Draw The Line – Aerosmith

Producer: Jack Douglas

Released: December 1, 1977

Rating: **** 1/2

In the grand scheme of things, very few bands will sustain careers as long as Aerosmith. Even fewer will do so with all the original members intact. There are so many reasons why bands don’t last more than 5 years and Aerosmith has survived almost all of those pitfalls. That being said, any band who has been around for nearly 40 years will have its ups and downs. If you talk to the members of Aerosmith, this is the album where you can hear their initial success begin to crumble. It can be a hard thing to hear a band you love trash one of their own albums that you adore. Regardless, I have read countless interviews with various members of the band who count this as one of their least favorite albums because they claim this is where you can hear it all fall apart.

Do I agree? No. Perhaps some background is necessary. The album was recorded in an abandon convent outside of New York City called The Cenical. Not only was the album recorded here, but the band lived here during the recording process as well. According to everything I have read, they spent a lot of time sleeping, doing drugs and shooting guns. It was an effort to get band members out of their rooms to record their parts and the band was rarely, if ever, together during any part of the process. Drug dealers would come and go and everyone, including producer Jack Douglas, was “gacked” out of their minds. If you are familiar with the Rolling Stones, it’s not unlike what that band endured while recording Exile on Main St.

Clearly, the band was falling apart and succumbing to their many vices. Although the band was on the brink of a meltdown, I personally don’t believe this album suffered for it. In fact, the madness that had engulfed the band (and producer) may have added a certain element of wild abandon not found on the previous two albums. With Toys In The Attic, the band was focussed on making an artistic statement. Rocks saw the band embracing their success and enjoying the spoils of fame. Draw The Line seemed to be a proclamation of all their wrong doing. But damn, doesn’t it sound good. The album could have been called Snort The Line, Chop The Line or better yet, Too Many Lines.

The album opener and title track has a simple, but catchy riff, not unlike Walk This Way,  and check out Steven Tyler’s screaming fit following the guitar solo. Amazing. The next four tracks are perhaps some of the best and most underrated tunes you’ll find in the band’s catalog. I Wanna Know Why, Critical Mass, Get It Up and Bright Light Fright are easily some of my favorite Aerosmith tunes, yet I rarely hear them mentioned. Sure, the lyrical content might be coked up nonsense, but musically these are some killer songs. The arrangement on Critical Mass is remarkable enough that the listener barely notices the non-sensical lyrics. The killer guitar work on Get It Up is spectacular enough that it doesn’t seem odd when Tyler is actually singing, “Can’t get it up”. Bright Light Fright is as much a road song as it is an absolute confession of the night before. With Joe Perry handling the lead vocals and an insane horn section, this quick little number perfectly concludes the first half of the album.

Kings And Queens, nearly a full band effort in terms of writing, is as ethereal lyrically and musically as the title suggests. The Hand That Feeds might be a throw-away track, but even at that it has a pretty remarkable vocal performance from Tyler. Sight For Sore Eyes is a funk-laden little ditty with an incredibly infectious riff and a killer guitar solo. Milk Cow Blues closes out the album in classic, blues influenced Aerosmith fashion.

I think Jack Douglas deserves as much credit for this album as the band. This is truly where I think you hear his best work as a producer. The sound is so warm. Nothing recorded in the PC driven, post 2000 world sounds this good. I’ve heard that Steven Tyler wants Douglas to record the band’s next album. Based on how 2004′s Honkin’ On Bobo sounds, I can’t imagine anyone else is even being considered.

I understand why the band doesn’t like this album. It conjures up bad memories and it’s probably difficult for them to accept that anything good came out of this period. Their feelings aside, I think this album is criminally underrated. While I know Toys In The Attic and Rocks are probably better albums, it’s this one I listen to the most.