Already writing songs for an upcoming solo album, Perry found time to record the festive project after the autumn release of his memoir, Rocks: My Life In And Out Of Aerosmith.

The guitarist explains how Depp's musicality first appeared on his radar. Perry tells Guitar international: "I've been a fan of his acting for a long time. I remember seeing him in the movie Chocolat, where he plays the gypsy guitar player. I was really impressed. You could tell that he was really playing guitar versus cutting back and forth to a musician."

"In the movie he plays a lot of Django Reinhardt stuff. I didn't know him at the time, but remember telling myself that someday I have to get a guitar lesson off him if I meet him since I don't know any of that type of stuff."

He continues: "As it turned out, about four years later he dropped by the studio when Aerosmith recorded our last studio record with Jack Douglas. Jack knew him and asked him to come down. We started talking music and guitars and that's where our friendship started."