JOE PERRY Talks About STEVE TYLER's Sturgis Fall

AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry was interviewed on Boston, Massachusetts' WAAF radio station this past Friday. Watch excerpts from the chat below.

Regarding the incident earlier month in Sturgis, South Dakota when singer Steven Tyler injured his head, neck and shoulder falling off a stage, Perry said, "The guitars were still working [while the sound crew was replacing a fuse that blew during the song 'Love In An Elevator'], so we were still playing a little bit, just waiting to see if the rest of the sound was gonna come up. It didn't happen. I started walking back to Joey [Kramer, drums], and we were gonna end the song, and Steven went the other way to go and dance out there at the ramp. I went backwards to him, so I didn't see it happen. Joey just kept nodding like this and I turned around and I saw that Steven was not there anymore . . . I saw the security guards kind of lift him up and walking him off. And they walked him off kind of right between me and Joey, and I could see that he was dazed and pretty banged up. And, of course, we were flipping out, 'cause we didn't know... I knew he'd fallen off, but I didn't know how bad or anything like that. We just kind of waited and the audience was pretty cool. Being Sturgis, you don't know what way it's gonna go. We wanted to make sure that he was safe in the ambulance going out before we started having the people leave and blocking the entrance and all that stuff. As soon as I knew he was on his way out, I announced to the audience that the show wasn't gonna keep going. I think we were an hour into the show. Obviously they [the audience] were disappointed, but they didn't wreck the place."

AEROSMITH officially canceled the rest of its summer tour last week. In a statement, Tyler said, "I landed upside down, and after twenty stitches on the back of my head, and a broken left shoulder, I just want to say that I'm plain grateful that I didn't break my neck!"

Tyler had been trying to entertain the crowd during a brief power failure when he danced backward into the crowd. He explained, "I was doing the Tyler shuffle and then I zigged when I should have zagged ... AND I slipped, and as I live on the edge ... I fell off the edge!" Tyler thanked fans for their "love and support" in his statement, along with the band's crew, the venue staff, the hospital medical team and the helicopter crew "for getting me outta there before I bled to death."

Video footage of Steven Tyler being lifted up on stage after his fall in Sturgis can be viewed below.

Doctors advised the band to scrap the rest of the summer tour with ZZ TOP in order to give Tyler proper time to recuperate.

The tour seemed cursed from the start. Guitarist Brad Whitford missed a few weeks with a head injury, while bassist Tom Hamilton had to sit out the road trip because of undisclosed surgery related to the throat cancer he battled three years ago. The band also missed a week of shows when Tyler injured his leg.

According to Joe Perry, the full original AEROSMITH lineup never played together once during the dates the band did manage to make.

As for the future and whether the aging band should continue to perform live or call it a day, Perry told The Pulse of Radio he was optimistic. "I think that the band has to look at what it takes to do this gracefully," he said. "There's no reason why the band can't keep playing until we can't walk. There's just no reason. You just have to know that you can't do certain things anymore. You know, you can't do somersaults on stage, you can't do, you know, swing from ropes. But there are other things you can do that are just as entertaining — like sing, play."

Ticket refunds for the rest of the tour dates will be available at point of purchase.

The rest of AEROSMITH issued their own statement about the end of the tour, with Perry saying, "I would like to thank our loyal fans for sticking by us through thick and thin and all the good energy they are sending our way. We hope we can get the Aerosmith machine up and running again as soon as possible."

Whitford added, "All of us here in the AEROSMITH organization and all of the people who contribute to making our shows possible are in a state of shock . . . Our thoughts and prayers go out to Steven for a speedy recovery and return to good health."

Joe Perry on WAAF:

Steven Tyler being lifted up on stage after his fall in Sturgis: