Not much is known about the short sessions for the 2002 “Oh Yeah” compilation album. Steven and Joe went to Mauii to write and record new material, from which “Girls of Summer” and “Lay it Down” came.
During those same sessions the cover of the “Spider-man Theme” was recorded. 2 others songs were presented by Steven but the band rejected them, namely “Oxygen” and “”A Good Thing” (could it be a re-worked version of 1991’s “Good Thang” written with Diane Warren?).
Rumour has it that Tyler was pissed off at the band for rejecting his songs and that he went around asking radio DJ’s for their opinion, and that’s how the Oxygen demo leaked in 2004. Another version has the leak happening at the hands of the head of fan relations from AF1 in Japan, where they received a copy of the demo, and they shared it with a Japanese fan. Tyler seem to really like the song and eventually got it released in 2011. He used the original vocal tracks recorded in 2004 and simply added some additional backing vocals, guess singer and further instrumentation.
The working title for “Lay it Down” was “Bad Enough” and it was the band’s intention to get it included on the Spider-man soundtrack, but got rejected (hence recording the theme instead). Apparently, they only changed the lyrics in the verses and used a different chorus.
“Since ’71 it’s been my dream to take the guys to some house somewhere and write a record,” Tyler said. “And nothing’s changed, so we decided to land in Maui, Joe and I and Marti, and we rented a beach house and we used ProTools and we just started flailing and, of course, what vibe would come out?” Along with the beach party “Girls of Summer,” the Maui sessions yielded four other tracks, including “Lay It Down,” which was originally titled “Bad Enough” and intended for the “Spider-Man” soundtrack (which instead features Aerosmith covering the “Spider-Man Theme”). “We submitted that, and they thought it was a great song but not a hit single Aerosmith song, so we pulled it out and redid the verses and put a different chorus on, and it came out ‘Lay It Down,'” Tyler explained. “It’s just a good, easy listening song. I love it. It’s real R&B.” The other three new tracks will turn up on the band’s next album, which Aerosmith will begin recording later in the year.
MTV, 2002
Around the same time long time Aerosmith’s producer, Jack Douglas, gave an interview where he mentioned another song called “Climbing the Walls” being worked during the sessions as well.
Sony called us up and said, “Look, you can either do a new record a year from now, a blues record or a greatest hits. But we need two hit singles on a greatest hits.” Sure, like I got a couple in my back pocket. So I was talking to Joe while we were touring in Japan and told him my dream of going to an island. So on the way back we stopped in Maui and rented a house. We pushed all the furniture out of the living room, set up Pro Tools and brought in Marti Frederiksen to write with us. In 12 days, nose to the grindstone, we came up with five ditties and two are on the new album.
Milford Daily News
A pop version of “The Grind” was reportedly written here as well, which in it’s initial form was called “Sand”. It would be released 2 years later with a thick blues flavour on their 2004 album “Honkin on Bobo”.
Steven Tyler, Bob Clearmountain and Marti Frederiksen mixing Aerosmith Girls of Summer, april 2002
The Back-Burner: Aerosmith Outtakes & Demos 