"Insidious Troublemaker"

[RamboIV]

According to soda's biography of Joe Walsh, at one point Don Henley called him an "insidious troublemaker" because Walsh reportedly spoke to Randy Meisner and Don Felder about starting a new band without Henley or Frey during the stressful Long Run recording sessions.

Does anyone know what interview/article/source it's from? Also, I'm in the process of editing my Joe Walsh career retrospective video, so if anyone has any interesting interviews that Joe has done, now would be the time to post them. Thanks!

[sodascouts]

It's from a Chicago Tribute article (Aug 9. 1989), an interview with Don Henley. Apparently Don was VERY pissed off that Joe was performing "Life in the Fast Lane" during solo shows. He really lashes out at Joe when asked about it. The pertinent part:

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"Still, as he begins his own tour in support of The End of the Innocence, his first new album in nearly five years and a current Top 20 hit, at least one of the Eagles is on Henley's mind: Joe Walsh, now touring as part of ex-Beatle Ringo Starr's band. Walsh takes a solo turn in Starr's show performing "Life in the Fast Lane," an Eagles' hit from 1977, and Henley isn't happy about it.

"That's not his song to do," he fumes. "(Eagles founding member) Glenn Frey and I wrote 90 percent of that song, and I sang it on the record. Joe wrote the opening guitar riff." Henley laughs. "Joe had his own solo career before he joined the Eagles, so I don't understand why he doesn't do a song that's more his, instead of doing that one. Besides, he sounds like he's got a clothespin on his nose."

Sounds as if Henley might harbor a certain amount of resentment.

"Right. I also resent some of the things he said in the press when the group broke up," says Henley. "I didn't want to talk about it before, but the hell with that. I don't mind telling you, Joe Walsh was one of the reasons the Eagles broke up. He was instrumental in the disintegration of that group. He was an insidious troublemaker. He would split the band into factions. He was a very divisive presence and very covert about it. He was very hypocritical. Glenn and I used to laugh and say, 'Yeah, Joe's a very interesting bunch of guys.' You can print that, too. I`m tired of being Mr. Nice Guy.

"I'm not going to try to do anything about Joe doing 'Life in the Fast Lane,' though," says Henley. "It would just bring more publicity (to a situation) where there probably shouldn't be any publicity in the first place."

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Ouch! I wonder how Don reacted when Joe started doing "Desperado" not long after this...

I extrapolated from Felder's book that one "faction" was Joe, Randy and Felder. Obviously, any faction involving Randy only occurred during the HC period before he left. I don't know how Joe (allegedly) worked out factions during recording of The Long Run. One still included Felder as we can garner from his book, but the use of the plural and the level of bitterness makes me wonder if Don feels Joe also got between him and Glenn. I seriously doubt Tim was involved.

[Prettymaid]

Lol! And I wonder if Don has changed his mind on any of that? I mean, Joe still does LITFL at solo shows, at least he did it when I saw him at the IL State fair in 2007. But he didn't sing lead - he left that to one of his backup singers.

[Annabel]

Thanks for that Soda.

I guess they all have things they have said in the rough times, but they no longer feel, or at least say.

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Yep - those comments were definitely made back in the not so good 'ol days!

It seems to me that since the release of LROOE, things have settled down a lot with the band. They are much wiser and still riding the high of the success of the album, and seemed to have finally learned to co-exist with one another. Glenn told us at Pebble Beach a couple of years ago that "band morale is at an all-time high". Hopefully, that remains the case because they do seem to be more energized lately to carry on. I mean Joe has even talked about the band doing a new album. I'm not really holding out any real hope of that happening, but, OMG, how I would love to be wrong about that!

[RamboIV]

Thanks Nancy!

Wow, 1989 must have been a weird time for those guys. Frey on steroids, Joe at his drunkest, and Henley higher than a kite on his ego. Hahaha

Either way, my new show will be online this week! Editing it today!

[GlennLover]

Rambo, your enquiry reminded me of a quote that I read a few days ago so I had to look it up. Glenn said this during an interview at the time that The Allnighter came out entitled "GLENN FREY BENIGN DICTATORSHIP A Former Eagle Hunkers Down for the Long Run", by Jock Baird:

"The thing is, when you're in a band, it's suppose to be equal. And when people emerge as having strengths in certain areas, other people are so resentful of having that strength,. Everybody makes this big thing about Don Henley and I being the reason for the split in the Eagles, but I'm here to tell you right now that Joe Walsh and Don Felder-and others-created as much turbulence for our band as everybody else did, just because they're frustrated quarterbacks. All I'm saying is that in a band, it's a fake democracy. The roles are not so defined."