As a lifelong New Englander and more importantly my obsession with music, I guess you could say I’m a fan of Aerosmith, so when the opportunity to interview Joe Perry was presented to me, I nearly peed my pants.

It’s always tough to prepare for an interview because you really never know how talkative or non-talkative an artist is going to be. They could give you one word answers or talk forever. The latter is definitely my preference but not always the case. A good interview should feel like a casual phone conversation with a friend with a comfortable flow. So considering all of that, I wondered how Joe Perry would be? Having met him briefly in the past at a show, he seemed pretty quiet so I really wasn’t sure.

Fast forward to the day of our interview, Joe could not have been a cooler guy. He talked honestly and openly about everything from his two sons and his involvement with their band TAB to his partnership with Guitar Hero to the current state of Aerosmith. After about 45 minutes and only having made it through about half of my questions I had to let Joe off of the hook since I had been asked to keep it to 30 minutes (which is still a really long time to talk to a rock legend!). When I hung up the phone, I did a happy dance and thanked my lucky stars that not all of my heroes are assholes!

You can read my interview with Joe in the February print issue of The Pulse (available in MA) or read it online at The Pulse here.

You can also read the full unedited version posted on TheyWillRockYou.com here.

You can also check out photos I took of Joe Perry performing with TAB here.