News Segment
AEROSMITH CANCER BATTLE:
August 25, 2006
Tom Hamilton may be livin’ on the edge as he deals with a health crisis, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to desert Aerosmith.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bassist is currently being treated for throat cancer, but plans to rejoin his mates on the road this fall for their Route of All Evil tour with Motley Crue, the group’s publicist, Marcee Rondan, said in a statement.
Rondan says the 54-year-old Hamilton has finished a seven-week radiation course and will take the next month off to recuperate and spend time with his family.
Until Hamilton’s feeling F.I.N.E. fine, David Hull will be filling in on bass for the first round of dates. Hull is a longtime pal of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, having played in the latter’s ’70s solo excursion, the Joe Perry Project.
Hamilton, a founding member of the legendary Boston band, is expected to get back in the saddle with Perry, vocalist Steven Tyler, guitarist Brad Whitford and drummer Joey Kramer, sometime in mid-October.
No further details of his condition were disclosed.
Aerosmith’s latest trek kicks off Sept. 5 in Columbus, Ohio, and wraps up Nov. 24 in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to the quintet’s Website.
Hamilton isn’t the only band member to have logged time in the O.R. this year. In March, Tyler underwent a successful procedure to repair a broken blood vessel on his right vocal cord, forcing the band to scrap 12 dates in the spring.
Meanwhile, in other band news, Billboard.com reports that Aerosmith plans to issue yet another greatest hits compilation, Devil’s Got a New Disguise, featuring 14 favorites and two new tunes, the title cut and “Sedona Sunrise,” which Perry describes as a “classic Aerosmith rocker.”
The guitarist also said that the band, which hasn’t released an album of new material since 2001’s Just Push Play (the 2004 blues album Honkin’ On Bobo doesn’t count), will resume work on a new CD in Feburary.
Perry added that Aerosmith plans to dig into the vaults and draw on older material that, according to Perry, sounds “like just old-fashioned Aerosmith songs” but never fit onto any albums.
“There’s a lot of songs there that I think have the grit and the meat of what a lot of people expect from Aerosmith,” the musician told Billboard.com. “We thought we’d take another look at that stuff, and that’s what’s going to be the backbone of this next record.”
Devil’s Got a New Disguise hits stores on Oct. 10 via Columbia Records.
Courtesy of www.eonline.com