Happy 73rd Birthday, Steven Tyler: See Photos Of The Iconic Rocker Then & Now

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It’s Steven Tyler’s birthday, and you don’t want to miss a think. Take a look back at the Aerosmith singer’s life in honor of him turning 73!

For classic rock lovers, fans of Armageddon, and the entire city of Boston, March 26 is an unofficial holiday — because it’s Steven Tyler’s birthday! In 2021, the Aerosmith frontman turns 73 years old, marking more than seven decades of being rock and roll’s “Demon of Screamin’.” The news was greeted with love by his friends and fellow bandmates. “From the first song to the last! Happy birthday to my brother in arms, Mr. Steven Tyler! Love you man!” tweeted Joe Perry, Aerosmith’s guitarist and Steven’s lifelong friend.

“I was a beautiful little boy that lived in the woods of New England, New Hampshire,” Steven told GQ in 2019. “So I grew up in the woods listening to the wind. It was just the silence and Mother Nature, no one around—it was an awful lot of magic there. When I started smoking weed, in ’65, ’66, it kind of enhanced those magic feelings.

Steven and Joe – along with Joey Kramer, Tom Hamilton, and Ray Tabano (later replaced by Brad Whitford) – formed the band in Boston in 1970, and since then, they’ve been a fixture on rock stations for more than five decades. The initial success of the band saw them unleash such now-classic songs like “Dream On,” “Sweet Emotion,” “Walk This Way,” “Last Child,” “Back In The Saddle,” and their version of The Beatles’ “Come Together.” They experienced a second burst of mainstream success in the mid-to-late 80s, thank to Permanent Vacation. The 1987 album saw hits like “Rag Doll,” “Angel,” and the slightly outdated, slightly problematic “Dude (Looks Like A Lady).” In the early 1990s, thanks to a trio of music videos featuring Alicia Silverstone (“Cryin’”, “Amazing”, and “Crazy”), Aerosmith experienced even greater success with Get A Grip.

Though Aerosmith’s time in the spotlight began to wane along with rock’s tenure as the dominant music genre, the band experienced perhaps its most successful moment in 1998. “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” was recorded for the movie Armageddon, a disaster film featuring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, and Steven’s daughter, Liv Tyler. The song remains Aerosmith’s most successful single to this date, and is often heard at slow dances, wedding receptions, and karaoke bars.

For Steven, it might be his most favorite song due to the connection to his daughter (Liv did appear in the “Crazy” video alongside Alicia.) Steven and fashion model Bebe Buell had a brief relationship in the late 1970s, resulting in the birth of Liv. Steven would marry Cyrinda Foxe in 1978, and the two would welcome daughter Mia Tyler in 1978. After Cyrinda And Steven divorced in 1987, he struck up a relationship with designer Teresa Barrick. The couple welcomed a daughter, Chelsea, and a son, Taj. They were married in 1988, separated in 2005, and divorced in 2006.

While Steven is primarily known as a classic rock icon, he also has – or, had – a reputation for drugs and alcohol abuse. He and Joe were dubbed the “Toxic Twins” for their usage, and Bebe Buell initially shielded Liv’s paternity because of Steven’s drug use at the time. “I’m going on my fourth run [of sobriety,” Steven told GQ in 2019. “So I’ve got nine years in December. Which I’m very proud of.”

“The experiences I had, and that learning process, was something I cherish forever,” added Steven. “It’s like looking for Alice and chasing the rabbit down the hole. Your thinking is around everything that you witnessed in Wonderland. It’s not a bad thing—if you can write about it and make sense about it with music, then you’re golden. But that got taken away from me. I’d get so high that I couldn’t be creative anymore. But these moments, I don’t regret them. It was the greatest time. I’m just happy I survived, crawled out of the hole.”