“I was in the studio, and the phone rang. It was Lou Reed. I’d never met him. He called me, saying, ‘I saw a picture of you with this guitar…’” Joe Perry on Aerosmith’s roaring ’70s, writing Dream On – and being a B.C. Rich early adopter

A black-and-white shot of Aerosmith's Joe Perry backstage with a B.C. Rich doubleneck and a Les Paul Custom.

In 1973, the band who just a few years later would be known as the “Bad Boys from Boston” dropped their debut album, Aerosmith. Its release set off a chain of events that eventually led to their being nicknamed “America’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band.” And while that’s big-time praise – not to mention one hell of a nickname – you have to remember Dream On is on that debut album.

That said, even though “Dream On” would – eventually – gather more than a billion streams on Spotify alone, it wasn’t enough to catapult Aerosmith to success 51 years ago.