Launch Radio Networks reports: AEROSMITH is just one week away from their Route Of All Evil co-headlining tour with MÖTLEY CRÜE, but it wasn't that long ago that there were doubts about the band's future. Back in the spring, the band had to cancel a run of dates with CHEAP TRICK when Steven Tyler suffered some damage to one of his vocal cords, which required surgery, but now he's back and just as good as ever.

Lead guitarist Joe Perry told Launch that even though some people wondered about the future, the band members were more concerned about Tyler himself than their livelihoods. "I know how much he loves being on stage, and... I mean, Jesus, it would be... I can't imagine," he said. "It's like if a car ran over my hand, and I'm, you know, sitting back wondering if they're gonna be able to sew it back together. So of course you think about those kind of things, you know, but we were worried about him personally — as a brother first — and then how it would affect the band."

AEROSMITH and the CRÜE get things started at the Germain Amphitheatre in Columbus, Ohio, next Tuesday (September 5).

AEROSMITH will release a greatest-hits album called "Devil's Got A New Disguise" on October 10. The set has two new songs — the title track, and "Sedona Sunrise". The band will resume work on a new studio album in February.

In related news, two classic AEROSMITH albums have recently been to outer space. Astronaut Mark E. Kelly brought CDs of "Rocks" and "Toys In The Attic" on board the space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station last month. Tyler said, "Having spent most of the '70s and part of the '80s on the dark side of the moon myself — just for inspiration, mind you — I'm not surprised that the magic in those recordings lifted them to such heights. Having risen to the top of the charts myself, being weightless and docking with the Space Station seems fitting." Kelly had offered to carry Tyler's favorite AEROSMITH CDs into space, and the discs were give to Tyler and bassist Tom Hamilton when Discovery returned to earth.

Hamilton is recovering from a nearly two-month stretch of radiation treatments for throat cancer, and he'll miss the first five or six weeks of the tour. AEROSMITH has brought in old friend and former JOE PERRY PROJECT bassist David Hull in the interim.