The News Journal, DE
September 15, 2008

Ex-Aerosmith technician can’t be lured from hardscaping business

When Jerry Sabatino of Middletown checks his voice mail these days, it could be clients who want custom-designed patios, or vendors who supply the materials. Or it could be just more calls from the guys in Aerosmith.

“There’s some recording going on in Boston,” he said.

If the recording sessions go as planned, they could result in a new album by the legendary rock band — and, almost certainly, a concert tour.

Sabatino, 40, knows the drill. He spent more than 20 years traveling the world as a roadie and then a guitar technician for some of the biggest names in rock ‘n’ roll, including Aerosmith, Metallica and David Bowie.

Something else Sabatino knows: His old buddies in Aerosmith would welcome him back without hesitation. After all, he was a guitar technician in their crew from 2001 until 2006, and came to know band members Steve Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer almost as brothers.

“They keep checking in on him, which is sweet,” said Sabatino’s wife, Suzanne.

She married Jerry on April 26, 2003, knowing that a certain call of the wild would soon whisk him away again.

That call was Aerosmith’s “Rocksimus Maximus” tour, followed a year later by the “Honkin’ on Bobo” tour, and so on. He’d already survived the “Just Push Play” tour and the “Girls of Summer” tour before they got married.

Suzanne said she would sometimes join her husband on the road when the tours would come to the East Coast.

“You have to be strong to be separate from each other,” she said. “Giving out candy at Halloween, the smell of fall in the air — that’s when I’d miss him the most.”

Aerosmith tours typically have 50 to 80 stops on the U.S. leg, followed by a short stint in Japan.

One of Sabatino’s favorite memories of his years with Aerosmith was Feb. 3, 2002 — the night the band played for the New England Patriots when the team returned to its New Orleans hotel after winning Super Bowl XXXVI.

“We had special guitar picks made for that event — an Aerosmith logo and a Patriots logo,” he said.

Tyler’s wild-man reputation “is not an act,” Sabatino said.

“With Steve, what you see is what you get. He is a loose cannon,” he said, adding that he considers Tyler “one of the best front men ever,” in the same league as Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, Elton John and David Bowie.

The members of Aerosmith knew Sabatino yearned to settle down in Middletown with Suzanne and pursue a different kind of career in rock: designing and building stone patios.

He’d told them all about it. Besides, they’d seen him and his paver catalogs.

In the spring of 2006, when Tyler developed a throat condition and the band cut its tour short, Sabatino decided to follow his dream.

He came home to Suzanne in the Stonefield neighborhood and started a hardscaping business called Rock Your World. He later hooked up with business partner Adam Sierocinski to create Delaware DreamScape, specializing in custom paver patios, walkways, segmental retaining and sitting walls, fire pits and outdoor lighting.

One of his first projects was the hardscaping around his own home.

The multitiered back patio looks like a cross between an old Italian grotto and a rock concert stage.

“I designed that patio when I was in Japan with Aerosmith,” Sabatino said. “Obviously, I have a little advantage in lighting — wall lighting, tier lighting, up-lighting. Lighting gives that extra vibe.”

Sierocinski said their venture is thriving, thanks largely to repeat customers, referrals and word-of-mouth advertising.

The downturn in the housing market has had no adverse effect on their business, he said.

“We’re seeing more people who are staying in their houses longer, and fixing them up,” he said.

Now that Jerry has put the nonstop thrill ride of the rock ‘n’ roll world behind him, Suzanne said, her husband is experiencing simple day-to-day joys as if for the first time.

“We made a lot of sacrifices when we were not together,” she said. “I would not want him to go back out.”

Jerry’s happy now, too.

“I don’t foresee any long-term touring in my immediate future,” he said.