DATE: Monday, July 28, 1997                 TAG: 9707260054

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SUE VanHECKE, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:  104 lines

AEROSMITH!AGING ROCKERS HAVE KEPT UP TO DATE WHILE WITHSTANDING DEVISIVENESS, RUMORS AND MANAGEMENT CHANGE.

A MISSING MEMBER, divisive infighting, a wrenching management change and very public rumors about renewed drug use.

Given the last year in the life of Aerosmith, fans are lucky there's still a band, let alone a new album, aptly titled ``Nine Lives.''

The well-publicized troubles began when drummer Joey Kramer dropped out of the early ``Lives'' sessions, which were helmed in Miami by Glen Ballard rather than longtime knob-twister Bruce Fairbairn and dogged by squabbling over musical direction.

``It was a very interesting but very weird time in our career,'' Kramer said. ``I had lost my dad and had some other things going on in my life that I needed to take care of. It kind of all caught up with me at once, and I went into a really deep depression, so much so that I had to go away to take care of it.''

So, at the behest of manager Tim Collins, a recovered addict who resuscitated the drug-ravaged career of the '70s hard-rock hit makers into a multi-platinum powerhouse, Aerosmith brought in session drummer Steve Ferrone.

``A great studio player,'' Kramer said from his Boston home, ``but he's not a rock 'n' roll player. There's no aggression in his playing, there's no anger in his playing, there's no passion in his playing.''

As for being replaced, ``it was pretty devastating, especially while I was away dealing with my depression. (But) they did it, and it came out the way it came out. It wasn't right, which was kind of validating for me. It was nice to know that a real Aerosmith album couldn't be made without me.''

Or with Ballard. The Miami tapes, which Kramer describes as ``a little on the white side, it didn't really sound like the band,'' were disappointing. Recording was terminated.

The band returned to Boston, where escalating bickering, fueled by Collins' concerns - completely unfounded, Kramer said - that long-sober frontman Steven Tyler had had a drug relapse, brought the band to the brink of breakup.

Desperate to iron out their differences, last summer all five members checked into the same California rehab center that had nursed Kramer out of his depression. They were there to collectively deal with ``a project known as communication breakdown.''

``It had nothing to do with drugs,'' said the drummer, who recently marked his 10th year of sobriety, ``nothing to do with alcohol.

``A lot of it had to do with management at the time. (Collins) had told us a lot of non-truths, and because he managed us for 12 years, we believed him. Eventually, we all realized what was going on. . . . He was trying to manipulate our personal lives, our careers, our wives and families. It was just time to part ways. So we did.''

Collins didn't take the boot lightly. He promptly told The Boston Globe and Rolling Stone his suspicions about Tyler, a move Kramer feels was motivated solely by revenge.

``He was very, very, very hurt when we let him go,'' Kramer said. ``He was devastated, and when he ran to the press to say the things that he did, he was hurt and that's how things came out. . . . Those were all very, very, very false accusations.''

Rejuvenated by the house-cleaning, however, the band climbed back in the saddle and started anew on ``Nine Lives'' in New York City, bringing Australian producer Kevin Shirley on board to recapture that old Aerosmith groove.

It was the best therapy Kramer could've gotten.

``I really had a lot of discrepancies about whether or not I wanted to go back into the studio,'' he recalled, ``and for awhile I was trying to decide whether I even wanted to continue to do this at all.

``When I finally came to the decision that this is what I really love, this is what I want to do, I had to dig down pretty deep for the strength. And when we started (recording again), it really turned into a joyous occasion. It really brought me back around.''

While some of ``Lives'' reach back to the band's raw rock of yore, the slick power ballad, Aerosmith's recent stock-in-trade, rears its radio-ready head more than a few times. Tinges of postmortem grunge color other tracks.

``We're influenced by everything and everybody,'' Kramer said. ``We try to stay abreast of what it is that's going on and not going on. It's really important to stay in touch with that. You can't lose touch.''

The album also features extensive outside songwriting - almost a dozen collaborators, in fact - a practice more common in pop music than hard rock.

But ``not really unusual for us,'' Kramer said. ``We've always used outside writers. With a lot of bands that aren't happening anymore, you get one guy or two guys in the band that write all the material, and after awhile, how much can these guys do?

``Look at Van Halen. They're a great band, they're all great musicians who play tremendously, but Eddie writes all the songs, so you have the music kind of sounding the same.''

With the seemingly ageless Tyler and company now pushing 50, you gotta wonder what keeps the kids listening to Aerosmith and not the group's '70s rock peers?

It's simple, said Kramer.

Those other bands just ``didn't move along, their music is the same as it was back then,' he said. ``What we've managed to do is stay in touch with the kids and update our music.

``We come from the same roots as we always came from, but it's updated to the '90s. Because of that, the kids have stayed with us, which is really an amazing thing. I look out (from the stage) and I see 15-year-olds, but I also see 40-year-olds. It's pretty exciting.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Norman Seeff/Geffen Records

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