Night in the Ruts


Night in the Ruts is the sixth studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, released in November 1979, by Columbia Records. Guitarist Joe Perry left the band midway through its recording. The album was initially produced at the band's Warehouse rehearsal space by Jack Douglas, who had produced Aerosmith's previous four albums, but later Columbia Records brought in Gary Lyons to replace Douglas as the producer.

Background

Recording of the album began sometime in the spring of 1979, but right from the beginning, there were delays. Hampered by rampant drug use, vocalist Steven Tyler had difficulty completing the lyrics and vocals. Bassist Tom Hamilton recalled: "We worked on the album, but we couldn't finish it. It was supposed to come out in June and be called Off Your Rocker, but there were no lyrics. It was a big crisis." The band members were also in dire financial straits, with guitarist Joe Perry owing the band $80,000 for room service, which he planned to repay by recording a solo album. The relationship between Aerosmith and Jack Douglas also became frosty and unstable when the producer divorced his wife, of whom the band liked. This, combined with weak sales of Draw the Line, led to Columbia stepping in, with Douglas reflecting in the band memoir Walk This Way, "The label finally put a lot of pressure on them. It was: "Look at these sales numbers. Come up with another hit or there's gonna be trouble.' David thought I no longer exercised control over the band, which was true. No one did."
With the album still unfinished, the band was sent on tour to generate revenue, as they had burned through the budget allotment. This premature outing during the summer months pushed the album's release to later in the year. "Our management booked a tour," Hamilton noted, "leaving us just enough time to make the record, based on how long it'd taken us in the past, but we actually needed much more time. So we had to go on tour before the vocals were finished, and it was dragging on and on. Everyone was super-frustrated by it. It's ironic, because we were out on the road, playing stadiums to huge amounts of people, and yet the band was getting ready to die."
Substance abuse among the members gradually worsened, and they started fighting among themselves. This often led to missed and sloppy live performances, culminating in a fight involving the members and their wives. The situation came to a head on July 28, 1979, at the World Series of Rock in Cleveland, Ohio when Perry left the band halfway through the tour after a heated argument with Tyler. Prior to Perry's departure, he had completed guitar parts for "No Surprize," "Chiquita," "Cheese Cake," "Three Mile Smile," and "Bone to Bone." Guitar parts for the remaining songs were recorded by Brad Whitford, Richie Supa, Neil Thompson, and Jimmy Crespo. Perry's last session with the band was on May 30, 1979. He stated:
In his 2014 autobiography Rocks, Perry elaborated on his frustrations:

Recording and composition

Aerosmith spent the summer at Media Sound in New York trying to finish off the album with producer Gary Lyons. The band caught a second wind when Tyler came up with lyrics for a song he had been composing with Perry that "told the story of the band," which became "No Surprize," a song that Tyler has cited as his favorite. In the band's 1997 memoir Walk This Way, Tyler shared his thoughts on several of the album's tracks:
Also included on the album was a cover of "Think About It," a Yardbirds B-side from 1968 that Aerosmith had occasionally played live through the 70s. Tyler has expressed great satisfaction with Night in the Ruts, calling it his favorite album and cryptically enthusing to Stephen Davis in 1997, "Heroin. Shooting coke. Eating opium and it was just... I love that albumNight in the Ruts. It's like a fuckin' solar eclipse." Perry also insisted to Guitar World in 1997, "We were still fucked up, but the record sounds more cohesive than Draw the Line. Night in the Ruts was a rockin' record." Promo videos for "No Surprize" and "Chiquita" were filmed ; however, these videos received little television airplay. "Chiquita" is available on the band's Video Scrapbook VHS and laserdisc release.

Reception

The album was panned by contemporary critics and despite some early success, it quickly fell down the charts. Rolling Stone writer David Fricke described the album's best tracks "like inspired outtakes from Rocks and Toys in the Attic", showing Aerosmith's return to their basic sound; however, he found "the deviations from this norm... disastrous, if not in concept then in execution", as in the cover of Shangri-Las ballad "Remember " "wavering inconsistently between hard rock and the Spectorian grandeur of the original". The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau considered the opening song "No Surprize" the only "promising" track on the album.
Critic Greg Prato of AllMusic offered a more charitable commentary in a historical context, calling it "a surprisingly coherent and inspired album. Although it's not up to par with such classics as Toys in the Attic or Rocks, it was definitely leaner and more focused than the studio release, Draw the Line."

Track listing

Personnel

Aerosmith
Additional musicians
Production

Album

Singles

Certifications