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Night in the Ruts

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Untitled
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Robert Christgau(C+)[2]
Rolling Stone(unfavorable) [3]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[4]

Night in the Ruts is the sixth studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, released on November 1, 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 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."[5][full citation needed] The band members were also in dire straits regarding financial crisis, with guitarist Joe Perry owing $80,000 to the band for room service, in which he planned to repay by recording a solo album.[5][full citation needed] 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 [Krebs, Aerosmith's manager] thought I no longer exercised control over the band, which was true. No one did."[5][full citation needed]

With the album only half-finished, the band was sent on tour to generate revenue, as they had burned through the budget allotted to them. 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."[6]

Substance abuse among the members was worsening overtime, 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. It finally turned out to be serious enough, when on July 28, 1979, at the World Series of Rock in Cleveland, Ohio, 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 (Coney Island White Fish Boy)." Guitar parts for the remaining songs were recorded by Brad Whitford, Richie Supa, Neil Thompson, and Jimmy Crespo. (The last became Perry's official replacement from 1979–84.) Perry's last session with the band was on May 30, 1979. He stated:

We started Night in the Ruts with Jack in the spring of 1979. I'm not sure why he wasn't involved later, but he wasn't...The Aerosmith album was in limbo from April on and at a certain point I had to wash my hands of it. I said, "It's your album. Do what you want with it. You've got my work. You can use it or erase it. I'm working on something else"...There was all this fighting and bad energy going on...I was dissatisfied with Krebs, said, 'Fuck this,' and went back to Boston.[5][full citation needed]

In his 2014 autobiography Rocks, Perry elaborated on his frustrations:

I thought we cut some of the best tracks we'd ever done. The guitar interplay between me and Brad broke new ground. Everyone was at the top of their game. When it came time for lyrics, though, Steven began to drift away. Slowly, progress ground to a halt. I started to get annoyed, then aggravated, and then out-and-out pissed… We'd made untold millions. Where did all of it go?… We went to work every day, spending a fortune on hotel bills and studio time with nothing to show for it… The whole operation had become a nightmare. I was tired of the bullshit. I just wanted to get in a van and go play rock and roll. I was willing to play clubs - any clubs… I was told that when Steven finally did show up to do his vocals he was smoking crack."[7]

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.[5][full citation needed] In the band's 1997 memoir Walk This Way, Tyler shared his thoughts on several of the album's tracks:[5][full citation needed]

  • "Reefer Headed Woman" - "'Reefer Head Woman' was a 1940s blues record. I had the lyrics in a notebook that got stolen, and I had to call Dr. Demento from the Record Plant, where we finished the album, and the Doctor read the lyrics to me over the phone."
  • "Mia" - "It was a lullaby I wrote on the piano for my daughter, but the tolling bell notes at the end of the song and the end of the album sounded more like the death knell of Aerosmith for people who knew what was going on."
  • "No Surprize" - "For two months, I'd been totally blocked, writing lyrics for this track we had done with Joe. 'My name is nah nah nah, I come from Yonkers High, and I get drunk at night.' One night I had such a revelation to write the story of the band, how Aerosmith got started...I was so excited to be back on track."
  • "Bone to Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy)" - I had to explain to the press that a Coney Island whitefish is a used rubber."

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[8] and cryptically enthusing to Stephen Davis in 1997, "Heroin. Shooting coke. Eating opium and it was just...I love that album - Night in the Ruts. It's like a fuckin' solar eclipse."[5][full citation needed] 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."[citation needed] Promo videos for "No Surprize" and "Chiquita" were filmed (featuring Jimmy Crespo); however, these videos received little television airplay.[citation needed] "Chiquita" is available on the band's Video Scrapbook VHS and laserdisc release. "Bone to Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy)" is the most performed song from Night In The Ruts, with 144 performances.[citation needed] It received heavy rotation in the band's live setlist during the second half of the 1980s, but had largely been dropped by 1990.[citation needed]

The title is an intentional spoonerism of the phrase "right in the nuts," which was subsequently the title of the tour and was shown on the back artwork for the album.

Reception

Despite some critical acclaim and early success, the album quickly fell down the charts. Stylistically, Night in the Ruts marked an attempt to return to the band's blues roots, including a blues cover, a tender lullaby, a dramatic ballad, and a large helping of choruses layered across six rockers with the lead vocals mixed more highly above the tracks than any of the band's prior albums. The cover of Shangri-Las ballad "Remember (Walking in the Sand)" was criticized for "wavering inconsistently between hard rock and the Spectorian grandeur of the original" by Rolling Stone writer David Fricke.[9]

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 (although it could have been if the band weren't in such a state of turmoil at the time), it was definitely leaner and more focused than the [band's previous] studio release, Draw the Line."[1]

Cover versions

"No Surprize" was covered by Jani Lane, Chris Holmes, Joe Perry's son Adrian and Steve Riley for the Aerosmith tribute album Not the Same Old Song and Dance (Eagle Records, 1999). Additional guitars were by the album's producers Bob Kulick and Bruce Bouillet. Backing vocals were by David Glen Eisley.

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."No Surprize"Steven Tyler, Joe Perry4:25
2."Chiquita"Tyler, Perry4:24
3."Remember (Walking in the Sand)"Shadow Morton4:04
4."Cheese Cake"Tyler, Perry4:15
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Three Mile Smile"Tyler, Perry3:42
2."Reefer Head Woman"Joe Bennett, Jazz Gillum, Lester Melrose4:01
3."Bone to Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy)"Tyler, Perry2:59
4."Think About It"Keith Relf, Jimmy Page, Jim McCarty3:34
5."Mia"Tyler4:14

Personnel

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (1979) Peak
position
Canadian RPM Albums Chart 10
Japanese Albums Chart[10] 39
US Billboard 200 14

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada)[11] Gold 50,000^
United States (RIAA)[12] Platinum 1,000,000^

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

  1. ^ a b Prato, Greg. Night in the Ruts at AllMusic. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  2. ^ Christgau, Robert. "Aerosmith: 'Night in the Ruts'". Robertchristgau.com. Robert Christgau. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  3. ^ Fricke, David (1980-02-07). "Night in the Ruts". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2012-05-14.
  4. ^ "Aerosmith: Album Guide | Rolling Stone Music". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Davis 1997.
  6. ^ Brannigan, Paul (September 2013). "Aerosmith". Classic Rock. No. 188. p. 56.
  7. ^ Perry, Joe & Ritz, David 2014, p. 131.
  8. ^ "Steven Tyler on AeroForceOne". Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  9. ^ Fricke, David (1980-02-07). "Night in the Ruts." Rolling Stone. Retrieved Feb. 26, 2017 https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/night-in-the-ruts-19800207
  10. ^ "エアロスミスのCDアルバムランキング、エアロスミスのプロフィールならオリコン芸能人事典-ORICON STYLE". Oricon.co.jp. Retrieved 2013-05-02.
  11. ^ "Canadian album certifications – Aerosmith – Night In the Ruts". Music Canada.
  12. ^ "American album certifications – Aerosmith – Night In the Ruts". Recording Industry Association of America.
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