Walsh Only Eagle Still Flying in Fast
Lane
Joe Walsh's manager, David Spero, is giving me the eagle eye. "No questions to Joe about the Eagles!" he snaps. Aw, c'mon. It's already an hour past the time that guitarist Walsh, in Toronto last week for a quickie video shoot for the RoboCop TV series, agreed to talk to The Star. We've been patient. And nobody put any restrictions on the interview when they invited us on the RoboCop set. How about just a couple of Eagles questions? About how much Joe is enjoying being back with Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Don Felder and Timothy B. Schmit after 14 long years apart. And about how Walsh, 46, just can't wait to hit the stage with them Monday at CNE Stadium for the only Canadian stop on the Eagles reunion tour. "Just keep 'em short," Spero commands. "Joe has a deal with Henley and Frey: He doesn't talk about the Eagles; they don't talk about RoboCop." You can imagine how Henley and Frey must be biting their tongues, to be denied fee expression about Walsh's duet with ex-Runaways blondeshell Lita Ford on the RoboCop theme song, "A Future to This Life." Problem is, Walsh doesn't seem to want to talk about it, either. You'd think he would, after taking time out from the Eagles' busy tour to make this solo trip to Toronto. He professes to be a RoboCop fan, but he sleepwalks through a fast standup interview with U.S. infotainment show Entertainment Tonight, and then Spero announces Walsh has to finish eating his late lunch before doing any more press. The Clock Ticks On A half-hour later, Spero returns to say Walsh is busy in his trailer with "an old friend. He's known her since he was a child." Walsh decides to get to know her a whole lot better and the clock ticks on. At 6 p.m., 2 1/2 hours after the scheduled 3:30 interview time, Spero returns again to say that Joe is ready to meet the press. But it must be done at Walsh's Winnebago, because he doesn't feel like returning to the set. The rock star is standing outside the trailer, wearing a red leather jacket and green-tinted sunglasses. He smiles a knowing smile. He doesn't want to move. Walsh doesn't have much t say about RoboCop, Lita Ford or the song they're working on. "I really like it," he drawls in that heavy-smoking way of his. "I like the song. I like things that nobody would think of or put together." He's just starting to mumble about how he might play a character in a future RoboCop episode when a make-up man interrupts to say Walsh must have his pancake and powder put on right this second. The interview has lasted exactly four minutes. And as Walsh ambles toward the Winnebago, the truth suddenly dawns: Joe Walsh really is enjoying being an Eagle again. The man who co-wrote "Life in the Fast Lane" is living full-throttle once more, doing what the Eagles used to love to do: sticking it to the press. Loathed by rock critics in the 1970s because they were too country for rock, the used to have a hit-list of scribes they hated, with every name in Rolling Stone topping it. Joe Walsh, the man whose slide guitar sounds like a punchline to a great joke, is keeping the Eagles flame burning brightly, scorching press butt just like the old days. God bless him. Everybody's so different; Joe hasn't changed. But we can't just leave Joe Walsh dangling. He did answer a couple of Eagles questions just before being dragged away by the makeup guy. How's he finding being out on tour again with the Eagles? "I'm very happy," Walsh allows. Can he see the band continuing on doing new albums and tours? "Yeah" Life in the fast lane, surely make you lose your mind.
Peter Howell |