The rock star Joe Walsh called the highlight of his life: “It was absolutely terrifying at the time”
Rock and roll isn’t really the business of making friends. There are undoubtedly friendly people scattered throughout every other group, but there are just as many people who just want to play the corporate game and would gladly stomp out any other musician that they deem to be a threat. During the 1960s, though, it was all about good, clean fun, and when Joe Walsh started to get his first taste of success with the James Gang, he had more than a few good times when hanging out with Keith Moon.
But Walsh was never really the kind of person to make anything too serious. Just looking at album titles like The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get, or You Bought It You Name It, he was far from that intellectual with his lyrics, and he was more than happy to approach his craft just like a regular guy as opposed to making grand feats of poetry that made everyone look on in awe.
What he lacked in lyrical or vocal ability, he made up for with absolute charm. Looking through his backstage antics captured on film, Walsh always seemed like the guy everyone just loved having around, whether it be to have a drink with him or to race down the freeway in a luxury car.
If Walsh was already a hard partier, though, Keith Moon was at least 15 times worse. Despite being one of the most powerful drummers in the world, Moon turned The Who into every hotel’s worst nightmare wherever they went, whether it came down to launching cherry bombs in the middle of a hotel bathroom or mastering the art of throwing a TV out the window and not worrying about whether someone was walking by at the time.
So when Pete Townshend took a liking to Walsh and eventually started swapping guitars with him, it wasn’t that hard to find any common ground between him and Moon. Aside from their love of excess, the escapades Walsh and Moon indulged in could have easily made for one of the greatest reality TV shows of all time had that option been available in the 1970s, complete with hotel rooms getting destroyed or when Walsh spraypainted his jeans black when trying to get into an upscale restaurant with John Belushi.
Although many nights may have been extremely dangerous, Walsh still considered Moon’s company some of the greatest times of his career, telling Rolling Stone, “Hanging out with Keith Moon was one of the highlights of my life, really, but it was absolutely terrifying at the time, [but] now it’s funny.”
Despite being hilarious to look back on, Moon’s tragic passing meant losing one of the greatest drummers to ever live. Although he wasn’t quite able to put the bottle down, the remnants that we still have and the wild stories that are sure to be passed down through generations would make for one of the wildest biopics in history if someone does acquire the right to put his story onscreen.
