It looks like Joe Bonamassa’s musical career will soon come to an end.
“I don’t have many years left in this thing,” the guitarist said in an interview with My Weekly Mixtape Podcast. “Maybe a decade before I just retire. I’ve done this [for] 36 years. We’re taking this thing up to, maybe a 45-year career, and that’s great. Enough. Let me go enjoy my life and not work every single day.?”
He then shared, “And everybody goes, ‘Oh, you’re still a young man. You can go for another 35, 40 years.’ That’s not me. That is not gonna happen. There’s only so many pitches in this arm, and use them wisely from here on out.”
In a 2023 conversation with Guitarist, Bonamassa again discussed what he had planned for the future. The guitarist noted, “With any luck, in another 20 years I’ll be out of this f*cking business. I’m not a lifer. I’ll probably take it to 50 years. That’ll make me 61 when I peace out. I think 50 years in any occupation is good. I don’t want to be 80 and still asking the question: who killed John Henry? I’ve so little interest in that. As an old person I just don’t want that.”
He continued, “I’m at the height of my skillset, and the minute it degrades to where I can’t play or sing as well as I’m doing now is the minute I plan the exit, because I don’t want to be the old grey mare. I just won’t do it.”
“I’ve seen it. I see it now: always being on the road, always doing something, always playing… No. This place [looks around] will go to somebody else. The guitars will go to somebody else eventually,” Joe explained.
Bonamassa also talked about what he plans to do when he decides to end his career, “Open up a little antique shop. Do flea markets… Put that same intensity into something else. I don’t know what.”
The guitarist’s US fall tour kicks off on October 26 in Henderson, Nevada. His last show will be on November 30 in Des Moines, Iowa.