When Aerosmith’s legendary lead singer Steve Tyler made it known that he was moving to Nashville to get involved in country music, there were a lot of doubters. “What does this rocker know about country music?” and “It’s just a publicity stunt,” were heard loud and long.
But it turns out that the Jagger-esque front man with the flamboyant stadium stage personality really is in Nashville, and really does dig the country scene. He was spotted over this past weekend at The Station Inn, taking in one of three album release concerts from Lonesome River Band celebrating the drop of their latest, Bridging The Tradition.
Josh Trivett of Moonstruck Management, who works closely with a number of bluegrass artists – including LRB – said that he noticed Tyler in the crowd, and made a bee line for him during the show.
“I had watched him for a minute, and he was definitely grooving on the music. Sammy Shelor was dressed all in black, and they were playing one of those typical, funky LRB tunes. As soon as I introduced myself, Steven asked me ‘Who is the guy in black playing banjo? I really dig that groove!’
I told him that in our little world, that guy is a major dude on the banjo, and Tyler just nodded in acknowledgement.”
Josh stayed and chatted with Steven for a bit. Tyler said that he hadn’t been familiar with Lonesome River Band, but had told his friend T-Bone Burnett that he wanted to check out The Station, and Burnett suggested the night LRB was in the house. It was a sold out show, and from what we’re told, the place was rocking.
At one point Tyler mentioned that he needed to use the restroom, and Josh invited him to come up on the bus. So when the guys took a break after the first set, they found Steven Tyler chilling on the bus.
“It was really cool. He stayed for the whole second set and hung with the band on the bus during intermission.
As always when musicians get together, the last thing they want to talk about is music. It was fun listening to Tyler and Brandon Rickman talking about hunting and trapping.”
And he really does live in Nashville. Tyler showed Josh his Tennessee drivers license which he had just obtained.
