JOE PERRY

Over the past 50 years he's been in (and out) of one of the biggest bands in the world, and enjoyed all the trappings that brings, not all of them healthy. Having achieved everything he set out to do and more, these days all the Aerosmith guitarist really wants to do is play

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Joe Perry is running late. This isn't unusual behaviour for an A-list rock'n'roll musician.

But the Aerosmith guitarist isn't being a diva.

It turns out his wife, Billie, found a dove with a broken leg near their Florida house and is trying to rescue it. Perry has been trying to find a box to put it in to keep it safe and calm it down.

"She's got the touch," he says of Billie when he arrives, apologising for the delay. "One time she found a baby rabbit up in New England, and it was nearly frozen solid. She took it inside, massaged it under warm water and brought it back to life. In another century I would have had to protect her from the people with the torches and the burning flames." The 72-year-old Perry wears the mantle of guitarist with one of America's most famous, successful and occasionally combustible bands lightly. Where his Aerosmith bandmate and fellow former Toxic Twin Steven Tyler is a yapping mouth in human form, Perry is quieter, more thoughtful, even a little shy.

Things might have been different in the 70s or early 80s. Back then, Perry and his bandmates were permanently enveloped in a cloud of chemicals and had the glazed looks to prove it. But despite their enthusiasm for hard drugs and the rock'n'roll lifestyle in general, they still managed to deliver a string of stonecold classic albums that turned excess into success: Get Your Wings, Toys In The Attic, Rocks, even Draw The Line (supposedly underwhelming but really not).