Joe Walsh

“Before we really started writing our own songs in the James Gang, we'd play covers, and then, in the middle of them, we'd go for a jam for four or five minutes. At some point, we had six or seven of those sections, and we didn't need to cover other people's songs anymore.”

“I've always written observations on the world, and now there's two of them. The virtual world is a new thing, and it doesn't really exist, but people are in it a lot.”

“What matters is voting for where you live: Who's your mayor, who's your police chief, who represents you, your city council, your judges. That matters that you vote.”

“I was 20, and my reality was that people either went to college full-time, or they were draftable. The dear friends that I went to high school with that didn't go to college eventually wound up in Vietnam, and I noticed that they came home different. I was in Ohio during the Vietnam War era.”

“I like to give people equipment and stuff. For me, it's a kind of payback. Anyone who is an influence or hero for me, I'm always concerned with how I can balance the karma.”

“We're sober now, and we all have families and obligations of being senior citizens. Oh, that's hard to say. We have grown-up responsibilities. We used to all live in the same car.”

“In the very early Seventies and the very late Sixties, nobody out here was originally from L.A.”

“I've been able to meet a lot of vets at different functions and events, and it just hit me that I should step it up a notch, and I have a lot of peers who feel the same way.”

“The best part of success is that it got me past the basic survival level of existence so that I was comfortable. I didn't have to worry about stuff pertaining to survival. Once that was taken care of, I got the chance sit down and create and work at what I do.”

“Ricky Washington is from a Baptist church in Miami, Florida, and he can pretty much sing anything. We just started working it up at soundcheck, and holy smokes, it's just great! The audience gets to singing. So there's that stuff to do - find some old obscure R&B stuff - because we can do it justice.”

“'Hell Freezes Over' happened, and the Eagles decided to get back to work. We've toured pretty much since then, and I've been around the world a couple times. I had never really gotten any momentum going in a solo project during that period of time - Eagles was pretty much a full time job.”

“I would say 'struggling' is a good word. We were all struggling to keep doing what we were doing, and more things were expected of us. I mean, one of the big things was how in the world are we going to top 'Hotel California?'”

“You used to make records, record companies sold them, and people went to record stores and bought them. That's all gone now.”

“I had seen my buddies crash and burn. Keith Moon died, and I always thought that was the way he wanted to go. John Belushi was a dear friend. A lot of the guys that I ran with were ending up dead, and I saw myself right on schedule to do that. I had some moments of clarity - once in a while.”

“I looked at Willie Nelson and Farm Aid as a role model; they do it every year, and it draws people together, and drawing people together where they realize they're not alone, to me, is strategic in healing.”

“I don't remember everything about my life, but I'm very fortunate to have a group of friends I can rely on - they fill in the blanks.”

“I was obsessive-compulsive, and I probably had a little splash of Asperger's in there, but in those days, in 1953, you were just a difficult kid. Attention deficit didn't even exist back then. I really had trouble completing tasks - I couldn't sit still.”

“My wife one time got a fishbone stuck in her throat and had to fly back to L.A. from Monte Carlo to have it taken out. I thought, 'Wow, what a great blues song!'”

“In my early twenties, I got the basics covered. In retrospect, one of the great things about success is that I never really had to work in a factory full-time. So that's a blessing.”

“New Zealand is in my heart, always.”