“If you spend all your time learning technique and scales, you’re not going to write something new and interesting”: Aerosmith’s Joe Perry preaches songwriting over guitar practice

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has advised up-and-coming players to focus on songwriting, not just technique alone.

The 74-year-old makes the comment in the new issue of Guitarist magazine: “If you spend all your time learning technique, scales and all that, you’re not going to write something new and interesting,” he says.

• READ MORE: “We don’t know what the future holds”: Aerosmith aren’t ruling out new music later down the line following retirement from touring
  

Perry also offers his thoughts on guitar technique during the interview, advising players to “break away” from traditional approaches if they want to be noticed. “You have to teach yourself to break away,” he says. “Technique is a way to get somewhere, and in and of itself, it’s fine. Fucking go for it if you want, but if you want to play the kind of rock ’n’ roll that I like, there’s more to it.”

He adds: “There’s infinite number of chords that can help you, but it’s really what you want to do with the guitar [that matters].”

Back in August, Aerosmith announced their retirement from touring and cancelled all of their then-upcoming farewell shows, which were scheduled to take place all the way into 2025. The hard rockers’ live retirement was a result of Steven Tyler’s vocal issues, after the frontman fractured his larynx in 2023.

“We’ve seen [Tyler] struggling despite having the best medical team by his side,” the band wrote in a statement. “Sadly, it is clear that a full recovery from his vocal injury is not possible. We have made a heartbreaking and difficult, but necessary, decision – as a band of brothers – to retire from the touring stage.”

Later that month, bassist Tom Hamilton teased that Aerosmith’s live retirement didn’t necessarily mean no more music from the band. He said that Tyler had been “healing well” from his injury and that “we don’t know what the future holds, but it won’t include touring”.

What Hamilton did rule out, however, was the notion of the band returning to the road with someone in Tyler’s stead. “There’s been no talk at all about going on the road with another singer,” he said. “I can’t imagine it.”