Night in the Ruts

Work began in the spring of 1979 at the Wherehouse with Jack Douglas, but Tyler struggled to finish lyrics and the album, once planned for June under the title Off Your Rocker, stalled. Management sent the band on tour to raise money, and Columbia eventually replaced Douglas with Gary Lyons. The summer sessions took place at Mediasound Studios in New York. Perry left after the World Series of Rock in Cleveland on 28 July 1979, and his last session had been on 30 May. He had finished his guitar parts for No Surprize, Chiquita, Cheese Cake, Reefer Headed Woman, Three Mile Smile and Bone to Bone. The rest came from Whitford, Richie Supa, Neil Thompson and Jimmy Crespo, who became Perry's official replacement.

Tyler said No Surprize, which tells the story of how the band got started, ended two months of writer's block, and he calls it his favorite. Mia is a lullaby he wrote on piano for his daughter. The album also holds covers of the Shangri-Las' Remember (Walking in the Sand) and the Yardbirds' Think About It. The title is a spoonerism of right in the nuts. Contemporary critics were harsh, though Rolling Stone's David Fricke found the best tracks like inspired outtakes from Rocks and Toys in the Attic, and AllMusic's Greg Prato later called it surprisingly coherent and inspired.