NorthJersey.com
Jim Beckerman
It says something about the behavior of the Aerosmith band members that drummer Joey Kramer is widely regarded as one of the band's more stable musicians.
After all, Kramer has merely endured alcoholism, crippling depression, marital woes and – on one notorious occasion – second-degree burns from a freak fire at a gas station.
Compared with the rifts, feuds, fights, accidents, injuries, onstage collapses, motorcycle smash-ups, drug benders and other bad-boy behavior that long ago got singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry dubbed "the toxic twins," he's practically a model of restraint.
"The job of the drummer is to keep it tied down and harness the energy," says Kramer, touring this summer with bandmates Tyler, Perry, guitarist Brad Whitford and bassist Tom Hamilton. And no, Tyler – despite rumors earlier this year – will be fronting the band as usual. "Best lead singer on the planet," Kramer says.
But Kramer has fought his own personal battles, and his 2009 book "Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top" chronicles many of them. "We can just call it interesting stuff, or we can call it bad stuff. Or we can call it good stuff because this" – meaning a cleaned-up lifestyle, a book and a spinoff Hit Hard iPhone game – "is the result of it."
Kramer, born in the Bronx and raised in Yonkers, was with the Boston-based Aerosmith from before the beginning (circa 1969). He's credited with naming the band: inspired by Harry Nilsson's album "Aerial Ballet." And he's been with them through years that saw hits like "Walk This Way" and "Dream On" shoot to the top of the charts, and the band itself become a multiple-Grammy-winning national institution.
They've been cartoonified on "The Simpsons," showcased in movies like "Be Cool" and "Wayne's World 2," appeared at Super Bowl halftimes and inspired themed roller coasters at Walt Disney World. In 1986, they helped launch a potent hybrid of hip-hop and hard rock when a Run-D.M.C. cover of "Walk This Way" led to the two outfits joining forces for videos and appearances.
"That's what happens when you're around so long," Kramer says. "You become part of – well, hopefully, not part of the woodwork. But we're still functioning, and the band is playing now as good if not better than we ever have. I'm proud to report that, and I'm happy to report that. Everybody needs to come out and witness that."
In the midst of the 40-year-running soap opera that was the band's offstage life, Kramer's own problems began to get the better of him, as he reports in "Hit Hard."
Many of these revolved around Kramer's father – a salesman with whom the Aerosmith drummer had a fraught relationship for years. When Mickey Kramer died in 1994 – the band was then touring – it took several years for the loss to catch up to his son. But when it did, it was devastating.
"I think the main reason my father's passing affected me the way it did is that I was so distracted by being on the road that I really wasn't dealing with it, or grieving," Kramer says. "I just continued to busy myself – not that I had much choice about doing it, because we were in Japan at the time."
Two years later, the death triggered a paralyzing depression that threatened to topple Kramer from his drummer's throne.
"This whole terrible thing happened," Kramer says. "It took about two years for it to come around and bite me on the [butt]. It kind of snapped on me. I just dealt with it as best I could. The one thing that got me through is something he taught me: 'If you need to slow down once in a while, that's OK. But whatever you do, never stop.' I think I kind of got his intestinal fortitude. He was a hustle-and-bustle kind of guy."
Those mental scars, oddly, seem to have been more lasting than the physical scars left by another experience that happened around the same time. Incredibly enough, Kramer says, he doesn't have lasting scars from an incident he still gets asked about: the 1998 gas-station inferno that consumed his Ferrari and nearly took his life.
"The hose fell out of the car and filled the ground with petrol, and it ignited by spontaneous combustion," Kramer says. "The car caught on fire, and it was engulfed in flames, and I had to get out of it. In the middle of it. I got burned badly, all second-degree burns. I didn't get scarred from it, but it was a freakin' nightmare. A nightmare in the flesh."
Now that he's put these personal dramas behind him, he can once again fully participate in the larger five-character, ongoing drama that is Aerosmith. Stay tuned for more great music and more bad behavior: same time, same station.
"Any marriage that lasts for 40 years is going to have a lot of drama," Kramer says. "But what doesn't kill us just makes us stronger."
