(Credits: Far Out / William Morris Agency / Showtime)
Fri 17 October 2025 2:00, UK
How far would you go to meet a famous rock star or a band like the Eagles?
Ambushing them in the street is bad enough, and crashing the stage is another no-no, but holding a record label executive at gunpoint and demanding cold, hard cash could get you a decent amount of the way there.
At least, this is what truck driver Joseph Paul Rivera thought in 1980 when he’d found himself in something of a financial predicament, and while he wasn’t able to see his requests fulfilled, there was a brief but tense standoff between the assailant and the staff at Asylum Records in New York when he demanded to see either Jackson Browne or the Eagles for a most bizarre reason.
Of course, nobody at the record label quite understood why this baffling request was made by a man who had walked in off the street at first, but after Rivera demanded to the receptionist to meet Browne, Glenn Frey, or Don Henley, a more senior member of staff came down to meet with the beleaguered stranger and discuss matters. For someone with zero ties to any of the artists in question, nor with the label itself, this was a most unusual demand, but it wasn’t until Rivera produced a firearm that his motives started to become clear.
Unsettled by the situation he found himself in, Rivera said that he was looking to speak to any of the three artists because he believed that they would be able to help him out with the $2,500 that he needed to commence with court proceedings against the people who had stolen and sold his truck and was seemingly prepared to resort to desperate measures to obtain said funds.
Seems foolproof, right? The only issue was that none of the artists he was so eager to negotiate with were present at the offices.
But why the Eagles and Jackson Browne? Accounts of the intense standoff between Rivera and the staff differ slightly, but someone with knowledge of the situation had reportedly called into a local radio station that was playing in the lobby and demanded that they play the Eagles’ song ‘Desperado’, with the disc jockey reportedly dedicating the song to the ‘desperate trucker’.
Evidently, Rivera was a fan of the band, and hearing this song led him to break down and surrender to the authorities, putting an end to the hostage situation. His funds were not obtained, and he didn’t get to speak to any of the artists he was looking to negotiate with, conceding to the fact that he wasn’t going to get his way.
It’s a most peculiar tale of how a record label narrowly avoided a tragedy, and had any of the Eagles or Jackson Browne been present on that day, things could ultimately have turned out differently and with considerably more violence. As it happens, everyone walked away from the situation without harm, and normality was restored, but it was a close call for those working in the Asylum offices on that day.
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