The members of the band reportedly spent afternoons getting stoned and watching Three Stooges reruns. One day, they had a post-Stooges meeting to try to come up with a name. Kramer said that when he was in school he would write the word aerosmith all over his notebooks. The name had popped into his head after listening to Harry Nilsson’s album Aerial Ballet, which featured jacket art of a circus performer jumping out of a biplane. Initially, Kramer’s bandmates were nonplussed; they all thought he was referring to the Sinclair Lewis novel they were forced to read in high school English class. “No, not Arrowsmith,” Kramer explained. “A-E-R-O…Aerosmith.” The band settled upon this name after also considering “The Hookers” and “Spike Jones.” Soon, the band hired Ray Tabano, a childhood friend of Tyler, as rhythm guitarist and began playing local shows. Aerosmith played their first gig in Mendon, Massachusetts at Nipmuc Regional High School (now Miscoe Hill Middle School) on November 6, 1970. In 1971, Tabano was replaced by Brad Whitford, who also attended the Berklee School of Music and was formerly of the band Earth Inc. Brad Whitford, being from Reading, Massachusetts, had played at Reading’s AW Coolidge Middle School. Other than a period from July 1979 to April 1984, the line-up of Tyler, Perry, Hamilton, Kramer, and Whitford has stayed the same.