Money.  Check. 

Fame.  Check. 

A wife and family.  Check and check. 

Clean and sober for nine years.  Check. 

Whoever this person is sounds like they have life firing on all cylinders, doesn’t?  However, this was not the case with Aerosmith drummer, Joey Kramer, back in 1995.  Just as he and the band were about to begin work on an album, Kramer had a mental and emotional breakdown. 

The months that followed involved lots of therapy that peeled back layer upon layer of deep, emotional baggage filled with hurt and pain from his childhood and most of the significant relationships in his life.  The result left Joey with some very difficult decisions to make.  Decisions that meant walking away from a lot:  a beautiful estate, an emotionally abusive marriage and other toxic relationships.  It also led to Kramer taking back the ownership of his life.

Kramer’s book, Hit Hard (see the Boomerocity review of the book here), chronicles his childhood of emotional void and intense loneliness that learning to play drums helped him cope with.  It also details his battles with various demons in adulthood that led to his eventual breakdown and ultimate recovery.  During a recent phone conversation from his offices in the greater Boston area, I had the privilege of talking with Joey Kramer about his book and some of the stories that he shares in it

To be sure, before talking with Joey, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that he provided the steady beat to the soundtrack of my youth on great Aerosmith songs like “Walk This Way”, “Dream On”, and “Sweet Emotions”.  After reading “Hit Hard”, it was clear that there was much more than met the eye with regards to the trappings of his success during those years.

At 59, Kramer comes across as someone who’s at peace with himself and comfortable with whom he is.  Not really knowing what to expect, I quickly found that his warmth and approachability created a very relaxed atmosphere for us to talk.

The conversation starts off with discussing how sales of “Hit Hard” are doing.  “They’re going okay.  Now that we’ve been off the road awhile, I’m going to be doing some book signings and some meet ‘n greets and, hopefully, up the sales a bit.”

As someone who grew up in a nurturing environment as a kid, I shared with Kramer how his childhood was hard for me to grasp and to understand how parents could treat kids the way he was treated.  I was curious if writing the book was more painful to write or if he found it more liberating.

With some introspection, he replies, “Um, it was very cathartic writing it.  It was very cleansing and I found that, once I began to role on a subject, it was really amazing (to find) what’s stored up in your memory as far as letting it role.  If I was talking about somebody that I went to high school with, a story about that person would connect me to somebody else or another situation and, before you know it, things are really rolling.  It’s really incredible what’s in our minds that we don’t even know is there as far as what your memory has recorded from the past.”

I brought up the story he mentions in the book regarding a letter that he wrote to his dad.  I asked how key the role of forgiveness played in turning his life around.  His reply is enthusiastic and to the point.

“Oh!  Very key!  Very key!  You have to forgive and you have to let go of the past because, without letting go of the past, without forgiving, you really can’t move on.  You really can’t move forward with your life in any capacity.  And as long as it takes to conjure up that forgiveness, that’s how long you stay stuck.”