Veteran rocker Steven Tyler on Tuesday denied that his new role as a judge on 'American Idol meant the death of his band Aerosmith, and said he wanted to start work on a much-delayed new album later this month.

We are just on a break. We are still rocking big time, Tyler, 62, told television journalists, while promoting the new season of American Idol.

Aerosmith has not recorded a studio album since 2001 and a 2009 feud between Tyler and his bandmates threatened to break up the group known as the bad boys of Boston.

But Tyler said Aerosmith would start working on a new album at the end of January, and had a tour of Japan and South America lined up starting in November 2011.

It's not dead. It couldn't be dead, he said of the 40 year-old rock band that has sold more than 150 million albums since forming in 1970.

It was not clear how Tyler will find time to get back into the recording studio given his commitment to some four months of twice-weekly live TV episodes of American Idol, which starts a 10th season on January 19 and runs into May.

In a separate interview with Rolling Stone last week, Tyler said he was trying to rally the band together but we're having trouble getting Joe (Perry). I don't know where he is.

Guitarist Perry has had harsh words for Tyler's participation in top-rated TV singing contest. In a September interview with Canadian newspaper Calgary Herald, he described Idol as one step above Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...It's his business, but I don't want Aerosmith's name involved with it.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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