The Back-Burner: Aerosmith Outtakes & Demos

Genie Joe and the Axeman launched as a free arcade-style browser game on March 2004, built to promote Joe Perry’s Boneyard Brew hot sauce through JoePerrysRockYourWorld.com. What could have been a simple marketing gimmick quickly revealed itself as something far more interesting, especially musically.

The fast-paced game featured Joe Perry as a dark but irreverent animated genie who could be magically summoned to help Chef Anthony, an intrepid saucier racing across fantastical landscapes to gather ingredients for Boneyard Brew. Standing in the way was the evil Axeman, who unleashed sour note minions to sabotage the mission. The concept originated with Briar Lee Mitchell of Star Mountain Studios, who first illustrated Joe as a cartoon genie for a magazine article about the hot sauce before developing the character into a full game alongside Richard Sternberg.

The key detail, and the reason this still matters, is the music. Perry did not simply license an existing track. He recorded for it. He voiced the Genie himself and supplied 45 original guitar riffs intended as in-game effects and musical themes. At least eight different riffs and multiple drum loops made it into the final build. All audio was embedded inside the SWF file as mono MP3s alongside the vector artwork and animations.

Mitchell described hearing the raw recordings this way: “It’s very eerie to hear the raw music, he makes his guitar sound like it’s laughing.” The main theme and drum loop run at 120 BPM, built around an aggressive riff paired with surprisingly tropical drum textures. The feel recalls the arcade energy associated with Revolution X a decade earlier, making Genie Joe feel like a spiritual successor in tone.

The remix focuses entirely on Perry’s original source material for the game. The core theme riff was processed using AI source separation technology at to isolate drums from guitars, allowing both elements to be treated independently. The processed guitars sit on the right channel while the original unprocessed guitars remain on the left, preserving the raw Flash-era texture. Additional riffs extracted directly from the SWF were adjusted to match the 120 BPM theme. EQ and compression were applied to create the illusion of stereo depth from originally mono files. Joe’s Genie voice over was layered back in, ensuring the remix uses only sounds he originally created for the game.

At the time, Perry expressed genuine surprise at how far the hot sauce project had evolved. “When we put the sauce out it was really a reflection of my own taste, and then to have it inspire these fun and creative people to develop the game, my family included, was a great adventure I never expected. It’s funny how it kind of parallels our own crazy lives. The game is a blast to play and I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

The impact was immediate. According to Perry’s step-son Aaron Hirsch, traffic to the website jumped 200 percent after launch. “There’s a huge buzz on message boards about Joe rockin’ out on a video game.” Within its first week, 42 websites linked to the game or related sites. The Hollywood Reporter picked up the story on March 25, 2004, noting that Perry had a hit on his hands “not a song, but a free online game that features a virtual Perry as a smart-aleck genie.”

Plans for a larger multi-platform expansion were discussed at the time, described as “a sweeping saga,” though that version never materialised. What remains is the original Flash file and the riffs embedded inside it.