#THE JAMES GANG PLUS#

Our manager heard us for the first time… ‘Gee, Roy, you oughta sing the songs more like Joe did. There’s a different guitar player up there.

Dale and I tried to kid ourselves… ‘well, it’s gonna be a change, but it’s still gonna be the band.’ Well, it is still the band but it’s different. How did the stage act change when you added the two new members?įOX: More than we thought it would. The worst part of it is the stuff in between. We always try to keep a real good head about the gigs, themselves. When it ceases to be that way, then it’s time to leave. What drags you down is the traveling, the bullshit, the waiting… the gigs… you know, the minute you hit the stage, it’s gotta be like your first time out.

The James Gang have been my thing for, let’s see, going on six years, and I’m really proud of the music we make.Īt what point does performing becoming a chore?įOX: Well, you try to make it so the actual performance itself never becomes a chore. I have things in the back of my head that I’d like to get out someday that I don’t think are suitable for any group but, I don’t have any burning desire for doing a solo album. Will it ever reach the point when you’ll be doing a solo album?įOX: I don’t have any ambitions for doing a solo album. In general, he’s doing a nice laid-back thing. He’s not traveling yet he’s recording at his leisure. He’s got other people working with him, but it’s his thing. So right now, Joe is doing, more or less, a solo trip. Plus, he always had very personal music, so he wanted to express it himself rather than bouncing off the group.

#THE JAMES GANG PLUS#

Of course, Joe had a wife, plus a kid, so that made him want to be home all the more. Constantly traveling, never being at home can be a drag. He was, I guess, a little less able to cope with it than we were. We found, though, that he sings approximately like we do… so (laughter) we got Roy (Kenner). We were kind of counting on Don to do the singing. By that time we’d already found Don (Troiano). So physically, last December 12th, or so was our last job with the old band. He said he wanted to quit the band, but he’d stay playing gigs till the end of the year.

Joe Walsh, being an incredibly good person, backed out in a way it takes a hell of a guy to do. One thing that hasn’t been made clear in the biography I received, and to the public, is where the old group ended and how and when did the present group begin.įOX: The old group (Fox, Dale Peters and Joe Walsh) ended verbally last September. The following interview took place shortly before the release of Straight Shooter. Straight Shooter, the band’s first post-Walsh release, unveiled a new direction… while the newest LP, Passin’ Thru, defines a new format for the James Gang. The James Gang have constantly been on the road for the past few years with the intermittent periods taken out to record in. Troiano, the new lead guitarist, has since released a solo album on Mercury Records, while the estranger Walsh released his first solo effort, Barnstorm. Added to replace the vocal and musical void were Canadians Roy Kenner and Domenic Troiano. In the course of those years, lead singer guitarist and fan focal point Joe Walsh left, leaving bassist Dale Peters and drummer Jim Fox as the bandleader and spokesman. The James Gang is seven years and six albums old and have yet to show their age. Not unlike those James Brown records that constantly remind us all that he of “the hardest working man in show business,” those James Gang biographies always seem to emphasize that the James Gang is “the hardest working band in show business.”

The james gang