'I'm not young and crazy anymore'

But at 53, Joe Walsh hasn't lost the urge to blow things up, in life and musically.

By TOM ZUCCO

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 22, 2001

He never dreamed he'd make it this far. The James Gang. The Eagles. The drugs. The booze. The total excess and absurdity.

I live in hotels, tear out the walls.

I have accountants pay for it all.

I go to parties sometimes until four.

It's hard to leave when you can't find the door.

Joe Walsh lived those lyrics to Life's Been Good.

And now here he is. A 53-year-old guitar hero with a wife and two young sons. Alden, age 5, and Emerson, 2, are typical boys except for one thing.

Their dad.

"Now, my house is like a war zone," Walsh said last week from his home in Los Angeles. "It's like Kosovo. You got to keep your head down.

"I never knew the meaning of fear until I had sons."

Okay. Calm down. Little boys are like that.

"But there's a sad part, too, you know?" he said. "You see your sons growing up and you want them to do good and be productive, and all of a sudden, they're kind of more important than me. I was real important to me for a long time. It's good that that's changed.

"But I'm starting to feel like a grown-up for the first time. With responsibilities and stuff like that. I didn't want to ever be grown up. I'm not young and crazy anymore, and I see that in them, and I guess I'm a little jealous.

"Like, they like to blow stuff up. I do, too. But I can't because I gotta be their dad.

"The best I can do is show them the good way to blow stuff up."

Growing old and being Joe Walsh seemed contradictory, an oxymoron like "jumbo shrimp." He was the rambunctious front man for the James Gang, the wild man with the Fender and the funny hats whom Don Henley and Glenn Frey had to keep an eye on when he joined the Eagles. He ran for President in 1979 (his campaign slogan: free gas for everyone), and for vice president in 1992. In case you didn't notice, he lost both times.

Walsh has mellowed, at long last, and he's dealing with this age thing. He has been sober for seven years, and is now a devoted family man.

And yet the kid in him remains. Alive and kicking. Walsh played in the Legends of Baseball game recently along with ex-major leaguers Brooks Robinson, Vida Blue and Wade Boggs. If nothing else, doing that gave him perspective.

In baseball, he said, when you can't play anymore, you have to retire. Then they trot you out for Old Timers Day and "legends" games. But if you play music -- even hard-driving rock -- you can stick around a lot longer.

"I have envisioned just brief, momentary thoughts of retiring and slowing down," Walsh said, "and I don't think I could do it without major emotional distress.

"So I'm not gonna."

This wouldn't be the right time anyway. Walsh said the Eagles are re-forming and going into the studio this summer to begin work on a new album.

"It's great because it'll make touring more valid," he said, "and because we'll have something else to play. You get pretty sick of some of those old songs."

Speaking of old songs, the James Gang did a reunion show in Cleveland in January, the first time the band had been together in 30 years.

"We made it through, much to my amazement," he said. "It wasn't like what we used to do. If we did that, two-thirds of the way through, we'd all die. But it was fun. We kept the formula we always had -- which is to rehearse the songs after the show."

No, there are no plans to reform the Gang. The band got together only to celebrate the good old days in Cleveland and to raise money for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"I can understand how the fans want us to get back together," he said, "and if you can pull it off, I think it's valid. The Eagles did a good job of pulling it off a couple of years ago. That was pretty respectable.

"But if everybody is old and fat, and you can't do the songs very good, and the only original guy is the road manager . . . I question that approach."

Besides, he's pretty busy now. There's the current tour, his work with the Eagles, and helping his sons safely explode stuff. Walsh also has a recurring role on the Drew Carey Show and is planning later this month to star in a pilot for a sitcom that's loosely based on Walsh's hit single Life's Been Good. In other words, it's about a rock star who's trying, but rarely succeeding, to stay grounded.

"There's going to be some improvisation in it," Walsh explained. "They're going to put some booby traps on the set so that it'll be almost impossible for us to say the lines we're supposed to say. They're encouraging us to run with it, like Who's Line Is It Anyway? I seem to do my best work when I don't have a clue.

"And if it's really funny, it'll be a breath of fresh air as opposed to the brainless stuff that's out there now."

He's also not ruling out another run for public office. Maybe a seat in Congress.

"I've thought about bringing it down a notch," he said. "But I don't know. It looks like a pretty thankless job."

He paused for a moment and considered the state of American politics.

"It's getting harder and harder to feel any real connection with any of it," he said. "Especially after the Florida election business. These are strange times we live in.

"Is Dick Cheney still alive?"

Yes.

And so is Joe Walsh.

"I'm just plain not done yet," he said. "I hadn't planned on living this long. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or how I'm supposed to act.

"I just go about my business hoping the senior moments don't come too often.

"On the other hand, I remember my grandfather telling me that everything's fun when you're senile."

At a glance

Joe Walsh, 8 p.m. Friday, Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater. Tickets $32.75 and $37.75. (727) 791-7400.

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