Rock of Ages

Spencer Patterson

Friday, Nov. 8, 2002 | 10:03 a.m.

After 32 years, Tom Hamilton doesn't harbor any illusions about his place in the Aerosmith hierarchy.

He knows that where most casual listeners are concerned, it's vocalist Steven Tyler, guitarist Joe Perry and "the other guys."

But night after night, when it comes time for the veteran rock band to play "Sweet Emotion," Hamilton has the spotlight all to himself as he opens the song with its instantly identifiable bassline intro.

"There aren't too many recognizable basslines of the last however long rock and roll has been going on," Hamilton said in a recent phone interview from a Dallas hotel room. "And that's a song that's actually recognized for its bassline. So I guess I'm sort of pulling my load as a bass player."

Hamilton has actually been pulling his load since Aerosmith's formative days in the Boston area, when he and Perry recruited Tyler to join their band. The trio, along with longtime second guitarist Brad Whitford and drummer Joey Kramer, will play to a sold-out MGM Grand Garden Arena crowd Saturday with opening act Kid Rock at 7 p.m.

"The recognition factor was a tough issue for me for a long time, because I know what it's like on the inside, how hard everybody works," Hamilton said. "And then you'd pick up a newspaper and it was just about Steven, Joe and the other guys.'

"It took me a while to realize it's all right. I play a vital role in the band too, and I don't get my feelings hurt from reading Rolling Stone or whatever." Besides, at the rate Aerosmith has been racking up honors since its late-1980s resurgence, Hamilton certainly has plenty of other reasons not to get down about performing in the shadow of the charismatic Tyler-Perry combo.

Besides, Hamilton has been kept plenty busy during Aerosmith's resurgence, which began in the late-1980s and has yet to crest.

"It's kind of fun to think about someone 100 years from now, learning about American pop culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, and us being there representing," Hamilton said.

Earlier this year Aerosmith reached yet another milestone, albeit a somewhat dubious one. The group was the focus of a two-hour episode of VH1's "Behind the Music," assembling sordid tales from the musicians' past.

Watching that program still makes Hamilton rather uncomfortable.

"We have periods in our past that were so full of strife and disagreement that a lot of things kind of had to be left unresolved, things that we used to argue about or have resentment over," Hamilton said. "So, watching something like this wakes that stuff up again. It's kind of like taking those issues and putting them right back on the table.

"There were definitely things in that Joe said or somebody else said where I realized we still don't see eye to eye on this stuff."

Nevertheless, Hamilton said he and his four bandmates are enjoying life on the road together, as they return to many cities for the second time this year. Aerosmith played The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel in January.

"The tour has been unbelievable. We've been around the United States a couple of times in the last year, and we're going back to a lot of places where we thought we had basically used up our welcome," Hamilton said. "People are just very interested in hearing the band right now. We feel very fortunate."

It's many years removed from the band's modest start in 1970, when Hamilton and Perry merely dreamt of playing The Barn in North Andover, Mass., even if it meant cleaning up after shows.

"When Joe and I were teenagers, our ambition was to play The Barn. That was making it," Hamilton said. "We became the house band there, and the owner let us stay in a deserted farmhouse up the street, but we had to be the cleaner-uppers of The Barn. We were the janitors."

Those humble beginnings were followed by the band's first period of prosperity. The 1970s saw Aerosmith release successful albums, such as "Get Your Wings" and "Toys in the Attic," and record some of FM's most enduring classics, "Dream On," "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk This Way," among them.

Between 1979 and 1980, Perry, and then Whitford, both exited the scene, and the remaining group fell from public favor, performing in half-empty concert halls and releasing albums that sold poorly.

Then in 1987, with all five core members back on board, the band released "Permanent Vacation," and experienced an unforgettable revival.

"We've experienced our decline and it's embarrassing, not something that you want to do in public," Hamilton said. "But we got this fleeting chance to get our band back together and get on an ascending curve again. And luckily, we're still aware of that.