The late Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, had a legendary reputation. He was a sensational musician and a dyed-in-the-wool wild child. His alleged off-stage antics could probably fill a book. One fellow rocker who learned a thing or two from Moon, who died of a drug overdose in 1978 at age 32, is the Eagles' Joe Walsh, now 77. Per Far Out Magazine, Moon's "preferred tonic was trashing hotel rooms." Per the outlet, "On his 21st birthday, Moon celebrated at a Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan, and infamously drove a Lincoln Continental into the hotel pool, landing The Who with a $50,000 bill."
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You could say that Walsh learned the technique from an expert.
What Made Joe Walsh Want To Wreck Hotel Rooms
Way before Walsh became a member of The Eagles, he was with a band called the James Gang. They toured with The Who in 1970. So Walsh had a chance to observe Keith Moon at close range. In a 1981 interview, he said where the impetus to mess up hotel rooms came from.
"You're buzzed, mentally high, and nothing to do with drugs or anything — you're just buzzed because the energy of getting that many people on their feet yellin' and screamin', you get feedback from it and it wakes you up. So I'll be sitting in a hotel room wide awake just buzzin' from the energy of the concert, thinking, 'Hey, where'd everybody go?' So I would break things and smash things, have a great time."
Walsh added, "Keith Moon really taught me how to do that—he was a master at it. The James Gang did a tour with the Who, and Keith gave me lessons about breaking things."
Walsh Got Proficient at It
Joe Walsh wanted to get back at his record label. He decided to take out his frustration on an exec from that company who joined them at the conclusion of their tour. "...I trashed his whole suite." It sounds like he was diabolically thorough. He "proceeded to take all the pictures down from the walls, tear the wallpaper off the entire room, and re-hang the paintings." It must have looked like a whirlwind swept through.
Perhaps the most telling comment of all about the camaraderie between Walsh and Moon is this. Per AXS TV's Facebook, Walsh reportedly said the following. "One of the most terrifying things that ever happened to me was that Keith Moon decided he liked me."
