The song that features Joe Walsh destroying a guitar: “A full-on Pete Townshend”
No one was looking to Joe Walsh in the 1970s to chill out. From the minute he burst onto the scene with the James Gang, he was the epitome of the kind of rock star everyone wanted to hang out with solely to somehow get in trouble along the way. And while Walsh managed to study under some of the greatest in the business, like Keith Moon, he admitted that he brought that massive energy into the studio when smashing a guitar on the track ‘Walk Away’.
When Walsh was first starting out, though, he was more than likely to follow in the footsteps of his heroes like The Beatles. He had that signature way of making the guitar speak, but after getting knee-deep into the blues and jam band circuit, tracks like ‘Funk 49’ boasted some of the most infectious grooves ever to be heard on an early 1970s rock record, especially coming from someone who would later join the Eagles.
But before Walsh graduated to the land of singer-songwriter territory, his solo output was among some of the finest solo work any guitarist put together on their own. Years before Eddie Van Halen emerged on the scene, Walsh was probably the best example of what a true California guitar hero looked like, complete with the bluesy flair of ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ and ‘Turn To Stone’.
Then again, ‘Walk Away’ was a bit of a different beast. While it starts off being the ideal hard rock affair, the tune ramps up towards the end, where every single musician is pushing themselves to the brink. But apparently, right on the edge of the cliff was still too comfortable for Walsh, which led to him going into Jimi Hendrix mode by destroying his guitar.
While it’s buried in the mix for the final track, Walsh ended up doing unspeakable things to his instrument in the studio, saying, “You’ve kinda gotta put on headphones to hear it, but I took a guitar and did a full-on Pete Townshend with it in the background, where I put everything on 10 and turned the fuzz tone all the way up. I took the guitar off, threw it up in the air, put it on the ground, and jumped up and down on it.”
Even though the song still sounds great, hearing the final moments of a guitar in the background does add to the mix. That was what rock and roll was all about when Townshend first smashed one, but being able to document it like this was a much better artefact than having to see archival footage of a gig by The Who.
It’s not like legions of imitators didn’t follow him, either. Although Kurt Cobain doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who threw on Hotel California all the time, hearing him demolish his guitar to bits on the hidden track ‘Endless Nameless’ just carries on the tradition that Walsh started on here.
Because, for all that he could do by playing blazing licks, Walsh was much better at letting his emotions out on his guitar than putting together something that would bend someone’s brain. After all, rock and roll was never meant to be perfect, so putting a guitar getting smashed on top of everything just feels like a victory lap at the end of ‘Walk Away’ instead of a standard solo.
