Some of Aerosmith meet Obama as others distance themselves

On Friday, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith got to hang out with President Obama. Given that their fan club is called Aero Force One and they have an album called Get Your Wings, you’d think that it might have gone without incident. You’d be wrong. Joe Perry spoke to Boston-area blog Vanyaland about the experience.

“We were stacked up over Lakeland [Florida], while his plane landed,” Perry exclusively tells Vanyaland, still buzzing from the encounter. “We were trying to get in before him but we missed. Then, while we’re sittin’ on the runway, we’re lookin’ at Air Force One and we got out, took some pictures and the next thing you know, we’re on the plane being given a tour. Then Obama heard we were there on the plane and he said, “If you wait ’til I get there, we’ll do a little meet and greet.” So we ended up talking with him for a couple minutes, getting some pictures…”

“Steven met him one other time, the Kennedy Center Honors years ago and he got a chance to talk to him for a second,” Perry says. “But this was the first time I’ve ever met a president, a seated president; it was pretty flipped out — and it was definitely worth the wait. It was one of those things where if we planned, something would’ve screwed up. But after a month in South America? Something like that? Hey — you know? The ‘Bad Boys from Boston’ you know? Steven and I have had some pretty cool adventures, but this one is right up there.”

Nothing wrong with a chance meeting between three people that are taking it easy now that they’re about to retire, right? Wrong. Both Perry and Tyler are proud Republicans, and the initial tweet of them on Air Force One with Obama has since been deleted. But not before drummer Joey Kramer distanced himself from the whole thing. “This is not representative of Aerosmith!” his first tweet read. He responded to several tweets asking why he was making it more political saying that the band wasn’t speaking for him. In short, even if they don’t agree with Obama and are campaigning in support of Trump, there’s nothing wrong with them accepting an invite to Air Force One and meeting with Obama. The real story here is that Aerosmith have been touring South America together for five weeks. As far as we knew, they were still arguing with each other and possibly doing a farewell tour next year.