Blues and Rock ‘n Roll, what a marvelous combination! Aerosmith thought so and certainly so have their fans for almost 40 years now. That’s right, 40—FORTY, for the numerically challenged—an impressive feat achieved by only few other bands. There are Aerosmith fans out there that weren’t even alive the first time the band hit it big. We say the first time because Aerosmith has developed the comeback into an art form.

New York native Steven Tyler met up with Boston native Joe Perry in 1970 and Aerosmith was born. With the addition of a few other musicians, the nascent band tried to find its footing, going through some line-up changes but eventually settling on Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums) and Brad Whitford (guitar). Joe Perry also played guitar and Steven Tyler, scion of a musical family, could play drums and piano but insisted on being lead vocalist for the band. After a couple of years of gigs around the New England and New York areas, Aerosmith scored a record deal with Columbia and released their first album, Aerosmith, in 1973. Another album, Get Your Wings followed in 1974. Both albums received fairly good radio play but were only modest successes. Aerosmith kept touring and purveying their sultry rock sound and cheeky lyrics to the masses. The big breakthrough came in 1975 with Toys in the Attic, which reached #11 on the charts while the single Sweet Emotion made the Top 40. All of a sudden the world re-discovered the band’s first two albums and pushed them way up in the charts. Aerosmith had arrived.

Smash hits continued to come thick and fast with the next few albums, Rocks, Draw the Line and Live! Bootleg, the latter drawn from concert appearances in 1977-78. The future of Aerosmith seemed to be strewn with rose petals but Tyler and Perry were reveling in the sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll lifestyle—earning the moniker “Toxic Twins”—and it proved detrimental professionally and personally. Long existing friction between the two friends and band mates culminated in Perry’s departure, soon to be followed by Brad Whitford’s exit. The release of Rock in a Hard Place in 1982 was an overall disappointment but things were looking up by 1984 when Perry and Whitford came back to the fold and Aerosmith launched their Back in the Saddle tour. The tour was prematurely terminated though when Tyler collapsed on stage, worn down by his various addictions.

A period of drug rehab followed for the Toxic Twins, who managed to clean up and return to the recording studio for Done with Mirrors. What really put Aerosmith back in the game was their collaboration with rap trailblazers Run DMC who covered the 1977 hit Walk This Way and the seminal music video featuring both groups, which dominated the MTV airwaves. A new generation of fans saw, listened and fell head over heels for Aerosmith, making 1987’s Permanent Vacation and 1989’s Pump multi-platinum sellers. The end of the 80s saw all the band members finally clean and sober and ready to rock into another decade. And rock they did. Get a Grip, released in 1993, debuted at #1 and sold seven million copies in two years. Another multi-platinum album was 1997’s aptly named Nine Lives, which also debuted at #1.

Unsurprisingly, the Bad Boys from Boston were inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 but didn’t rest on their laurels. They released two more albums, Just Push Play and Honkin’ on Bobo and in 2007 launched a huge world tour that took them as far as Japan and India, selling out stadiums wherever they played. Here’s to a couple more decades of rocking our socks off, boys.