Aerosmith Cont...

Which is to say that Aerosmith do a lot of things that may not be very "rock 'n' roll," but are pretty damn decent things to do. Like quietly giving money to Boston Children's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, a place Kramer is intimately familiar with, having recovered there from the latest Aerosmith movie plot twist, the freaky gas station accident which left him with second and third degree burns on his arms and legs. This, and the injury to Steven Tyler's leg, forced Aerosmith to postpone doing what I think is the real reason they've returned in such a big way: touring.

Non-stop touring, as a matter of fact. Getting back to work and taking the music to the people is, in my opinion, what has really brought Aerosmith back from the depths of rock 'n' roll purgatory. And Kramer seems to agree with me, admitting that it was taking a long hard look at what they were doing (as well as getting a grip on that sobriety thing) that brought them back to reality. "Part of it was eliminating certain things in our lives that were holding us back, and it was a question of being able to see that and realize that and accept it, and doing something about it and realizing certain mistakes we'd made.... But mostly we just decided to bite the bullet and get buckled down and do whatever it was that we had to do to make it happen."

And they have, with hit singles and sold-out concerts for proof. And now there's A Little South of Sanity, a live Aerosmith record capturing both the Get A Grip tour, and the current Nine Lives tour, which shows absolutely no sign of stopping. And as Kramer points out, this is really Aerosmith, and it's just like being there. "Most bands when they do a live album, they'll take some drum tracks and some audience tracks, because that's what you're out there for, and go into the studio and redo a lot of stuff, and still say it's a live album. But I'm really proud to say that on this album, there has been no fix-ups on it, and the album as you hear it, is just the band onstage playing.