The 75-year-old New York City-born Steven Tyler is the frontman for the iconic Boston-born rock band Aerosmith. With a big voice and an almost equally big mouth, Tyler has earned accolades and attention for songs like “Dream On” and “Crazy.”
Videos by American Songwriter
With all of this experience in the entertainment business, we wanted to glean some insight from Tyler on life, Aersomith, love, family, and the world at large. Below are the best Steven Tyler quotes.
[RELATED: Then & Now: Aerosmith’s Journey to Rock Legends]
1. “Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.”
2. “Great melody over great riffs is, to me, the secret of it all.”
3. “I have a big ego, but I don’t buy into it. I can’t live off the ego. It’s an honor that I get to be that guy onstage. It’s not something I earned.”
4. “Drugs will get you out of your own way, but we lived it, and that’s dangerous. It can actually turn around on itself and steal your soul, and that’s what happened.”
5. “But you’ve reached them, and I’ve always wanted to reach people. I’m the first one to say I love my fans because they love that I took a chance.”
6. “Fake it until you make it.”
7. “I grew up in New Hampshire. My closest neighbor was a mile away. The deer and the raccoons were my friends. So I would spend time walking through the woods, looking for the most beautiful tropical thing that can survive the winter in the woods in New Hampshire.”
8. “I’ve seen whales calving in the waters off Maui, and I’ve watched my children being born. But music is the most beautiful thing of all.”
9. “I had been on the junior Olympic team in high school for trampoline; I could do twenty-six back flips in a row.”
10. “Through song you learn, and I think school systems need to learn that. Through the rhythm you can learn better, through melody, with something you need to learn; it’s a vehicle for it.”
11. “I mean, as long as it doesn’t have a bra attached, guys can take a risk and wear stylish things that went out of style 30 years ago. As things go around, they come around.”
12. “I think if you were to really peek under the hood of what got Aerosmith back again for our second life in the Eighties, you’ll find out that it’s exactly this, it’s the willingness to take a risk.”
13. “The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first.”
14. “My wife and I had decided not to let anybody take pictures of our home because it was just the last place on earth we had that was unscathed. But people have climbed over the fence; they’ve taken aerial shots. They’ve gotten my address and put it on the Internet.”
15. “Humility is really important because it keeps you fresh and new.”
16. “Why not share with the world the way it is and tell them my feelings about my cat, and how I played with my kids, and how addicted to Christmas time I am, and the smell of pine needles and hearing my kids laugh.”
17. “As you know, I’m androgynous. I can wear a jacket that most guys wouldn’t put on. But you make it in guys’ sizes, and suddenly they’re wearing them. I think styles should get back to getting people to wear things that look so good that they don’t care.”
18. “Back then it was nothing like today. So you’d go to the bowling alley. We bowled and you could be in the back and you could make out, you know? And you know how hot it was to make out.”
19. “The band’s never taken a year off. Last August we decided to take one, and three months in I was bored to tears.”
20. “As good as I am, I’m nothing without my band.”
Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images
