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Sat 24 May 2025 19:00, UK
It’s fair to say that Joe Walsh has truly lived a life with the Eagles. Like all the rest, the band were no exception to the standards of sex and drugs and rock and roll, but years down the line, this fails to remain as hedonistic as it once seemed. It’s a tale as old as time – rock stars indulge all they like in their youth, but if they make it out the other side, they’re often left with myriad remorse over where things headed south. Walsh is just the same, but still holds one particular regret about where he feels he could have lent a bigger hand.
Of course, it’s easy for the guitarist to beat himself up over the events of the past, but this is admittedly a lot easier said than done when it comes to battling the perils of addiction. Nevertheless, it’s a blight on Walsh’s heart that he never helped one specific struggling rock soldier as much as he feels he could, and it will forever remain his biggest regret – The Who’s John Entwistle.
Recalling his friendship with the bassist, Walsh said in 2020: “Once I had got sober, John and I were living in totally different worlds. I went to see him a couple of times, but I didn’t hang out all night and into the next morning like I used to. And as he was still doing. So, we had got to be a little distant from each other.” It’s only natural that, given his own previous struggles, Walsh would find it difficult to be around Entwistle at his rock bottom, but following his tragic, sudden death in 2002, the questions of what could have been evidently plagued the Eagles guitarist.
“I wasn’t sure whether I should, or even could, confront him,” Walsh admitted, adding, “Ultimately, I was never able to sit down with John and say to him, ‘Hey, man, you’re fucking up.’ Back in those days, I was still trying to figure out my own sobriety. Now, all these years later, I feel quite comfortable in telling someone I care about, ‘Listen up, because I know what I’m talking about.’” The echoes of this conversation that never was only grew to more resonance with the memory of the pair’s final interaction together, at a music convention mere months before his passing.
Walsh mused: “I spent a while with John in his dressing room and then we went out to eat. I noticed that he was having trouble hearing. Also, he was not making sense like the John that I had known. I didn’t know if he was just too drunk, or whatever.” Watching his former friend slip away was ultimately too much for him to bear, and the decision to distance himself was not one Walsh took lightly. But despite his regrets, he realised deep down that Entwistle was already a long way down a path that he could not be retrieved from.
Noting the similarities between the bassist’s addiction to that of the band’s former fallen drummer Keith Moon, Walsh speculated that the pair potentially rubbed off on each other in terms of lifestyle, saying: “He was going to take everything as far as it would go, period. Maybe there was a bit of that in John, too.”
In the end, as much as he feels remorseful that he could have helped his fellow man more, the reality is that Walsh could have only done so much in these kinds of situations. The benefit of hindsight may indeed have put rock stars the world over on a different path, but ultimately, you’d be hard pressed to find any who truly regret their former actions, as it granted them their rapturous careers.
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