Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?

Steven Tyler has a way with words. Who else would describe his lust for Pamela Anderson by writing, “I’d drink a gallon of her piss just to see where it comes from”? That’s only the tip of the crazy in Tyler’s new memoir, which traces his life from childhood through his latest incarnation as the star judge on American Idol. Along the way, he’s had one of the most spectacular tales of rise, fall and resurrection in rock history. The bad times got bad: In 1983, Aerosmith were playing tiny clubs, while a nearly broke Tyler lived in a New York motel and spent his days scouring the city for heroin. “I was so out of it that when I got mugged ”“ the guy stuck a pistol in my mouth ”“ I didn’t care whether I lived or died,” he writes. “I was half dead anyway.”

Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? is 376 pages of pure, unfiltered Tyler. Co-writer David Dalton had the tough job of turning Tyler’s rants into a narrative, and he only half succeeds. Part of the problem is that Tyler’s life has often been a frightening merry-go-round: horrible fights with Joe Perry, drug addiction, disease, hit album, failed album, rehab. At points, when Tyler describes a stint in treatment, it’s hard to know what decade we’re in.

Noise is compelling stuff, though Aerosmith’s 1997 oral history, Walk This Way, covered much of the same ground ”“ and gave equal voice to all five members of the band. Still, Tyler’s at times gripping, often hilarious voice keeps things moving ”“ whether he’s describing his 2006 battle with hepatitis C, his “deep-fried” road life in the 1970s or Aerosmith’s chronic dysfunction. Of the band’s threats to find a new singer after Tyler fell off a stage in 2009, he laments, “Forty fucking years of brotherly love, knockdown fights and drug hoarding . . . did that mean nothing to them?” He’s a hard guy to replace.