Nine Lives (Aerosmith album)

Production

Early recordings took place at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida where the band worked with producer, Glen Ballard. It was here that Steven Tyler and Ballard co-wrote the lyrics for "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)", "Taste of India" and "Pink". Other collaborators including Desmond Child and Taylor Rhodes joined Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry to write additional songs. Child previously collaborated with Aerosmith on such hits as "Angel," "Crazy" and "Dude (Looks like a Lady)." One week before rehearsals, the band's drummer, Joey Kramer went into a deep depression, having grieved the loss of his father a few years prior. With Kramer unavailable to perform, rumours began to speculate that this would result in the band breaking up. A session drummer (Steve Ferrone) was brought in to play drum tracks until Kramer made a full return.

Originally set for a summer release in 1996, Columbia Records pushed the album back after becoming dissatisfied with the nine tracks that Aerosmith and Ballard had produced. Further issues occurred in July that same year when the band asked their manager, Tim Collins to step down after almost twelve years of partnership. In his 2014 autobiography Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith, Joe Perry recounts that Aerosmith felt betrayed by Collins as he would deviously trick the band members against one another. With their long-time manager gone, the band made another decision to replace Ballard with in-house producer Kevin Shirley, and set up new production at Avatar Studios in New York City. Shirley, who previously worked with Journey helped with the album's overtones and instruments, particularly the guitar sounds. In a 1997 MTV Special promoting the making of Nine Lives, Tyler declared, "He's got it somewhere stuck between "Toys in the Attic" and "Rocks"".

The new sessions began in September 1996 and progressed right through to November. Following the shift-change in production, Kramer recovered from his breakdown and returned to the studio. Instead of playing his own drum tracks over Ferrone's existing tracks, the entire band re-recorded all of the completed tracks with Kramer from scratch. John Kalodner, Columbia's A&R executive was also brought back to supervise the project, after he had been pushed off the production in Florida by Collins. Kalodner helped trim the twenty-four songs that had been written down to thirteen. Initially, the band settled on calling the album "Vindaloo" after adding in elements of Indian music throughout some of the songs, including a sarangi intro by Ramesh Mishra on the song, "Taste of India", but upon completing the recording of the track "Nine Lives", the band felt it would make the perfect title, serving as a metaphor of the numerous issues throughout the albums troubled production.

Reception

In his AllMusic review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine compared Nine Lives to previous Aerosmith albums stating, “Nine Lives, in contrast, is overlabored, with Aerosmith making a conscious effort to sound hip and vibrant, which ironically simply makes them sound tired." He also criticised the album's troubled production saying, "Not only are the performances perfunctory, but the songs aren't catchy no matter how hard it tries, "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)" never develops a hook, and it is not an exception." Elysa Gardner from Rolling Stone magazine was more favourable in her 1997 review concluding, "For those who simply can't abide a collection of Aerosmith tunes without its share of power ballads, Nine Lives doesn't disappoint."

Artwork

The booklet for Nine Lives contains 12 pieces of album art (including the cover). Each picture contains a smaller version of the previous picture within itself. The final picture is included in the first, creating an infinite loop. It was designed by Stefan Sagmeister.

Controversy

The original cover art, inspired by a painting in a book by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, featured Lord Krishna (with a cat's head and female breasts) dancing on the head of the snake demon, Kāliyā. The Hindu community protested, feeling the artwork was offensive. The band had been unaware of the source of the artwork, and the record company apologized, leading to the next prints removing the art from the cover and booklet. The new cover featured a cat tied to a circus knife-thrower’s wheel.

Outtakes

Some releases of Nine Lives feature different track listings, most notably the two Japanese editions which both feature the song "Fall Together". The song was included as a B-side on the albums first single, "Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)". The European re-release of the albums third single "Pink", features the B-side "What Kind of Love Are You On". The song was originally titled "What Kind of Lover You Want" and was one of many outtakes left from the recording sessions in Florida. The song also appeared in the 1998 movie Armageddon and was later included on the movie’s soundtrack. Other unfinished tracks that were discarded during the recording sessions in Florida include, "When the Monkeys Come", "Bacon Biscuit Blues", " Bridges Are Burning", "Heart of Passion", "Loretta" and "Trouble". Tyler also mentioned a song called "Where the Sun Never Shines" during an MTV interview shortly after the album’s release.

Personnel

Awards

Grammy Awards