How a Chance Encounter at Woodstock Led to the Formation of Aerosmith

While some bands would take a cancelled gig as a sign to pack up their gear and head home for the night, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler took a last-minute cancellation as an opportunity to head to Woodstock. The fateful change of plans in August 1969, along with a few other other rock ‘n’ roll moments of kismet, would help lead to the formation of Aerosmith.

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It also left Tyler with a wellspring of psychedelic stories, including the memory of water gun fights mixed with something a little more potent.

Steven Tyler Ran Into Future Aerosmith Drummer At Woodstock

Before he was the scarf-clad, screeching frontman of Aerosmith, Steven Tyler was an aspiring rock star cutting his teeth in New York City. In the late summer of 1969, Tyler booked a gig with a different band at a Greenwich Village venue. The gig was ultimately canceled, leaving Tyler with a free weekend and not much else to do. Luckily, rumblings of a music and arts festival happening in upstate New York had already started vibrating through the Big Apple. So, Tyler packed his car with a tent and other partying, er, camping supplies and joined the half a million people on their way to Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York, for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the Aerosmith frontman recalled setting up camp in the woods and regularly walking a makeshift path called Groovy Way to get from the campsite to the main stage. Festival goers had decorated the path with Christmas lights and banners, creating a pleasant atmosphere to pair with the copious amount of psychedelic drugs. Tyler said that while he was walking down Groovy Way one day, he ran into Joey Kramer, a fellow musician who he recognized from high school. Even under the influence of LSD, Tyler knew that he was special.

Tyler saw his encounter with Kramer as a cosmic intervention. After all, there were hundreds of thousands of people at the festival. To be in the right spot at the right time, both physically, in terms of the festival grounds, and professionally, when Tyler was looking to start new musical projects, was no small coincidence. “When you get hip to serendipitous, there’s magic there,” Tyler said. “The more you see it, the more you’re going to get it in your life.”

The Aerosmith Frontman Got Plenty Of Good Stories, Too

Steven Tyler and Joey Kramer’s chance meeting at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was one of the catalysts that led to the formation of Aerosmith, which would go on to become an incredibly successful rock ‘n’ roll band in its own right. It was a natural progression for Tyler, who watched the performers at Woodstock with deep respect and admiration. But professional successes aside, Tyler also got to walk away from the historic weekend with plenty of good stories to share for decades after. Perhaps one of the most memorable and unique experiences Tyler had (if you count an experience shared by half a million people unique) was getting woken up to the opening notes of Jimi Hendrix’s iconic rendition of the national anthem.

And, of course, there was plenty of partying. “I came, I saw, I conquered,” Tyler told Classic Rock magazine in 2024. “I remember it was a great place to get f***ed up. People were walking around with water guns full of acid, squirting them in your face. You’d be tripping in a matter of minutes. It was another generation. Drugs was really the thing to do. There were 450,000 people just floating around the air, running around naked, laughing, and screaming. I remember Country Joe & the Fish, Janis Joplin, Santana, the Who. Music was the savior.”

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