On this day (March 9) in 1986, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith stepped into the studio to re-record their parts of “Walk This Way” to contribute to Run-DMC’s now-legendary cover of the song. It became their first major hit. Moreover, it introduced the group and hip hop in general to a wider–and whiter–audience. The collaboration helped bring hip hop into the mainstream, paving the way for generations of artists and countless genre-bending collaborations.
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Aerosmith originally released “Walk This Way” as a single from their 1975 album Toys in the Attic. Two years later, it became one of the band’s first top 10 hits on the Hot 100. It helped launch them to mainstream success and has since become one of their signature songs.
[RELATED: 3 Aerosmith Music Videos That Ruled MTV in the Late 1980s]
By the mid-1980s, though, the band’s popularity was beginning to falter. Their 1985 album, Done With Mirrors, peaked at No. 36 on the Billboard 200, a career low. So, when Rick Rubin, who was producing Run-DMC’s album Raising Hell, called and asked Perry and Tyler to record, they quickly agreed, according to Songfacts. “It took me all of a minute to say yes,” Perry recalled. “I didn’t know what was going to happen when I walked in the studio. I thought they’d show us some ideas on how to rearrange it, but all they had was a drum track. Rubin said, ‘All you gotta do is play the song the way you play it.’ So I sat down and played it.”
Run-DMC Weren’t Excited to Collaborate with Aerosmith
Run-DMC were no strangers to incorporating rock elements into their music by 1986. They had already done so on “King of Rock” and “Rock Box.” However, that didn’t mean they wanted to collaborate with Aerosmith. In fact, both Joseph Simmons (Run) and Darryl McDaniels (DMC) didn’t want to do the cover at all.
Initially, they were going to sample “Walk This Way” because they liked rapping over the beat. Then, Rick Rubin suggested that they do a cover version of the song. He gave them the record and told them to listen to it and learn the lyrics. At the time, they had never heard the vocals. “We put the needle on the number four on Aerosmith, we take out a pen and pad, and we sat there and was going to let the record play,” McDaniels recalled in an interview.
After hearing the first verse, they called Rubin with their reaction. “Oh hell no! We ain’t makin’ this! This is country bumpkin music, this is hillbilly jibberish!”
In the end, Run-DMC had a major hit with “Walk This Way” and found a new audience. At the same time, the song revived Aerosmith’s career. More importantly, it introduced hip hop to a new audience.
“Now, when I go to high schools and middle schools, and I speak to the kids, I always tell the kids this: Always be open to try something new because it might not just change your life, it could change the world,” McDaniels said. “When Steven Tyler took that microphone stand and knocked down that wall in the ‘Walk This Way’ video, that didn’t just happen in the video. That happened in real life.”
Featured Image by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
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