Jack Douglas Wanted Stephen King to Write for Aerosmith

The other day Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry tweeted that the band was ready to hit the road this summer, starting in June. That's awesome news. Not awesome news? NME is reporting that longtime Aero producer Jack Douglas wanted the band to hire Stephen King to write song lyrics to specifically help out lead singer Steven Tyler.

Yes, Douglas wanted the guy who wrote Thinner and Carrie, (ok, King wrote Thinner under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, but still...) to write lyrics for Aerosmith.

Apparently the Bad Boys from Boston had the same reaction as me when they heard Douglas' idea.

According to the article, which originally appeared in Classic Rock magazine, Douglas said of the idea:

"They looked at me like I was crazy...  If there's anyone who's going to inspire him, it'd be Stephen King.'"

Douglas conceded that Steven didn't need melody help.

I'm sorry but I think this is insane. Then again, Aerosmith is widely known to use outside writers. I mean, Diane Warren anyone?

Comments

[JT]

Does King have any experience writing song lyrics? If he was any good, I would like to see what he came up with. After all, horror and hard rock go hand-in-hand (Wednesday 13, Lillian Axe, Alice Cooper, etc.)

[Roy]

This could be interesting....maybe not for Aerosmith, however, I agree with JT.

[Allyson]

I think it is a bad idea because Aerosmith isn't a horror/goth/concept album sort of band. They are straight ahead American rock. That said, if King tried to write songs in the vein of Aerosmith - that might be okay. No one can argue with his writing abilities.

[Chessie >^..^<]

King has written song lyrics before. But I think it was for Blue Oyster Cult or someone like that. King is a part-time musician himself, and at one time was in a band of other authors as well.

[Ace Steele]

The difference being, Diane Warren's method is to deliver a finished song demo & then let an artist interpret it their way, while this is more like Aerosmith already conceiving the "meat" of the song & then letting someone else come in & suggest a lyrical path. My preference would be to just let Steven "live" with the music & his melodies for a while & come up with his own lyrics. He's already written a bucketload of classics in his lifetime, if he sits down & concentrates on the task at hand, he'll come up with some good stuff.

After all, he's had the last 12 years to scribble some ideas in his notebooks, surely there's some gems in there he can flesh out?

[scott whitt]

Since Aerosmith hasn't written a decent song in two decades, why not?

[Metalboy!]

Scott! Hold it! They wrote two -- "Jaded" and earlier, "Shut Up And Dance". Other than that, "When The Lightning Strikes" from the 'Rock In A Hard Place" album. But between that and "Shut Up", ya got nuthin!