Joe Walsh on Trent Reznor: “An extraordinary artist, visionary, and gentleman”
The greatest artists tend to be students of all kinds of music. Even though there may be a few musicians who have their favourite records and proceed to play the same style for years on end, it’s always worth dipping one’s toes into other genres to see what the other side of music has to offer. While Joe Walsh may have already had a handful of genres under his belt, he admitted that one rock band from the 1990s levelled him when he first heard them.
For most fairweather rock fans, Walsh is usually known as the outlandish guitar slinger who serves as the class clown of the Eagles. By the time he had recorded songs like ‘Hotel California’, Walsh had already solidified himself as a rock mainstay, blending the fierce side of rock guitar playing a la Jimmy Page with the sound of countrified rock and roll.
Before Walsh had even thought about becoming an Eagle, he was already one of the most in-demand guitarists in his field. Outside of his stellar solo career with songs like ‘Rocky Mountain Way’, Walsh had turned in time in The James Gang in the late 1960s, paving the way for hard rock bands to follow on songs like ‘Funk #49’.
Walsh would even be sharing time with rock giants before he had turned in time with Don Henley and Glenn Frey. After being shellshocked by his abilities, Pete Townshend of The Who would consider Walsh one of the greatest in his field, with Walsh returning the favour by gifting Townshend a guitar that he would use throughout the recording of Who’s Next.
After the disastrous touring for The Long Run, Walsh would return to his solo career once the Eagles folded, leading to many years of him trying to keep himself together. While it was only a matter of time before the group got back together for the live album Hell Freezes Over, Walsh had to focus on getting sober before he rejoined, eventually talking about how scary it was trying to play shows while not under the influence.
While Walsh had become a rock and roll legend by the 1990s, the mainstream charts were going through their own shakeup. Outside of the grunge mainstays populating the singles charts out of Seattle, another musical movement began rising to prominence once Trent Reznor started Nine Inch Nails.
After the modest success of Pretty Hate Machine, Reznor would peel back the layers of his heart on The Downward Spiral, giving fans a look at what darkness was lying underneath his tough exterior. Even though the Eagles’ catalogue may have felt like the polar opposite of what Reznor was doing, Walsh remembered falling in love with the band through his son.
When talking about discovering new music, Walsh said that he felt that he needed Reznor’s music, saying, “My son told me that I wouldn’t know how much I needed NIN until I saw them for myself. He undersold them. An extraordinary artist, visionary, and gentleman. Thank you. Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor”.
Then again, any fan of music could relate to the pain that Reznor was experiencing, with the song ‘Hurt’ resonating with Johnny Cash enough for him to cover it shortly before his death. Any artist might be able to make music designed to shock people, but outside of the dark makeup, Walsh knew that there was a true artist who knew the shape of his heart.
