Chris Daughtry said that Joe Perry once asked him to be Aerosmith’s new singer. As Blabbermouth reports, the former American Idol contestant turned alt-rock radio staple was recently on The Dave Rickards Podcast and talked about when he was approached by Perry in 2009 during the tumultuous time when it seemed like Steven Tyler might leave the band. “I get this random call from Joe Perry. Joe Perry and Steven were apparently at odds with each other. It was all in the news; this isn’t private information,” Daughtry said, continuing:

I think this was right when Steven Tyler was going on American Idol and they weren’t touring together. I think it was like a public breakup sort of thing. Joe Perry calls me. I’m, like, ‘First of all, I didn’t know Joe Perry had my number. This is incredible.’ I thought it was a joke at first, but he didn’t even take time to, like, ‘How’re you doing?’ He just went into his reason for calling me. ‘And I don’t know what Steven’s doing, but we wanna work. How would you feel about hitting the road with us? You’ve got some cool songs we could play too.’

And I was, like, ‘Uh…’ I was speechless. First of all, I don’t consider myself any caliber of singer that Steven Tyler is as far as I would not be able to tackle those songs the way Steven Tyler tackles him. He is irreplaceable, in my mind. Furthermore, Steven Tyler’s alive. This whole fear of pissing off one of my heroes was just looming, and I was, like, ‘There’s no way I can do this, Joe.’

“[Singing for Aerosmith] was a terrifying concept, the moment the words left [Joe’s] mouth,” Daughtry went on. “It is a story that I will hold near and dear for the rest of my life, for sure.”

Tyler has always denied that he ever really left the band, but reports have emerged over the years that Perry approached numerous other singers about replacing him, including Paul Rodgers, Chris Cornell, and Billy Idol.

Aerosmith announced a farewell tour earlier this year, which is set to kick off next month. Late last year, Tyler was sued for sexually assaulting a minor in the ’70s; Tyler denied the accusations and has pushed for the lawsuit to be dismissed.