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Aerosmith’s Joe Perry takes flight with new solo album

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry gets to spread his wings on his fifth solo CD, “Joe Perry … Have Guitar Will Travel,” which he hopes to release in November. 

Perry, who sings on four of the tracks, also expects to tour early next year under the guise of the Joe Perry Project. The album follows a self-titled, Grammy-nominated effort that came out in 2005 and sold 31,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. His first three solo albums, all credited to the Joe Perry Project, were released in the early 1980s when he briefly quit Aerosmith during its drug-fueled nadir. 

“Have Guitar … Will Travel,” a nod to the similarly titled 1959 Bo Diddley album, was named by a fan, Joe Piscitelli, after Perry asked for submissions via Twitter. Five of the tracks are sung by a relatively unknown German musician called Hagen. He was discovered by Perry’s wife, Billie, on YouTube. The remaining song on the disc is an instrumental. The first single is “Long Way to Go.” Other cuts include a cover of the early Fleetwood Mac tune “Somebody’s Gonna Get (Their Head Kicked In Tonite)” as well as the new song “Oh Lord,” which Perry sings.

“That’s kinda like a Jim Morrison-y prayer set to music,” Perry told Reuters in a recent interview. ”My son sings in the choir at school, and I had him bring in some of his friends and they came in and sang the choruses and things and helped with the vibe. That’s the kinda thing I really don’t hear in an Aerosmith record.” 

Aerosmith has not released an album of new material since 2001′s “Just Push Play.” Efforts to record a follow-up have been interrupted by health problems for virtually every member of the veteran band. Its current North American tour got off to a rough start when seven shows were postponed after singer Steven Tyler was hobbled by a leg injury. The next stop is Sturgis, S.D., on Wednesday.