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By Martin Popoff

"He's very honest, sometimes brutally honest," notes St. James on the manic and proud self-promoter. "He doesn't mess around. I think the one thing with Gene that was different than with anybody else was he would sit... I mean, we did those records in Los Angeles and we would sit in pre-production at rehearsal and he would be there every day. We're talking about months and months of work. He'd be in there with us during the writing and try and maybe help guide something here and there. And sometimes, I think his stamp got put on some of the songs a little too much. But he definitely, you know, when he committed to doing the project, he's in it 100%. He was in there from the pre-production get-go right until the end. He was a good guy to have on your side, that's for sure. And he went to bat for us quite a bit. But I actually got Peter Criss come into the studio to sing on the Nasty Nasty record, and Gene and Peter hadn't talked in years, years and years. And Peter was actually scared to come in, but I talked him into it, and of course, once he gets to the studio, not much singing happened. Him and Gene just sat and talked and went on and on for hours. But it was kind of cool to see those guys unite and think, hey, I got those guys back together again a little bit. Peter is on there on a song called Best In The West. His voice is in there. He's solo, not just backgrounds."

And what is your fondest touring memory?

"It has to be the first tour with Aerosmith. Our record was finally done, we get back to Los Angeles and within a matter of a couple months we find ourselves out on the road with Aerosmith. And that's some of my idols there. Aerosmith was really big to me. And this is the first time were out of smaller venues and playing the big arenas. I'll never experience that again, to be able to jump to that level. To be able to walk out and hear that roar."

But you hear horror stories about Aerosmith.

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