Aerosmith co-founder Joe Perry says he was blindsided by the news that vocalist Steven Tyler plans to join "American Idol" as a judge.
Perry's uncertainty about the band's future has been brewing for more than a year -- as fissures began during the Boston band's 2009 summer tour that was cut short when Tyler fell from a South Dakota stage and broke his shoulder, the Calgary Herald reported Tuesday.
"Technically speaking, after the gig in Vancouver (on Sept. 16), I don't have a job with Aerosmith," Perry told the Herald before the group's Friday show in Calgary. "I don't know when we'll be out there again, the five of us, so we'll be playing with everything we've got."
Perry said the group mapped out plans for two years when it decided to do the Cocked, Locked, Ready To Rock Tour, while "one of the band members knows full well he's signed a contract that's taking him out of the music business for up to seven months of the year ... ."
"It's all very well to say, 'I'm going to go off and do this and it won't interfere with the band ...' but there's only so many weeks in the month and so many months in the year," said 59-year-old Perry.
Tyler, 62, also is scheduled to undergo knee surgery.
"I'm not going to sit around for two years waiting for him to come back to Aerosmith," Perry said, acknowledging a Tyler-less Aerosmith "would be a different animal."
Perry wasn't impressed about the possibility of Tyler sitting at the "American Idol" judges' table.
"It's a reality show designed to get people to watch that station and sell advertising," Perry said. "It's one step above (Teenage Mutant) Ninja Turtles."