The Joe Walsh song that got him into the Eagles
Any guitarist must build up their bag of tricks whenever they try out for another band. No one’s going to hire you on just name recognition, so it’s about showing your stuff in a rehearsal room and woodshedding well before you get in front of the band, so they will be blown away. When it came time for Joe Walsh to try out for the Eagles, he was actually giving his audition without really knowing it.
Let’s get one thing clear, though: Joe Walsh didn’t need the Eagles. He had already been a solo star after disbanding the James Gang, and if Don Henley and Glenn Frey had decided to carry on with Bernie Leadon for the rest of their careers, the world would have kept turning, and nothing would have changed.
The band were already looking to break out from their restraints a little bit. Leadon had been a great team player for the first half of their career, but it was getting to the point where his need to keep things pure in the band was hurting them as much as it was helping them. In the background, Walsh was already ascending in his solo act.
After the California rockers got frustrated making albums like On the Border, one of the records they referenced constantly was Walsh’s The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get, which had the sound they were looking for. While they managed to ditch legendary producer Glyn Johns, it wasn’t until the tour for One of These Nights that they started to wonder what Walsh thought of joining them.
Since Leadon had started to disrespect Frey backstage between shows, Frey remembered having an epiphany moment when Walsh came out on tour with them. As opposed to the standard audition process, what could be a better audition than actually having him play onstage with them?
Looking back on that tour, Frey remembered thinking about getting Walsh in the band as they played, telling History of the Eagles, “For our encores, we’d put Joe Walsh in a road box, and just like a model would appear out of a cake, there would be Joe with his Les Paul, and we would play ‘Rocky Mountain Way’. As we’re playing, I keep thinking to myself, ‘Joe Walsh over Bernie Leadon’”?
Once the tour wrapped up, the band had made up their mind about parting ways with Leadon, leading to Walsh being called up to play with them. He couldn’t have picked a better time to jump on, either, with Hotel California becoming a juggernaut in no small part to Walsh’s licks on songs like ‘Life in the Fast Lane’.
This wouldn’t be just a band-centric thing for the guitar legend. Compared to other journeyman guitarists, Walsh may have been one of the few who could juggle both the Eagles and his solo career, eventually releasing hits like ‘Life’s Been Good’ as the band worked and even finding time to put ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ into the setlist from time to time. Walsh may have been elated to join a band on the same level as the Eagles, but just because he was in a new band didn’t mean he had to leave his own classics behind.
