Joe Perry (born Joseph Anthony Pereira on September 10, 1950) is an American musician best known as the founding guitarist of Aerosmith, appearing on every studio album except Rock in a Hard Place and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 2001. He also fronts the Joe Perry Project and plays in the supergroup Hollywood Vampires with Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp, releasing his memoir Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith in 2014. Originally dreaming of becoming a marine biologist like Jacques Cousteau in Hopedale, Massachusetts, his academic struggles—later attributed to undiagnosed ADHD—led his parents to enroll him in the all-boys Vermont Academy. At that school, he encountered students from major cities deeply involved in the late 1960s "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" culture, which he called a "real education" that changed his life's trajectory. This path led to an ASCAP Founders Award and Songwriters Hall of Fame induction with Steven Tyler in 2013, plus the 84th spot on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists list.