Just Push Play is the 13th studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, co-produced by song collaborators Marti Frederiksen and Mark Hudson and was released in March 5, 2001. The album’s first single, “Jaded”, became a Top 10 hit in the US and around the world. As a result, Just Push Play was certified Platinum within a month of its release.
Recording sessions for the album took place from April to December 2000. Tyler and Perry were relying heavily on external songwriters to come up with new ideas, so much so that rumours stated that Frederiksen told people that he had written all the Nine Lives and Just Push Play songs and that management added Tyler and Perry to the songwriting credits to make it look like an “Aerosmith” album, claiming them for smaller lyrics or guitar changes. Others wondered if all the band members really played on all the albums tracks, or if it’s just Tyler’s vocal dubs added to Frederiksen’s tracks. “Deuces Are Wild”, for example, is not Aerosmith in the instruments, all instruments were played by Jim Vallance and only added Tyler’s vocals to the demo.
Long time Aerosmith producer, Jack Douglas, reportedly said that he was impressed with the initial demos for the album, but that he disliked the final overproduced album.
In 2000, former Joe Perry Project singer, Cowboy Mach Bell, reported about his recent meeting with Joe Perry on an Aerosmith fan AOL forum of the time. He mentioned that while at Perry’s basement studio, The Boneyard, he played him a song that opened with the words “Blinkin’ winkin’ noddin’ drinking“. It’s speculated the song could have been one co-written by the Tyler/Perry/Fredriksen combo called “Easy”.
Most writing and basic tracks recording took place from April to July 2000. “No demos” exist in the sense that everything was recorded digitally and tracks were replaced on top of the originals until the project of each song was finalized, enabling the band to write and record the album at the same time, “everything was a work in progress up until the end”.
By July 2000 they were already in the early stages of mixing their track selection. Most of these were smaller alt mixes, some background vocals more prominent, instrumentation feeling dryer and less produced, extra drum loops, shakers and hand percussion, extra reverb, and very small alt guitar arrangements, however, many overdubs were already present as synth orchestra.
After the album’s release, the band told the media that they had enough material for another 2 or 3 albums already recorded and that a follow-up album of the same quality would come soon.
The Back-Burner: Aerosmith Outtakes & Demos 
Wow! I had no idea Deuces Are Wild wasn’t actually Aerosmith! That’s a bit of a bummer to hear! And I guess that explains why they haven’t played it at the Vegas residency. I figured it was a no-brainer as a deep cut to unearth, since the residency is named after it. But if it’s hardly really an Aerosmith song, I could see why they wouldn’t really want to play it.
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Deuces was played live several times in 1994, but the studio recording is mostly Jim Vallance on instruments with Steven vocals, harmonica and Joe’s slide guitar on top.
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Besides another dimension, Just Push play was a huge disappointment, so overly produced it’s tough to tell what is real and what’s not. As for Nine Lives, I find it hard to believe that’s as deeply produced. Yes there’s some elements that are a little obvious, but for the most part that’s a very raw album, and very Steven Tyler sounding lyrically. While the various collaborations made them revelant, it’s also obvious from Permanent Vacation on things had been a little too commercialized and jazzed up. But the band could play stuff off Nine Lives very well live, and the album doesn’t sound remotely over produced.. like say Duces are wild. That kind of explains why the track sounds so overly polished and a tad bit too poppy.. at least Jim did a solid job at making it sound plausible. I mean I get it, even after sobering up the drug use probably damaged their ability to write and perform as well as they used to so a little help was needed to keep not only the quality, but quantity of albums going.
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Agreed. JPP didn’t need 90% of the drum loops added, it was a product of the context of the era of the music then. The songs could have been better they had a similar approach to 9Lives, even when keeping the digital recording and a few electronic digital FX. What I will say is that all the instruments sound their best and crystal clear here, so any possible outtake from those sessions could be remixed to remove any overproduction, but the core recording would be with that same sound quality.
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