Steve Walsh (Kansas Lead Singer): Inner Thoughts

We've always been big fans of Kansas, the rock group (not the state!). Their music is a powerful fantasy stimulant. What many people may not know is that even though Kansas had their apex of success in the 70's, they're still around.

So when we bumped into a web page dedicated to Steve Walsh, the lead singer of the band, we settled in for a few minutes of nostalgic enjoyment. What we actually found, though, was far more fascinating.

We've attached a few pulls from Steve's SO FAR AWAY link below. We found them captivating, the inner thoughts of this big-time rock and roll singer. Normally we're of the opinion that singers should sing, writers should write, politicians should politic, and those who try to cross the boundaries had best be good, or they'll be foolish instead. (Witness the horrifying spectacle of Donald Trump 'singing', or Jessica Simpson 'acting' as proof of our thesis.)

Steve Walsh may very well prove our "Shut up and Sing" thesis wrong. We just love the way he honestly lays his dirty linen out (take note, Kitty Kelly, that he mainly casts stones only at himself) and reveals how he thought and felt about things.

Read the quotes below, then go on and check out the website. If you have a few minutes, you'll as least come away with a unvarnished glimpse into someone else's life.

Steve Walsh Website

"…I asked Vick if he would watch my back which he said he would do, and then I stood up and blindsided this guy who hit my wife. Well, round two was definately underway."

"…We traveled all around the country in that thing. Mainly playing strip clubs up around Flint Michigan, and Grand Rapids, Muskeegon. We all had to get fake I.D.'s to play these places. Hell, we were barely 17 years old…"

"It made me start to think about the time my own father died, about 14 years ago. The way I was, and the way he was. It made me regret that even as I was there with him in the hospital, I really wasn't there at all. I was so wrapped up with myself. What scares me is that I am still. I mean really, what reason on earth is there that drives a person to write anything, or sing anything, compose, act-in front of total strangers; any of these takes a big ego. Mine I suppose is about the biggest I've ever known. And I'm getting closer to the age when he died every day. So I guess I'm wondering who's gonna be there with me. or not."

"So as I got into this limo to travel a couple of weeks ago, I felt conspicuous and out of touch. I don't know if it was just me or what, but people who were passing this thing on the highway, seemed to be peering into the brown tinted windows with a strange mix of loathing and curiosity on their faces. If they were black, they might be wondering if Snoop was inside. That would be OK with them. If they were white, they might be thinking of Brittany. That would make sense to them. They craned their necks to absorb the wealth of the individuals who they wished they were at that moment. But it was us. Just us. In this smelly dilapidated thing that seemed more like a broken down mobile home that nobody had ever taken care of. I could have sworn that somehow the old torn leather seats were still housing many an old butt waif. So many butts in fact that the "stew" that permeated the air began to make me clastrophobic-wondering if I would ever be able to breathe fresh air again. My nose began to run. I couldn't get my mind off the fact that this air was damaging my sensabilities."

So, Rich who is always pulling this kind of practical joke told her to order the oke chimbo...he said it was the best oke chimbo in the states, and the place was known for their fine selection of oke chimbo...But the Japanese words oke chimbo mean big dick. And just as she was about to order it we stopped her-obviously all of us knew what it meant and were in on it. She just about died when she found out what she had almost ordered, and we all-including her just about choked to death laughing.

"After our set, we walked backstage where Fleetwood was standing around, and I noticed that something was very pungent...almost burning my nose with the aroma of methane death. I got close enough to Stevie Nicks to figure out that it was her. It beat about anything I've ever been around that prevented me from feeling like I was getting enough oxygen."

"At one point one of them took a large container of ice water and threw it at the other, but it missed and instead hit the monitor man square in the head. It also completely soaked the monitor console which really started to spark. We were all standing backstage with our jaws on the ground watching this. I'm sure we all had felt like tearing each other apart on stage before, but this was the first time we had actually seen it happening. So as soon as the drenched monitor guy got his bearings, he bound up onto the stage and started to chase the Davies brother who had hit him with the water. Chased him all the way off stage. The crowd was stunned, as was everybody else in the band. I remember they all just kinda looked at each other for what to do, since the guy who was suppose to be singing was now nowhere to be found. "

"The back seat was facing backwards, and that's where I wanted to sit, cause with the rear window on the tailgate down, I could smoke dope back there. What ended up happening however was that all the fart wind would make it's way directly to the back and up my nose. It was like a giant force feeding funnel with me at the receiving end. Man, with the kind of food we were all eating, that was the kind of smell you know is buried deep in old decrepid grave yards. Actually I had quite a reputation of being the bad gas king myself. My first wife even made me go to a specialist about it because she couldn't figure out how a healthy person could emit such a repelling array of green butt gush. So I guess it was karma that I was finally on the receiving end of a dead meat and cheese stew baked in the dead bowels of my musical brothers."