never have said, that I didn't mean.

Logan: Is there a fine line between being a perfectionist, and fixating over small things that don't matter?

Tyler: Oh sure. You have to know when to leave it.

Logan: Do you know?

Tyler: It's okay. Leave it. Positively.

Logan: What would your band members say about that?

Tyler: You know what? I'm gonna be big-headed, right now. Okay? I think my perfectionism, and my busting everyone's chops is what got this band to where it is, today. In the end, I get a real good song. And in the end I get the hits. Yeah. I'm that good.

Tyler (playing piano): I was doing this you know, uh...

Yet, as we discovered, Steven looks to Joe Perry for approval.

Tyler: Cruisin' for the ladies, cruisin' for the ladies. And I went, "Cruisin' for the ladies," to Joe. And I went, "Nah, I can't do that, no." And I thought, "Dude-- dude looks like a lady." And I said, "Joe, I-- what do you think about 'Dude looks like a lady?' Should I do that?" And he goes, "Why not? You sung everything else." And I needed that. That was great approval.

Logan: Do you like Steven?

Joe Perry: Yeah. Well, there's sides of him I like and there's sides I don't, but I'll put up with whatever I have to to have this guy in my band 'cause he's got it. He's a world-class voice.

Logan: Has it ever come to blows?

Perry: No, that would damage the relationship too much. Besides, he needs his jaw to sing, so um...it's never come to that.

Logan: He needs his jaw to sing.

Tyler: Oh. I need my jaw to sing. That's a terrible-- terrible message that sends. I always sleep with one eye open with him, you know.

Logan: So it bothers you that he said that?

Tyler: Oh, sure it does. "He needs his jaw to sing." Does that mean that maybe there's a fight in the near future? I think he still got a good, strong ego.

They're about to go on tour across America and they're working on a new album. But they're still playing their old classics - like this 1977 hit, "Draw the Line"...something these five guys from Boston are still trying to figure out how to do.