When Aerosmith broke up over a glass of spilled milk

Nov 25, 2023

By the end of the 1970s, nothing would slow Aerosmith down. Having made some of the greatest hard rock songs of the decade, their signature mix of bluesy swagger and rock and roll attitude made them big enough to rival some of their original heroes like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. In the background, though, the band went through some of their worst personal periods.

During the recording for what would become their fifth album, Draw the Line, every band member was strung out on drugs and forced to record their days away in an abandoned convent known as The Centinel. As the band tried their best to get something on tape, Joe Perry started withdrawing from the group, spending more time with his wife, Elyssa and getting strung out on heroin.

Although the band forced themselves to bring the album into existence, the tension between Perry and Steven Tyler reached a boiling point. Tyler had always had a strained relationship with Elyssa, even immortalising her in the song ‘Sweet Emotion’ for talking about things nobody cares about.

As Perry and Elyssa grew closer, Tyler decided to become a bit fierier, eventually dating Elyssa's best friend Cyrinda Fox out of spite before eventually marrying her. Although the romantic tensions were the original fuel for the fire, the tension between the two creative partners began getting physical onstage.

On rare occasions, Tyler was known to throw the microphone stand around and would often come within inches of Perry's head while he was playing. After taking some time off to regroup, the band's next gig at a rock festival in Cincinnati would go down in infamy as the end of their glory years.

Starting with an argument with bassist Tom Hamilton's wife, Elyssa became physical backstage, eventually throwing a glass of milk around the room. After Perry returned to assess the situation, the drama building up for the past few years was finally out on the table, culminating in him and Tyler engaging in a major blowout argument.

After thinking that his wife was disrespected, Perry walked out of the venue, never returning, forming his band, The Joe Perry Project, and leaving the rest of the band without their resident guitar hero. Though the band made it through their next album, Night In The Ruts, relatively unscathed, replacement guitarist Jimmy Crespo was given an ice-cold reception by their audience.

As the band tried to soldier on on the next album, Rock In a Hard Place, Brad Whitford decided he had had enough as well, not attending the session and forming his own projects without Aerosmith. While the original days of Aerosmith may have been about good clean fun, the end of their golden age looked more like a soap opera than anything remotely rock and roll. Perry might have come back into the fold a few years later, but ‘The Bad Boys From Boston’ were about to face some of the darkest days of their career.