Steven Tyler’s ‘American Idol’ Stint Still Sore Subject For Aerosmith

Steven Tyler‘s two seasons as a judge on American Idol were generally seen as a success. He may not have been the most incisive judge, but he was entertaining and brought back some of the loopiness the show lost with Paula Abdul‘s departure. But the gig put his day job as the Aerosmith frontman on thin ice, as it ignited tensions between the singer and guitarist Joe Perry.

Aerosmith’s “toxic twins” sat down with ABC backstage at the iHeart Radio festival and opened up about the still-ripe issue. Though the band joined Tyler on the May Idol finale for a performance of their new song “Legendary Child,” and Tyler has since left the show, it’s clear in the above interview that the sexagenarians still don’t quite see eye-to-eye on Idol.

For one thing, Perry heard about Tyler’s decision to join the show not from the singer, but from the media. His initial reaction was that he didn’t even want the Aerosmith name to be associated with Idol. Tyler assumed the other members were jealous, which he even insists in this interview, but Perry disputes that claim.

Tyler and Perry have been butting heads for forty years, so we don’t expect this particular conflict to derail the band, especially considering it put millions of new eyeballs on the aging rockers. And, in fact, the ordeal may have led to a creative breakthrough: Perry says of their forthcoming album Music From Another Dimension! that it’s “the best record we have ever made, without any doubt.” The same can’t be said for the record’s title, though.

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