In Perry's newly released memoirs, Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith, co-written with David Ritz, Perry talks about all of the ups and downs of the band, and unsurprisingly, there's a good amount of focus on his relationship with Tyler. While Perry is quick to compliment Tyler's abilities as a singer, songwriter, musician and frontman, he pulls no punches when describing how difficult life can be with him. He was quicker to talk about his partnership with fellow Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford, his respect for Cheap Trick and his love of his wife, Billie. That mysterious session he recently did with Paul McCartney? He didn't have much to say about that, but we tried.

Radio.com: So, what made you decide to write the book now? Joe Perry: Aerosmith is carving out this new adventure that there's really no paradigm for. In the last few years, we hit our 40th anniversary, we were working on our last album for Sony [2012's Music From Another Dimension], which was kind of symbolic of the change in the music business. There were some personal things as well: my kids were growing up and going through college. It felt like the end of an era, but the beginning of another. It felt like the right time to write the book.

I know you're a huge fan of classic R&B. I'm guessing it was cool to have David Ritz - who co-wrote autobiographies of Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and B.B. King - as your co-author. Without a doubt. I read a lot anyway� it's probably one of the only things I got from school. I really love to read. I read quite a few autobiographies, to see how people did it, but also to find a co-writer. I didn't want to do it on my own, I needed to work with somebody, so that it would be more like a piece of literature. David was the right guy.

As a guy who has worked with lots of iconic artists with great stories, did he push you to tell stories that you may not have wanted to talk about? A lot of that comes from the author. I read some books that David did that weren't so great, frankly. I mean, obviously the Ray Charles book was amazing. So I read a few more that were really good. And then I read a few that weren't so good. So I asked him about it. And he said, "It's really what you put into it. You are the author of the book, I'm just here to help you translate it and capture your voice." Certain people only gave him a certain amount of time. It's not unlike making a record: you get what you give. I was determined to get this right. It was a bigger job than I had expected, but it was worth it.

I enjoyed reading about your early impressions of Brad Whitford. You guys are one of the best guitar teams in rock and roll, but he doesn't get the amount of press that you do. But what is it about your relationship that makes it work? Well, when we met, we were both at a point in our journey of learning the instrument. We were both capable, we were at the level where we could play and make it sound reasonably professional, but we still had a long way to go. We got along really well, as friends and bandmates. There was just something about the way we played guitar together. He studied music at Berkley School of Music, he knew more technical things, musically, than I did. As opposed to my way: I was learning stuff from listening to records. We were coming from two different places, musically, but we didn't really have to talk about who was going to play what. People don't realize that he's as good of a guitar player as he is. It's a very non-verbal communication that we have.

Of course, there's a lot more talk about your relationship with Steven Tyler. Over the years, have you had to work to figure out how to make your relationship work, given your different personalities? That was one of the big things that allowed us to get back together again. After I left the band - for a lot of reasons that I get into in the book - after the dust settled� [I realized] It's the five guys in the band that are responsible for keeping it together. In the '70s, we never really sat down as a band at that point and dealt with that stuff, so I left. Brad left six months later. I was gone for close to five years. After that, we got together, and we learned that certain things you can't change about people and you gotta learn how to adjust your way of working together.