Aerosmith Felt Rising Sun Tour Was Worth Radiation Risk
. Earlier this week we published Morley Seaver's interview with Aerosmith's Tom Hamilton where they discuss the new DVD and Morley asked Tom about the band's safety concerns prior to launching the tour. Here is that part of the interview: antiMusic: I guess to begin with because obviously we're talking about the new DVD, after the disaster in Japan, very few acts were thinking of performing there. What kinds of discussions took place before you were deciding to go? Tom: Well you know sometimes we investigate where we can go tour and sometimes they call us. And we get a message from say a foreign promoter saying, I think I can put together a string of dates if you guys are interested. I think this one was something where, you know, we were due to do a Japanese tour and part of the whole discussion about planning it was, what about this atomic power plant that's leaking radiation and, you know, we got pretty concerned about it and really looked into it. And to me, I decided, well, the places we're going to play are a decent distance away. I think it's going to be safe, so I'm voting yes. And everybody pretty much came to that conclusion but you know, there was some trepidation. antiMusic: I'm sure you had whatever particular vaccinations required but with the spectre of radiation hanging in your minds, how much did that weigh on your thoughts while you were over there? Tom: You know everyday, there's a newspaper called the Japan Times, which is an English language Japanese paper that I read, and every day there was a map with rings, concentric rings showing how strong the radiation was, you know, 10 miles, 50 miles, 200 miles away. And you know, all the cities that we played we're fairly well away from there. So it's always in your mind. You know, who needs radiation, right? In my gut I felt it was safe to go. And on balance it was worth me getting on a plane and go over there. Read the rest of the interview here.
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