Joe Walsh on the Worst Era of His Career: “I Had Lost Myself”

The Eagles may be known as one of the greatest country rock outfits of the 20th century, but they were not without their issues. When the band initially fell apart at the start of the 1980s, guitarist and keyboardist Joe Walsh hadn’t quite yet hit rock bottom or his worst era, surprisingly.

While with Eagles, though, Walsh had one heck of a time. He lived the full rock star experience along with the likes of The Who’s Keith Moon and John Belushi. He partied hard, trashed more than a few hotel rooms, and had many late nights as any American rock star would.

That kind of life is never sustainable, unfortunately. Not just for Walsh, but for the whole of Eagles. By the time they started working on The Long Run, each member was completely over it. Members were fighting with each other constantly, inspiration had run dry, and Don Felder and Glenn Frey were basically fist-fighting live on stage in front of God and everybody. It was a mess, to say the least. And the band finally imploded in 1980.

Joe Walsh’s Worst Era Could Have Easily Been His Final Era

Walsh has spoken about this period often. After the Eagles were done, he went on to nurture his solo career, completely unchecked and positioned to have a downfall that there was no coming back from. Walsh said explicitly in an interview with Louder from earlier in 2024 that those few years after the band called it quits were almost deadly for him.

“The low point was probably my last three years of vodka and substance abuse,” said Walsh of his worst era. “I was pretty pitiful, I had lost myself. I always thought: ‘Well, if I need to, I can stop.’ And then I realized that wasn’t the case, and I did not know what to do. That was pretty awful and I don’t want to go there again.”

It’s not exactly surprising that things got so rough for the famed Eagles guitarist. Countless contemporaries of his had fallen down the same path and had their lives cut short. Thankfully, Walsh came out of it more or less in one piece. 

And two surprising people saved his life: His former bandmates, Don Henley and Glenn Frey. They planned on getting the band back together, and Walsh did a stint in rehab before hitting the stage with the newly reunited Eagles once again. This time, he did it completely sober. 

“Could Hendrix have played like that sober, straight and without acid?” Walsh mused when asked if excess was conducive to creativity. “I don’t think so. Could Hemingway and Faulkner have written like that unless they were alcoholics? Probably not. I always used that as a crutch in my denial… that artists should experience all extremes. But it never occurred to me that all those people are dead.”

Real words from a real dude.

Photo by Kevin Estrada/Shutterstock

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