Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler has revealed how he helped Guns n’Roses reunite – by offering advice to Axl Rose that had been given to him by Jon Bon Jovi.
Singer Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan will perform together in April for the first time since 1993, with appearances confirmed in Las Vegas and at the Coachella festival. The rest of the band’s lineup is yet to be confirmed.
Tyler tells Howard Stern on SiriusXM: “I did meet Axl in a couple of clubs. I had that talk. I said, ‘You need to get back together again soon, because we all miss you.’
“Same thing someone said to me when Joe Perry and I were fighting – in fact, it was Jon Bon Jovi. I’m in rehab. He calls me up and goes, ‘What the fuck are you doing? The world needs you. We’re out here ripping it up and everybody’s asking for Aerosmith. People in the world need you.’”
He adds he told Rose: “You’ve got to get it together. There’s a place and a time where, if you don’t, you’re going to miss it. In another four or five years no one’s going to even know or care – and that’s Steven Tyler’s opinion.”
He argues that he’s entitled to that opinion as someone who has “a huge ego about keeping the fire and the music together,” continuing: “If people come up to me and say, ‘Dude, I got laid to your music,’ or a woman says, ‘We got married to your songs,’ you had something to do with the fabric of people.
“Guns n’Roses had something to do with the fabric of humans on this planet, so I get fucking pissed.”