Here's The Origin Behind Aerosmith's Name

Anyone who's ever tried to come up with a cool band name knows it isn't always easy. But in the case of Aerosmith, the name was created before the chart-topping, Grammy-winning rock outfit even existed. According to drummer Joey Kramer, he came up with the name in 1968, two years before the group formed in Boston in 1970.

On the road to rock stardom, some of the guys had crossed paths before and seen each other in the different bands they'd been in around New York and New England. Singer Steven Tyler was previously a drummer in a band called Chain Reaction out of New York but he wanted to be a frontman, and he heard guitarist Joe Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton were looking to form a band in Boston. Perry and Tyler soon realized their musical chemistry, and by 1971, Brad Whitford had joined as second guitarist and Joey Kramer was brought in to play drums. Kramer also brought an idea for a name.

Joey Kramer was growing up in the Bronx when one fateful night he, like probably most American teens at the time, tuned into "The Ed Sullivan Show" to see the Beatles play. The group performed a handful of times on the program in 1964 and 1965, and according to Zildjian, it was these sets that inspired Kramer to learn the drums. And the Beatles' influence didn't stop there.

Being a Beatles' fan in the 1960s was a national pastime, and the group was a very vocal fan of singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson — John Lennon and Paul McCartney even called him their favorite artist at a 1968 press conference. That may or may not have been the reason Kramer was listening to Nilsson's "Aerial Ballet" album that year, but we do know it was the catalyst for him coming up with the name Aerosmith while he was still in high school.

"I was listening to an album at the time, by Harry Nilsson, called 'Aerial Ballet,'" he said in an interview with the radio show, "Ultimate Classic Rock Nights" (via UCR). "We were listening to this record and I started really getting off on the lyrics. We started kicking around this work 'aerial,' and 'aerial' eventually came into 'aero' — I don't know how that happened. And it was like Aeromind, Aerostar, Aero-this, Aero-that; and somebody said 'smith' — Aerosmith? Wow! And from then on it was all over my high school psychology books and my math books." 

Naturally, while Joey Kramer was still in high school in the late '60s, he had dreams of being in a rock band, and he already knew what he wanted to call it. But a lot of people didn't understand what the word Aerosmith meant. And why would they? It was made up.

"The question was always, 'What's Aerosmith?'" Kramer explained to UCR. "And I would tell people, 'When I leave high school I'm going to go have a rock 'n' roll band, and that's what it's going to be called. And we're going to be big and famous, and that's the scoop.' And they were all like, 'Oh, that's very nice, Joey.'" Seems Kramer went ahead and manifested his destiny. Or maybe it just makes a good story since his dreams came true. 

While it's hard to know how much impact a band name has on its success, the name Aerosmith has worked out pretty well for the hard-rocking hit makers. If Kramer hadn't joined the band though, they could have ended up going with the arguably inferior name "Spike Jones" — another idea they were kicking around, per Rolling Stone.