Joe Walsh is onstage at the Troubadour on a recent afternoon performing his song “Lucky That Way” for an audience of about 50 people. His guitar playing is bluesy and cool, his voice a lovable honk. But this isn’t a gig by the 78-year-old rock star, at least not exactly: His instrument glinting under the stage lights, Walsh is showing a crowd of reporters one of the more than 400 guitars he plans to part with in a sell-off organized by Julien’s Auctions.
Set for Tuesday and Wednesday at the Troubadour, the event will feature nearly 800 lots in all, including cars, recording gear, ham radio equipment and quite a few garments — not least a red-brick-pattern Moschino suit — worn by Walsh over his years as a solo act and as a member of the Eagles, the James Gang, Barnstorm and the All-Starr Band fronted by his famous brother-in-law, Ringo Starr.
So who does Walsh owe money? “No, no — I’m not in debt,” he tells me with a laugh in the Troubadour’s upstairs bar. “I just want all of these things to have a good home instead of lying in a dusty storage room because I don’t use them anymore.” A portion of the auction’s proceeds will go to Walsh’s VetsAid organization, which provides assistance to veterans of the armed forces and their families.
“Veterans don’t get enough care, and that really bothers me,” says Walsh, whose flight-instructor father was killed while stationed with the Air Force in Japan when Walsh was just 20 months old. “To see a whole street of homeless vets — it’s like, why?”
Why do you think?
Because this country has a bad habit of forgetting. Whatever war we fight, when we’re done, we forget about it and go on to the next one. And to the guys that fought it: “Hey, thanks for your service.” But those are just words.
You’re basically raising money for folks who shouldn’t have to rely on people like you.
It’s always been that way. Guys come home and it’s like they’re discarded. We have freedom in this country because of them, and somebody should pay attention to that.
Your dad flew the first Air Force jet used in combat, the Lockheed Shooting Star. You ever get to know any of the guys who served with him?
Not who served with him, no. But I’ve met guys who flew the same plane. They’ve brought me literature and books about it. I told them what I know about why my father died, and they said, “Yeah, there were maneuvers it wouldn’t respond to.” But it was the first operational jet — you didn’t know till you flew it.
Joe Walsh
(Ian Spanier / For The Times)
I’ve got a couple questions about specific items in the auction. What’s the story with the lime green zoot suit?
I always loved it when people wore them, so I had a couple made to see how they’d work onstage.
Who’d you see wearing a zoot suit? We talking Cab Calloway?
Sure, starting there. Lot of old black-and-white movies. The band War had ’em on. Jim Carrey in “The Mask” — I mean, wow, that’s cool.
How’d it go over onstage?
Pretty good. It’s like you’re getting dressed for a wedding — the hat, the shoes, the pocket watch. Takes forever to get it right. But I had to try it.
There’s a painting in the auction by Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo. Does Mark know you’re selling it?
Probably not. Maybe he does. I’m not sure he cares. There’s some Devo people out there that would love to have that. I went to college with Mark in Kent, Ohio, so it’s OK.
I noticed there’s a set of bedazzled sombreros.
Yes.
I would’ve thought one bedazzled sombrero was enough.
No. Every time I went to Mexico, I came back with boots and a sombrero. I had to. I adore mariachi bands — they’re fantastic.
You’ve got mariachi horns on your song “A Life of Illusion.”
Kenny Passarelli, the bass player from Barnstorm, wrote the music for that track. Kenny used to play trumpet, and so I had him put on the trumpet parts. He had a buzz going — we’ll put it that way — when he did it. But that’s what the song needed. It needed drunk trumpets. And it was perfect — just the right amount of drunk.
There’s a saxophone up for sale. You play sax?
In high school I tried for a while. I went through the woodwinds — played saxophone, then I played oboe. But that wasn’t gonna go anywhere — not gonna get any girls playing oboe. And you can’t accompany yourself because you can’t sing with an oboe in your mouth. But it was intriguing: Oboists are treated with great care because the whole orchestra has to tune up to an oboe. The oboe is a double reed and it’s the purest waveform.
Some of the jackets in the collection are real statement pieces. Is there one you bought specifically to irritate Don Henley?
The brick suit — that was a good chance to get Henley upset.
Did it work?
Pretty much. That was for the Eagles’ induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. What do you wear to that? It’s rock ’n’ roll, man. What would all those people that I grew up listening to want me to wear? What would Eddie Cochran do? So I saw that suit in the store, and it fit — kind of.
Take that, Henley.
Well, you know, he’d rather I didn’t wear it: “F—ing Walsh…”
The Eagles at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony in 1998: Bernie Leadon, from left, Joe Walsh, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit, Don Felder, Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner.
(Jon Levy / AFP via Getty Images)
Do you expect folks who buy your guitars to play them or hang them on a wall?
Both?
You prefer one fate over the other?
There’s a guitar that some people from a winery in Italy made for me out of the great big barrels they put grapes in. So it’s like 200-year-old wood — sounds different than any guitar I’ve ever played. There’s mojo in that one. It speaks to you.
What’s the best riff you ever wrote?
Probably “Funk #49.” For a three-piece band, that’s a monster.
What’s the best solo you ever recorded?
Oh, geez. Probably “Rocky Mountain Way” — the talk box solo. That’s something I discovered in Nashville. The country singer Dottie West, her husband Bill was an inventor, and he made this talk box that was used once by Pete Drake, the pedal steel player. The song was called “Forever.” But from there it went back into Bill’s garage.
Dottie had a habit of inviting people over to her house when they played in Nashville. And so I showed up and Chet Atkins showed up, and we passed the guitar around. Bill said, “Wait a minute,” and he came back from the garage with this old cardboard box all wrapped up in tape. He took out a piece of surgical tubing and said, “Put this in your mouth.” Smelled terrible. But I did it, and then I used it on “Rocky Mountain Way.” The whole world said, “What the hell is that?” I lucked out on that one.
Joe Walsh
(Ian Spanier / For The Times)
Who were you thinking about when you wrote the reggae part in “Life’s Been Good”?
Bob Marley in “Stir It Up.” And Johnny Nash: [sings] “I can see clearly now…” Johnny Nash blew me away with that song. Out of nowhere: Ladies and gentlemen, reggae! The guy who played guitar on that album, Joey Murcia — he was a studio guy, played on all those Bee Gees songs — he was doing that part, and we grabbed it.
The internet tells me you joined the Eagles exactly half a century ago this month.
Feels like it was a couple years. I’m 78, and I never thought about being this old. Seemed so far in the future that it didn’t exist.
The Eagles will be back at the Sphere in January. What happens in Las Vegas on an off night?
Not a lot. Go to dinner — some great restaurants in Vegas. Pretty much rest and recharge for the next show. Go to the gym.
What do you do at the gym?
Everything I can. It’s important to be active and not sit around. At 8:30, I gotta be 25 years old for two hours.
You ever picture yourself as a Vegas act?
No. I remember being in Vegas and looking up at the billboards: Man, oh, man — how do you get your name up there? It seemed like you were really somebody if you did that. Now I guess people look up at my name and say, “How’d he get up there?” Nobody knows the answer to that.
