Q&A: Steven Tyler and Joe Perry

— -- Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry talked to USA TODAY's Mike Snider about the plans for their new Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game. Here's extended excerpts from their con-versations:

Q: What do you think about Aerosmith having its own video game?

Steven Tyler:There are some battles you can't fight. You would like to keep it traditional and make it just deep, deep tracks from albums or B-sides. But technology is going so fast right now rather than be left behind, you are going with the flow.

It's a different day and age. Twenty-five years ago we would never have let one of our songs (Dream On ) be one of those used in selling cars (in a 2004 Buick commercial). But now, like with I Don't Want to Miss A Thing (in 1998's blockbuster film Armageddon), it's placement.

When I heard about Activision and all this. I thought whatever I can do for this to make it as good as it can be — because my son plays it — I thought I should do it.

Q: You're talking about the motion capture session for the game?

Tyler:I went to Los Angeles to see how you do this. And they said somebody can mouth your lyrics and I said, 'I didn't spend 30 years being me to let someone else do that.' We spent four weeks with the guys at Activision and Neversoft. It was like what I did for the (2004) movie The Polar Express (Tyler played an elf). You have all these (sensors) on you and they are synched up with a computer, but we kind of took it five steps farther. I said, 'What if we move the cameras out and set up a field in the middle and I grab the mike stand and do my thing with the mike so more of me can be captured.' On the third week, they showed me what I'd done and I just couldn't believe it.

Q: How do musicians see the video game industry, particularly with games like Guitar Hero?

Tyler:I think there are so many kids playing video games now, it's kind of like a sound-track to a movie. It takes a song and enhances it. That attached with a good moment in a song can mean everything, like a live appearance where Joe runs to the end of the ramp and takes his shirt off and smashes his guitar. I had my doubts, but it's really insane. I was able to do things you would never see live. And if you win, we did some special things like interviews and told some secrets like what was I thinking of when I wrote the songs.

In the old days we thought it was cheesy to attach a song to selling something, but this isn't like selling a product. You are playing the game and the room is full of your friends.

Q: Can you tell me how this video game came about?

Joe Perry:I walked through the den where we have the video games usually set up and I noticed the controller had an oddly familiar shape and I heard some rockin' music and I said, 'What's going on? What is this?' (His youngest son) Roman explained it to me and I played it a little bit and said, 'This is fantastic. Do they have any Aerosmith songs on it?' And the first game didn't. …I called my manager and said, 'This is fantastic. How come we're not involved in this?' And ever since then, I've been pushing to be as involved in the game and the movement as well.

Q: The movement? What do you mean by that?

Perry:I think it is part of how people are going to get music. The record companies have eaten themselves, basically dissolved and are trying really hard to figure out how to resur-rect a dying paradigm. And it's right in front of them. This is one of the ways (for people to put out new music). Everything from car commercials … to YouTube and an aborted Nap-ster that should have been snapped up by the record companies a long time ago. It was obvious that the fans wanted it and they didn't mind paying for it but the record companies just turned a blind eye to it and basically destroyed an industry.

So what is left is a huge gap. On one side you have fans who want music and great ways to hear it, MP3 players and iPods and earphones and satellite radio, so they have all these ways to listen to music and you have a bunch of great artists and budding (and) and new artists releasing some really good music and somewhere in the middle is this gap in how are they going to get it. That the artists get paid what they should get paid and not ripped off and (consumers) not paying $20 for a CD they should only be paying $7 for.

Video games are a great vehicle for bands to put new music out. … It's happening and it's going to be one of the ways people are going to get their music. A game like Guitar Hero is really good because you get to play along with it. It's not just background music.

Q: I'm 45 and Guitar Hero reconnects me to songs I listened to when I was younger.

Perry:It works on so many levels because it break down a lot of barriers. Kids are hear-ing songs we may consider 'unhip'. There was an era when there was a hipness factor to why people listened to certain songs. That gets broken down because the popularity of the song is based on it's a good song. Bottom line that's it. … That's the movement I'm talking about.

It's been great working with guys of this younger generation who are gamers and love music and hard rock and all kinds of music and they have figured out a way to give fans a chance to step one step closer to the experience of being in a rock band.

Q: Some musicians have kind of made fun of the game. But it sounds like you think it's a legitimate way for fans to have a deeper experience with music.

Perry:Right. I strongly believe that out of 100 people who play the game there is going to be a certain percentage that will say, 'Wow, this is fun, I wonder what it feels like to play a real guitar' and get a real one and an amp and see what it's like. It may be a small percent-age but nonetheless, it's another encouragement for kids to pick up and play some real music. So I think it has got a lot of benefits to it.

Q: Might you release some new music through the video game?

Perry:It has been talked about. I'm not sure exactly just where that stands. It would make sense from a fan's point of view, from a band's point of view, from a record com-pany's point of view. But I don't know from a lawyer's point of view.

All I can say is that's the opportunity, a part of the movement and seeing how it's going to go. One of things about being on Sony, it works two ways. It's great to be on the label, but on other hand you are restricted to a lot of things. Without a good deal of haggling between lawyers, I don't know if it is a possibility at this moment.

But definitely for young bands that don't have any restrictions, I think it's happening. It's great because right next to (new bands' songs) you hear songs off of (Cream's) Disraeali Gears or The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced and it's a great vehicle to hear all kinds of music. Most of the time I know I listen to music on the radio when I am driving and that's about it. It's background music most of the time. Or I'm actually writing it or playing it. The point is I don't always sit down and just listen to stereo. But with this game, it's part of the entertainment. You are listening to the music and you are learning the music and you are getting inside the guitar riffs. From that point of view, I think it's pretty in-credible, you know.

Q: How did you arrive at the storyline?

Perry:Once we decided it was something we could work together on, we were trying to come up with something that made sense as a storyline and the idea. Since we have such a big catalog — it was kind of important that if you were going to have a game built around one band you need one that has a lot of songs, the game has like 30 or 40 songs in it — the decision that finally settled out was Why not do it in a very rough chronological fashion so it kind of tells the story of what went on.

You can hear the difference in the songs as the band goes along and as we get a little more sophisticated in the studio. You can hear the growth of the band musically and entertainment-wise. One might say the story is almost like a cliché but we were one of the ones that where there doing it. Those ups and downs have been followed by so many other bands since our early days, it has become kind of cliché. Bu for us it was our life. To be able put it in this kind of context, in a very lose kind of tongue-in-cheek sometimes, sometimes serious, and, funny sometimes, it's another level of entertainment for the player.

Q: Will it even go into the times where some members of the left and the band quit playing for a while?

A:I'm not sure. I don't think so. It's focused pretty much on the positive. The storyline is pretty positive and exciting.