Chris Daughtry reveals that he was considered as a potential vocalist for AEROSMITH during the band’s fallout with Steven Tyler in 2009. This fallout was a result of a tour cancellation and Tyler‘s decision to devote two years to a solo project, leading him to a stint in rehab for painkiller addiction.
Despite these issues, it was consistently stated that Tyler never officially left AEROSMITH. Moreover, Tyler‘s management and legal team were ready to initiate legal proceedings if the band proceeded with plans to replace him for touring purposes.
This revelation from the former “American Idol” participant about his near-collaboration with AEROSMITH was shared during his guest appearance on a recent episode of “The Dave Rickards Podcast.”
He said: “I get this random call from [AEROSMITH guitarist] Joe Perry. Joe Perry and Steven were apparently at odds with each other. It was all in the news; this isn’t private information. I think this was right when Steven Tyler was going on ‘American Idol’ and they weren’t touring together. I think it was like a public breakup sort of thing. Joe Perry calls me. I’m, like, ‘First of all, I didn’t know Joe Perry had my number. This is incredible.’ I thought it was a joke at first, but he didn’t even take time to, like, ‘How’re you doing?’ He just went into his reason for calling me.
“‘And I don’t know what Steven‘s doing, but we wanna work. How would you feel about hitting the road with us? You’ve got some cool songs we could play too.’ And I was, like, ‘Uh…’ I was speechless. First of all, I don’t consider myself any caliber of singer that Steven Tyler is as far as I would not be able to tackle those songs the way Steven Tyler tackles him. He is irreplaceable, in my mind. Furthermore, Steven Tyler‘s alive. This whole fear of pissing off one of my heroes was just looming, and I was, like, ‘There’s no way I can do this, Joe.'”
When asked if he could perform AEROSMITH‘s iconic power ballad “Dream On,” Daughtry responded: “On a good day, where I’m not beat up, I can nail that high part at the end, but that is like one out of every five times. And then there’s other times where I would just bail.”
A few years back, Classic Rock magazine disclosed that Joe Perry had reached out to Paul Rodgers, Chris Cornell, and Billy Idol, considering them for the vocalist position in AEROSMITH. However, Sammy Hagar‘s representatives negated any claims that he had been propositioned for the role.
