As per a joint statement issued by his bandmates, Aerosmith vocalist & lifelong recovering user Steven Tyler has voluntarily joined the rehab after a relapse. As a result, Aerosmith has postponed their June & July residency concerts at Park MGM in Las Vegas, which would have been the group’s first performances since the COVID-19 outbreak, in order for the 74-year-old music legend to “focuses on his well-being.”
“As many of you know, our beloved brother Steven has worked on his sobriety for many years,” Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer, and Brad Whitford, members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame-inducted group, stated on social media. “After foot, surgery to prepare for the stage and the necessity of pain management during the process, he has recently relapsed and voluntarily entered a treatment program to concentrate on his health and recovery.”
Tyler, who was formerly regarded as one of the “Toxic Twins” alongside Aerosmith guitarist Perry, has long been candid about his substance misuse issues, which have hampered the band’s career. Tyler used marijuana, OxyContin, dope, methamphetamine, methadone, Acid, and cocaine for years, according to his 2011 autobiography, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? Tyler spent an estimated $6 million on drugs over his career, said report.
It took the singer several attempts to get sober “There were no rehabs; there were psychiatric facilities In 1984 and 1986, I went away and didn’t really get it. Drugs brought us down in the early ’80s,” he recounted in a 2019 Haute Living interview but by the mid-’80s, he had completed a successful treatment program thanks to an intervention coordinated by Aerosmith’s manager, Tim Collins.
Collins promised that if they all went to rehab, he could make Aerosmith the largest band in the world by 1990; according to Tyler’s account, their 1987 album Permanent Vacation was the first album they produced sober, and it sparked a spectacular resurgence for the band. “It took me many years to get over the anger of [my bandmates] sending me to rehab while they went on vacation,” Tyler recalled to Haute Living. “But today, because of that moment … I am grateful and owe a thanks to them for my sobriety.”
Tyler became hooked on prescription medicine while being medicated for hepatitis C in 2006, after being sober for 12 years. According to a 2013 interview with Today, he admitted himself into the Betty Ford Clinic in December 2009 after ingesting cocaine & pills. In 2020, MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charity arm that provides musicians with financial, medical, and personal support, named Aerosmith as Person of the Year for their philanthropic endeavors.