Howard Stern recently published his fantastic book Howard Stern Comes Again featuring Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, and while the book recounts many interviews we’ve already heard over the years, it brings specific emotional moments back into focus, like when Steven Tyler describing having multiple near death experiences.
Howard: Did you ever almost die? Did you have one of those near-death experiences?
Steven: Three or four times.
Howard: Really? They had to resuscitate you, or—
Steven: No, my friends put me in a tub in cold water.
Howard: Because you’d stopped breathing?
Steven: Yeah, and turned blue.
Howard: You think that would have scared the shit out of you. It doesn’t.
Steven: No, man, it doesn’t. Life is too good. You just keep snorting and drinking and taking pills and never knew it was too much. But you know what? Thank you, Lord Jesus, for me not dying.
Howard: Do you believe in God?
Steven: Yes.
Howard: You’re a religious guy?
Steven: Yes.
Howard: You think you go to heaven when you die? Do you think about any of that?
Steven: Well, you got to think about this. If you’re on a table—they’ve done this thousands of times now—and you’re getting ready to die: the second you die, you can see the weight go down. It’s tangible.
Howard: You think that’s your soul going somewhere?
Steven: It’s your soul going somewhere, and we’re electricity, and it goes somewhere. All that you are goes somewhere.
