Anybody else who hates Aerosmith?

Some of the "ghosting" is done without the band even knowing it. I know that Ace had said a few times that some of his guitar solos were replaced and he was pissed about it.

When Ultimatum recorded Puppet of Destruction we had a very controlling engineer. Without our ok he replaced Tom Micheal's bass line on "Never". On the album version of that song, the bass line is actually played on a keyboard and is the engineer playing. He thought Tom was overplaying and didn't like what Tom was doing. We didn't know until the album came out and Tom said, "hey, that's not what I recorded." We later went back and remixed that song for a compilation CD and returned the original bass lines. Thing is, the original bass lines were fine. It's just a producer doing what he wants to do. In our case, however, we were self financing as we hadn't signed with Rowe Productions yet, so the engineer had no right to do that.

EDIT: I should also mention that this bass line is the only uncredited player on an Ultimatum CD. We have had guest artists, such as the keyboards on the instrumental on Into the Pit, but they are all credited.

If you read Aerosmith's autobiography they talk a bit about producers and this whole phenomenon of having guest artists come in to record parts. On Night in the Ruts, new guitarist Jimmy Crespo actually played some of the solos credited to Joe Perry. Can't remember which one's at the moment. I do remember reading that Brad Whitford was pissed because he recorded a solo for some song and they chose Crepo's over his.

This is an interview with Jack Douglas conducted in 2000 by KNAC, the bit in the red clears up the Guitars on Get Your Wings.......


KNAC: How did you get hooked up with Aerosmith?


JD: I was the first engineer on the New York Dolls' first record.
Todd Rundgren was the producer, but after three days with those guys,
seeing that his vision of harmonies and pop weren't gonna make it, he
basically pissed of and would call me and Jimmy Iovine, who was my
second. He'd call to check up on the progress and didn't return until
we had to mix the disc. I mean, he was into really lush, well-produced,
slick bands, and the Dolls were the Dolls, y'know? I did my best to
capture them the way they really were, raw and street-like. Took two
months, pretty much if we could get Jerry Nolan and Arthur Kane (drums
and bassist) to groove at all on any given day, we had something. It
was kind of messy. To this day David JoHansen (Dolls singer) says that
he can't recall a moment of making it, but I remember David's reaction
to Todd's singing suggestion: "Hey, I just yell, that's it, alright?"
Finally, Todd shows up and mixes the whole thing in one day, which is
why that record came out like it did. In gratitude, the Dolls mangers
gave me Aerosmith, who were also their clients.

"To this day David JoHansen says that he can't recall a moment of
making (the first album), but I remember David's reaction to Todd
Rundgren's singing suggestion: 'Hey, I just yell, that's it, alright?'"



KNAC: What was your initial impression of Aerosmith?


JD: I saw them at a high school in New England and was blown
away-they were noisy and full of energy like the old Yardbirds. So, we
brought them down to the Record Plant in New York and began Get Your
Wings.

KNAC: Rumor has it that Joe Perry and Brad Whitford aren't the only guitarists on that record-true?


JD: Yes, that is true. Brad wanted to make the guitar parts really
technical and neither he nor Joe were up to that skill level yet, so I
brought in Hunter and Wagner, the guys who'd also ghosted on all the
early Alice Cooper discs. Those flashy, brilliant solos in "Train Kept
a Rollin''' and "Same Old Song and Dance" are Hunter/Wagner. Later,
they sat Joe and Brad down and taught them everything they'd done. By
the next disc Toys In The Attic, we didn't need them. Strangely enough,
the band wasn't against using the session guys, especially Steven
Tyler. They wanted a hit-they got one.


KNAC: And Rocks was their peak, I think. Why was that record so amazing, in your humble opinion?


JD: For one thing, we cut all the basics at their rehearsal space,
the Wherehouse, in Boston's suburbs. A big, metal, roaring, huge room.
I used stage monitors in with them to blow the sound right back at
them. And that's when they started to stretch out. Joe would ask what
he ought to be listening to and I'd hip him to John Coltrane for solo
ideas - and he'd try to get that! Even in pre-production, I knew it was
great. I have cassettes of the evolution of every song on that record,
and you should hear "Back In The Saddle" as it evolved from Joe's basic
lick to the monster it became. Wanna know what the secret to Rocks was?
Distortion. Everything is totally over-loaded. When I brought it to the
record company, they panicked at first, but not for long.

KNAC: They seemed to go right into the dumpster after that disc, though.


JD: Heroin is what did it. They came in with no songs, which was
nothing new. They'd bring seedlings of music and we'd make that into
songs. But I couldn't get them all in the same room anymore. Joe and
Steven were smacked out and the "LI3" (''less interesting 3, as
Whitford, Hamilton and Kramer referred to themselves) were coke-crazy.
All day they'd be doing anything but music, shooting guns, getting
high, whatever. That's why Draw the Line is the way it is.

KNAC: Around then is when you discovered Cheap Trick?


JD: Yes, at a goddamn bowling alley in Waukeshau, Wisconsin, the
Sunset Alleys! I was visiting my in-laws there, and my brother in law
says, '"You have to see this band." He was so right. I stayed there and
flew Tom Werman in from Epic, and they were signed. We cut 30 tunes and
kept nine, my magic number. What I learned from the Dolls, I applied to
Cheap Trick. Keep them the way they are, do all the editing in
pre-production, let them be them.

KNAC: Was it you who introduced Cheap Trick to John Lennon?


JD: I was doing Lennon's record while the Beatles producer George
Martin was doing Cheap Trick's. I called him up in Montserrat and said,
"Hey, I'm doing your act, and you're doing mine," besides, he'd done
Aerosmith as well. We brought Rick Nielsen and Bun. E. Carlos in for
"I'm Losing You" - it was fantastic! But it didn't make the record,
because Yoko Ono thought that Rick and Bun were horning in on Lennon. I
had to explain that they were major stars in their own right, and the
next day, she still won't let up because the track didn't have the same
sound as the others. So, Lennon told me something like, "Mother won't
allow this," and we had to re-cut the tune. Only the other guys, great
though they were, didn't have it and neither did John. He loved Rick
and Bun E. So, I took a tape of the song from the night before and ran
it through the headphones so the regular guys could get it. The Cheap
Trick version finally appeared, on the Lennon boxed set.

KNAC: Where were you for the rest of the '80s and early '90s?


JD: I did a few things here and there, but after John was shot, I
lost a lot of heart. He was a wonderful guy, funny as hell, smart,
witty and so easy to produce, not a prima donna. And I hated the music
of the '80s: new wave, hair metal, synth-pop, makes you want to puke. I
did a Knack record, that kind of thing. So, I got strung out on dope
and watched Monty Python and Fawlty Towers all day!

KNAC: But you just did a new Slash disc?


JD: That I did. Great guitarist, total pro and really great to work
with. Slash was really computer un-friendly at first, but after a
while, I couldn't peel him away from the screen when we were tracking
he'd ask, "Have we totally loaded the disc drive, is it backed up yet?"
But deep down, he liked the good old stuff, so we cut with the best set
up, 16-inch, two-track tape.

KNAC: Is there pressure on him to kiss and make up and re-do Guns?


JD: Enormous pressure, like 100 million dollars worth. And he's not
against it, if Axl goes back to being the Axl that he loves. Slash
isn't using drugs at the moment, but after 11pm or so, he'll morph into
the Dean Martin of rock- - "martini time!" He's a gas. Also the only
guy I ever produced who was hauled off by the cops in the middle of a
guitar solo.

KNAC: What?


JD: That's right. Slash had been charged by this crazy girlfriend
of his with assault and had a warrant out. When the cops finally showed
up, we expected it. The girlfriend had caused a major scene already,
showed up at my hotel room and demanded to know where he was. I said
nothing, so she talked the clerk into giving up his room number. She
finds him and stabs him with a pencil! After he pushes her off, she
charges him with assault! Anyway, the cops show up in the middle of the
session, looking for "Mr. Slash," cuffed him and took him away. He had
the bail bondsman's number in his teeth at the time, on a piece of
paper. Had him out in no time.

Quote :

Lots of musicians have ghosted for things and never gotten credit and that’s just the way it is.

my uncle recorded bass parts (uncredited) on hundreds of old Nashville country albums.

Thanks for the interview with Jack Douglas, now I am confused about the New York Dolls, Todd Rundgren has claimed in several interviews that he had to be there for every step of recording the New York Dolls debut and you have Jack Douglas claimed he pissed off, damn all these revisionist history, so is he saying that he really produced the debut album and Rundgren got credit?