As guitarist Joe Perry recalled in the 1997 band memoir Walk This Way, "There was no nothing at all: no press, no radio, no airplay, no reviews, no interviews, no party.
Their cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin" had long been part of their concert repertoire, and the group had been playing new songs "S.O.S.
In 1997, Perry explained to Aerosmith biographer Stephen Davis:The tracks were the stuff we'd been working on at our apartment on Beacon Street in the summer of '73.
I wrote the riff to "Same Old Song and Dance" one night in the front room and Steven just started to sing along.
meant "Same Old Shit" and came from the rehearsals at the Drummer's Image ... "Lord of the Thighs" and "Seasons of Wither" were Steven's songs.
"[13]The cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" was previously made popular by one of Aerosmith's favorite bands, the Yardbirds.
Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, and Tom Hamilton had performed the song prior to joining Aerosmith.
In Westport [at their supporting gig on October 22, 1966] we found out that Jeff had left the band and Jimmy was playing lead guitar by himself.
[16] The song was an early feature of Aerosmith's concerts and a frequent show closer, including for their first gig in 1970.
[17] Notable for its start/stop groove, the song became a core part of the band's live set for a time, and still occasionally ended concerts late in their career.
In 1997, drummer Joey Kramer explained to Alan Di Perna of Guitar World that its unique rhythmic feel originated "probably just from jamming on it at soundcheck and experimenting with putting a James Brown kind of beat behind it.
I put four strings on it, which is all it would take because it was so warped, went to the basement, and tried to find the words to match the scat sounds in my head, like automatic writing.
[21] Douglas was asked by Aerosmith's managers Leber and Krebs to produce the sessions after success engineering the debut for one of their other artists, The New York Dolls.
Douglas lived in Greenwich Village and hung out at Max's Kansas City and had close relationships with the Dolls, Patti Smith, Lou Reed and other members of that artistic community.
After successfully reigning in the rambuctious and drug-addled New York Dolls, Douglas remembers Aerosmith's managers asking, "'Maybe you'd like to take a look at our baby band?'
Because of my love for the Yardbirds, after the show, we sat down, we started to talk about [Jimmy] Page and Eric [Clapton] and the guitar sound, the influence of the band.
"[22] According to Perry, Columbia had wanted the band to work with Bob Ezrin, who was also a producer with Alice Cooper.
Ezrin might have shown up three or four times, but only to make suggestions, like bringing in additional musicians to augment our sound.
"[24] Prior to the sessions, the band moved into an apartment in Brookline and began intensive rehearsals in a dungeon-like basement of a store called Drummer's Image on Newbury Street.
[25] Douglas later recalled, "To the best of my memory, the preproduction work for Get Your Wings started in the back of a restaurant that was like a Mob hangout in the North End.
'"[26] The rehearsals gave the group time to write additional material and finalize the songs for the album prior to going into the studio.
[29] Wagner remembers playing on "Train Kept A-Rollin'" and a couple other tracks: "Joe hadn't yet developed into the player he is today.
"[31] Douglas explains the decision to bring in outside guitarists: "The big challenge for the band was that Joe and Brad were not the guitar players they had in their mind to be.
In a change from their debut album, Douglas insisted that Tyler use his natural singing voice on the record.
When that album came out I got a lot of hate mail from fans saying what did you do to Steven's voice, but it paid off, as did the ghost guitar players who taught Brad and Joe how to play those solos that were on the record.
In his article for Rolling Stone, Charley Walters praised the LP, writing that "the snarling chords of guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford tautly propel each number, jibing neatly with the rawness of singer Steven Tyler, whose discipline is evident no matter how he shrieks, growls, or spits out the lyrics.
"[44] Billboard reviewer called the music "derivative", but added that the band's "tough and nasty rock'n'roll vision" could be successful with the help of the right producers.
"[40] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared that Get Your Wings was when Aerosmith "shed much of their influences and developed their own trademark sound, it's where they turned into songwriters, it's where Steven Tyler unveiled his signature obsessions with sex and sleaze ... they're doing their bloozy bluster better and bolder, which is what turns this sophomore effort into their first classic.
"[38] Ben Mitchell of Blender had the same impression and wrote that Aerosmith locked into their "trademark dirty funk" and "firmly established their simple lyrical blueprint: smut and high times" on this album.
[39] Canadian critic Martin Popoff praised the album and called it a "rich, inspired and consistently entertaining rock 'n' roller, a record much more intelligent than much metal to this point in time".