Aerosmith Songs

“Aerosmith became like the Marines, having to challenge every city, beachhead by beachhead, play live, command respect, play live again, create word of mouth, play live, get people to buy the record and turn the radio on. It was Aerosmith going in and creating excitement as a brilliant, magic live entity,” says Krebs.

After a spree of hitting clubs and colleges around the Northeast, WBCN in Boston began to play some Aerosmith songs, thanks to Maxanne Sartori, a rebel DJ at WVBF in Framingham, who played music other on air personalities wouldn’t. She saw Aerosmith as the band that would represent the next generation of high school kids and began playing “Dream On” and “Mama Kin,” much to the delight of the kids, who lit up the station’s phone lines. This led to the appearance of Aerosmith at the station’s Battle of the Bands. The group’s opponent was the J. Geils Band. Aerosmith entered the ring in tip top fighting condition, reinforced by legions of fans the band had mobilized. The fans would go on to cheer the band to a big upset.

That night, Aerosmith discovered the power of its fans.

The band continued to carry out its touring formula-hit a town, make a splash, and return three weeks later to do it again. Aerosmith blanketed the Midwest, cultivating fans who would bombard radio stations with requests, and finally got airplay, city by city.

Although Aerosmith cultivated fans superbly, it found another route for growing its fan base en masse-fan inheritance. The band became more strategic about with whom it shared the stage. After opening for acts that had very different audiences from the hardrocking, working class fans Aerosmith easily attracted, Krebs began to tie Aerosmith to bands that were just beyond its pinnacle of success- bands that might be heading downward and whose audience its wanted to inherit. Targeting bands that could still draw a significant audience-but ones that Aerosmith could outperform-led to a baitand switch type of fan inheritance. Aerosmith counted on the bigname band to bring fans to the concert, then played to inherit their loyalty.