A SHORT WHILE ago, Joe Perry was struggling with his tone. That’s not to say his chops had faded; it was more a matter of years of sonic exploration having left things a bit muddy. Luckily, just as he was preparing for Aerosmith’s impending Las Vegas residency, he met Darren Hurst, a man who, in almost no time at all, unlocked the signature sounds that made Aerosmith one of the greatest rock bands in history.
“I had done five years with Peter Frampton, and as we know, Peter had announced that he was retiring,” Hurst says. “While I was off the road, I got a call from a friend named Aidan Mullen, bass tech for Def Leppard and a friend of the Aerosmith camp. He said, ‘I
