Steve Tyler reading Maya Angelou? Should be some memoir

The lithe, long-rocking lead singer of Aerosmith has signed with HarperCollins/Ecco to pen his memoirs for more than $2 million. With public admissions of tripping on acid at Woodstock, doing heroin and cocaine and making some admittedly questionable fashion choices, what embarrassing secrets does Steve Tyler have left for his book?

How about the details of his time at a retreat reading Maya Angelou? Here's the gist, from a 2007 interview with Mojo Magazine, of what Tyler said (minus, of course, the filthy rock star language in the full interview):

I went to a place callid Sierra Tucson for a month. There was a wonderful guy there who was my mentor, and I was reading a lot of Maya Angelou and getting back into the spiritual world because, to be honest with you, heroin and drugs ... takes away your memory and you can't remember anything, rhyme scheme or have fun anymore. You become a mere shell of yourself.

Tyler goes on:

So, anyway, I went away to this place. While I was there they started asking me things like, "What are you all about?" And I said, ''What do you mean?" And they said, "Were you there when a key member of your family passed away?" And I said, "I was on the road when my grandma passed." And they went, "Grief group!" So they said, "Have you ever had sex on the road ?" I was like, "Duh!" So they went, "Sex addict!" "Have you ever done drugs on the road?" "Drug addict!" By the time l left that room an hour later I had six new monikers — grief addict, sex addict, drug addict and the rest! I was like, "What?" ... What heterosexual normal man hasn't dreamed of being with three girls at once? ... Anyhow, I got a lot of other things out of that place that were interesting, but those things weren't part of that.

Right. Threesomes and drugs and rock and family and Maya Angelou. If you're thinking Tyler's memoir will be just another rock star autobiography, dream on.

Carolyn Kellogg

Photo of Aerosmith performing in Hyde Park in 2007 by Flickr's bayek