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Guitar World
Guitar World
Entertainment
Nick Wells

“The smallest element can be the basis of a cool riff. That’s pretty much how I wrote Sweet Emotion”: Tom Hamilton reveals the inspiration behind one of the most iconic bass riffs in rock

Tom Hamilton and Steve Tyler of Aerosmith.

With all the ups and downs of his many years with Aerosmith, bassist Tom Hamilton is still very proud of all they’ve achieved, and of the band itself. “There’s no book on how to be in a band like this,” he told BP. “It’s just something you have to learn, and I’ve been lucky enough to have done it for a long time.”

The band's catalog includes enough hits to fill out a set list and then some. And while plenty of fans would show up every night to hear Hamilton's righteous Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion grooves, the soft-spoken bassist would always insist on a rigid practice routine to push his bass playing in new directions.

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