The Back-Burner: Aerosmith Outtakes & Demos

In May 2000, Launch.com ran an intriguing piece that briefly lit up the Aerosmith fan community: the band had reunited with renowned producer-songwriter Glen Ballard — best known for shaping Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill — to write new material for their next studio album.

According to the report (by Darren Davis in New York and Craig Rosen in Los Angeles, published 24–25 May 2000), Ballard confirmed that the collaboration had already produced a song titled “Beyond Forever.” He told Launch:

“We wrote a song in Boston about two months ago and we’d like to get together and write some more this summer. Whether it happens in Boston or L.A., [it] will happen because I have a deep and abiding love for that band and for Joe Perry and Steven Tyler. We always have fun and do something interesting when we are together, so that will continue — and we have a great song in the can.”

Asked whether “Beyond Forever” was a ballad, Ballard clarified that it wasn’t:

“No, it’s not a ballad but it’s a mid-tempo, slightly ethereal song. It’s new ground for them. It’s going to the new place. It’s still very much them, but certainly it encapsulates their sound and then some. It’s going to be good.”

At the same time, Long Island rock station WBAB 102.3 FM aired a short segment quoting Ballard describing the track as “done and in the can” — again emphasising its mid-tempo, “ethereal” feel yet unmistakably Aerosmith character.

Ballard’s renewed partnership with the band carried symbolic weight. He had co-written three songs on Nine Lives (1997) — “Taste of India,” “Pink,” and “Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)” — before production of that album shifted to Kevin Shirley. The idea that Aerosmith would revisit that chemistry three years later, on the cusp of a new millennium, suggested the group was open to exploring broader textures and contemporary sonic polish while keeping their blues-rock roots intact.

However, after these May 2000 reports, “Beyond Forever” quietly disappeared from view. No trace of the song ever surfaced on the following year’s Just Push Play album, and no official credits, demos, or leaks have been documented since. Ballard’s name is absent from the album’s liner notes, which instead credit Aerosmith, Marti Frederiksen, and Mark Hudson as primary collaborators. Initially believed to have turned into “Beyond Beautiful”, that theory quickly fell through since that one stated as a late night looping jam between Joe and Marti, and even in its final form does not include Ballard in the credits.

Whether “Beyond Forever” was an abandoned idea, an unfinished demo, or simply renamed and re-imagined under another title remains unknown. What is certain is that by mid-2000, the band had shifted creative direction — moving away from outside producers and finishing Just Push Play largely in-house.