Joe Perry, the guitarist of Aerosmith, shared in an interview with Guitar World how he felt remorseful about obtaining a guitar effects pedal that was stolen from Jeff Beck. He stated that he briefly had the device in the early 1970s.
Perry mentioned that when he was starting out with Aerosmith, his manager was able to secure tickets and backstage passes to a Jeff Beck concert. The road manager, who had a different perspective on life, took an orange Colorsound pedal from Beck without his consent. When they were driving back home, the road manager showed the stolen pedal to Perry and said that Beck had multiple pedals and that he took one for him.
“When we were just starting to make it in Aerosmith, our manager had been one of the big promoters in Boston and so we were able to get tickets and backstage passes to a Jeff Beck show,” he recalled. “We had a road manager who was a great guy, but he just looked at the world a little different. Backstage, I didn’t talk to Jeff then, but he was using an orange Colorsound [pedal]. We’re driving home and our road manager pulls this orange Colorsound out of his jacket. He said, ‘Well, he had six of them so I just picked it up for you!'”
Perry expressed his frustration and went on to explain further:
“I said, ‘No, we don’t do that! That is not us.’ But we were still pretty hand-to-mouth, and back then getting equipment going back and forth across the pond was a big deal. What was I gonna do – ship it to him?”
Adding:
“I had it for about three weeks and then it got stolen from me. I was actually kind of happy to see it go. I always felt bad about it.”
He felt guilty about the stolen guitar effects pedal throughout the years, but he had a chance to make amends during Jeff Beck’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2009.
“[M]e and Brad [Whitford] were some of the first guys to get some Klon Centaur pedals. We each had three or four of them … I took one of my original ones and after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame soundcheck I told Jeff the story and said, ‘I just want to adjust the karma here, so I want you to have this.'”
He continued:
“I think he was pretty surprised to get it and I was really happy to give it to him.”