In 1984 Joe received a strange mail from an Australian musician called Paul Christie. Paul had been part of some of Australia's biggest bands and had called on members of other bands occasionally to come together as a form of "supergroup" called The Party Boys. The group did mostly covers of classic rock songs and were a big hit on the pub circuit. Paul's mail to Joe was an invitation to come over and play with the Party Boys! As Joe has said many times, it was the weirdest request he had ever received so immediately he said yes! When Joe told his Manager, his Manager replied "You're gonna WHAT???". The tour commenced December 1984. New Years Eve was the first concert I attended at the Pier Hotel in Frankston Victoria. What a way to see in 1985! There I was, two feet away from Joe, and during the night he handed me his guitar pick.

The tour was incredibly successful and Joe had an absolute ball. So much so that he decided to stay on and later in the year brought out Waddy Wachtel and Rick Rosas (along with Aussie drummer Richard Harvey) to form the touring group Creatures From America. Full on Rock'N'Roll was the agenda for that tour and it was probably the heaviest sound to come from Joe since the James Gang days. Along the way, the Party Boys released an album featuring Joe called "You Need Professional Help". In 1989 Joe returned to Australia for his second tour with The Party Boys.
During this tour, I got to meet Joe and the rest is history!

In February and March 2000, I conducted two extensive interviews with Joe for a local radio community radio station 99.1 VYV. The interviews covered his entire career and together ran for around 3 hours. I look forward to Part 3....The Eagles guitar??? Well, not a lot I can say about that. Let's just say Henley couldn't find a tambourine to hit me with so he threw a guitar instead and I just managed to catch it and run away.....Heh heh heh! (Click on pic, to enlarged.)

Mark!