Well, it was only a matter of time, what with all the 'identity issues' going on, that of course we would see a country song from Steven Tyler!

Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler hasn’t gone country with the release of his new video, so much as he’s made country come to him.

The 67-year-old rock legend premiered the clip for his debut country single, “Love Is Your Name,” on Good Morning America, and even though the music takes Tyler in a new direction, he’s as flamboyantly unique as ever in his wardrobe choices, resulting in a video that no other artist in country music would have even attempted.

Tyler is joined by more colorfully dressed friends to perform the song as part of a drum circle, leading up to a climactic scene in which he sings, “I’ll walk through the fire …” over an actual fire. Though the scene works perfectly in the video, that wasn’t necessarily true in the filming.

Tyler says he grew up in a cabin by a lake and had a pet raccoon, and the video incorporates those elements to tell the story of his journey through life, with the hippie girl representing his muse, dragging the scarf “through my life … over the river and through the woods,” from his childhood in that remote setting “to another life, which is my country [music] now.”

Though the idea of artists you wouldn't associate with country crossing over occasionally to the format isn't new, Country purists see it as more of the watering down of the genre. Will Hoge coined a new term for the 'formulated' approach of current Country hits: Carpetbagger Country.


 

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