Steven Tyler Rocks Charlie Sheen's House

The lead singer of Aerosmith playing his badass self on CBS' Two and a Half Men? Dream on, you might say, but this Monday at 9 pm/ET, Steven Tyler makes the first of what could turn out to be many recurring appearances as Charlie Sheen's hard-partying, hard-rocking neighbor. TV Guide spoke with Tyler about why he decided to walk this way, onto a sitcom set.

TV Guide: Why did you do Men?
Steven Tyler: I get hit up for a lot of these shows [I guess] they want a piece of me as long as I am still walking around coherent so I can pick my poison. Playing along with Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer and the fat kid [Angus T. Jones] was fun.

TV Guide: Tell us about what you're doing in the episode.
Tyler: I am off camera for much of it, so I sit next to an open microphone and play my music, simulate sex, pop tops, open the refrigerator [a lot].... The actual houses down there in Malibu Colony are beyond next door to each other, so I just did everything including making references to Pamela Anderson. It is so perfect for me to live next door. Charlie is up [late one night] trying to put this [ad jingle] rhyme together, and I start making fun of him. He says, "Shut the hell up, Tyler." He tries to beat me up, I beat him up.... It is a real moment, it works very well. On another night, Charlie is out there knitting, and I beat him up [to the point where he winds up in] a neck brace. It's just too good to be true.

TV Guide: Are you coming back for another episode?
Tyler: I would love to. Eddie Gorodetsky is my friend and one of the writers. I did a voice-over in 2003 for something, so this is taking that one step further.

TV Guide: What kind of neighbor are you in real life?
Tyler: I'd go jogging by your house and never speak. I am just too busy. On the one hand it forces me, along with my therapist, to think about the fact that I wish I was [someone] who could stop [long enough to] change a lightbulb. But I love working.

TV Guide: How did you and Charlie get along?
Tyler: He is a very funny guy. We had a blast. I asked him a couple of questions about his ex-wife [Denise Richards], and he promptly introduced me to his new girlfriend [actress/real-estate agent Brooke Mueller]. It was like a family. When we were doing the jokes, the writing was so good that when we were done with the skit, people were breaking up all over the place, dropping and dying. I had such a good time, it made me think of changing careers. When I go on the set with [film-star daughter Liv Tyler], I say, "How did you memorize all that? You said your lines were just typed out, and in five minutes you knew them. How did you do it?" Me, I took it step by step. I wasn't very good. But I did it.

CBS sitcom fans, get a behind-the-scenes look at How I Met Your Mother's Sept. 25 episode in the new TV Guide.

Send your comments on this Q&A to: online_insider@tvguide.com.