Top 40 Joe Perry Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Take life on life’s terms – one day at a time. And have fun while you’re doing it.”

— Joe Perry

2. “I love Indian food – it’s my favourite cuisine. I love the mixture of spices and the subtle flavours. It’s really erotic; the spices are so sensuous.”

— Joe Perry

3. “Aerosmith is such a powerful band; I mean, it’s like a steam locomotive.”

— Joe Perry

4. “The Beatles just changed everything right across the board. They just had that right combination of clean-cut good looks – a cute band – but under that they had a real rock n roll thing going on.”

— Joe Perry

5. “I’m glad that I never ended up killing myself, though I came close more times than I would like to admit.”

— Joe Perry

6. “The really pop country stuff can sound a little bland because they put in strings and horns and all of that.”

— Joe Perry

7. “I think that’s really important, that kids get exposed to music as soon as they can – not necessarily to become musicians, but at least have an outlet. It’s an art form that’s easily accessible to young ears.”

— Joe Perry

8. “You think it’s all written, but it’s not. There’s always another way to twist those three chords around.”

— Joe Perry

9. “A lot of people don’t listen to the albums. They just listen to the singles.”

— Joe Perry

10. “When I got sober and started working out, I fell into that trap of working out too much. I know a lot of guys can relate to that – if you don’t get that runner’s high every day, you feel like, ‘Oh my God, I’m losing it.’”

— Joe Perry

11. “I don’t want fans to think we’re clean, upstanding American boys, but we are Americans, and we do stand up.”

— Joe Perry

12. “I think we’re just a garage band that got lucky. It’s the enthusiasm from the audience that keeps it going.”

— Joe Perry

13. “I have seen more bad songs make it because of MTV than good ones that haven’t.”

— Joe Perry

14. “The great British blues guitarists of the Sixties – people like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Peter Green – could play like virtuosos, but they also understood the importance of energy and intensity.”

— Joe Perry

15. “When I plug in my guitar and play it really loud, loud enough to deafen most people, that’s my shot of adrenaline, and there’s nothing like it. That’s what it’s always been for me – to be the flame the tribe dances around.”

— Joe Perry

16. “You can always pound out demos and send them to record companies, but most of the successful bands I’ve seen are the ones that can sustain themselves.”

— Joe Perry

17. “The Beatles did everything long before anyone else. They weren’t afraid to try things and to experiment with a lot of sounds. In 200 years, when you look up ‘rock and roll’ in the dictionary, it’ll have a picture of the Beatles next to it.”

— Joe Perry

18. “There are definitely things about ‘Legendary Child’ that echo the music we did earlier in our career. It’s got the right stuff.”

— Joe Perry

19. “India brings out so many different feelings in me. I’ve been fascinated with India and Indian culture as long as I can remember – ever since the ’60s with the Beatles and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.”

— Joe Perry

20. “Berry’s On Top is probably my favorite record of all time; it defines rock and roll. A lot of people have done Chuck Berry songs, but to get that feel is really hard. It’s the rock and roll thing-the push-pull and the rhythm of it.”

— Joe Perry

21. “It’s probably listening to country music that got me to start playing a lot cleaner, not as distorted.”

— Joe Perry

22. “I guess we all have a bad night now and then and really screw up. I listened to our earlier stuff and we screwed up a lot. But at least now that we are sober, when we screw up it’s for real.”

— Joe Perry

23. “The ’70’s came and went already.”

— Joe Perry

24. “I love to listen to the music that first inspired me – I get that fresh feeling back.”

— Joe Perry

25. “I don’t think there’s anything anybody’s doing that the Beatles didn’t at least try at some point.”

— Joe Perry

26. “I think people have to be more aware of what the repercussions are of their actions.”

— Joe Perry

27. “I think one of the most valuable things Aerosmith has is the energy we produce when we all play together.”

— Joe Perry

28. “I’ve come to realize that you live on through recordings; they’re like a musical diary, a window into somebody’s soul.”

— Joe Perry

29. “A band isn’t a band unless they’re playing together. Otherwise, it’s just five guys that are living off their royalty checks.”

— Joe Perry

30. “I collect firearms, and I’ve got a Winchester, an Indian rifle. It has tacks for every warrior that was shot, like notches on a pistol, and it’s got feathers and beads hanging off it. It’s like a work of art.”

— Joe Perry

31. “I was very fascinated by the time when firearms went from being fire sticks to being something people could use to hunt and to survive.”

— Joe Perry

32. “I don’t see anyone avoiding the Stones because DJs make jokes about them being a part of the Geritol set. All it does is make the DJs look stupid.”

— Joe Perry

33. “I never envisioned what I was doing as part of a career.”

— Joe Perry

34. “Describing certain sounds, there’s a common language that guitar players have.”

— Joe Perry

35. “There was a time I thought I couldn’t enjoy rock ‘n’ roll unless I had heroin in me.”

— Joe Perry

36. “Get good live and get a following because that’s what people notice.”

— Joe Perry

37. “I have always been fascinated with guns. I grew up in America so granted, it is part of our heritage and it is written into the laws of how this country is run.”

— Joe Perry

38. “The media plays up celebrity a lot, but it doesn’t hold a candle to being a scientist. There’s a lot to be said for what they all do, and are trying to accomplish.”

— Joe Perry

39. “There are guys in country music who are wizards on the guitar. If you’re a country fan, you’re used to it. But as a rock guitar player, you listen.”

— Joe Perry

40. “Sometimes when a record’s done, I’m satisfied and I won’t listen back to it for a while ’cause I’m usually pretty tired of the songs. Then I’ve got to learn them again to play them live, and sometimes it takes a while to realise it’s a really good record.”

— Joe Perry

41. “I didn’t think I could go onstage and play unless I had a beer to loosen up. Well, if it was only one beer to loosen up, I’d probably still be drinking today.”

— Joe Perry

42. “My chosen instrument is guitar and, fortunately, I’m able to muddle through that. I can play guitar to the point where I can express myself artistically.”

— Joe Perry

43. “Music is music you don’t have to put a label on it.”

— Joe Perry

44. “Over the years, when you’re in a band with a catalog like Aerosmith’s, you accumulate a lot of instruments to duplicate those songs.”

— Joe Perry

45. “I definitely wanted a girlfriend, but I wanted an electric guitar even more.”

— Joe Perry

46. “I don’t think a son can ever be prepared for the loss of his father. When it happened, I could feel my heart break in two. A sadness washed over me unlike any I had ever experienced. It wasn’t that my father and I had enjoyed the closest of relationships. For a good portion of my life we struggled to communicate. For years we had lived in different worlds. But the unspoken love between us was powerful. And maybe because it was unspoken, it carried an even greater weight.”

— Joe Perry