Sam Jones/Showtime Glenn Frey and Don Henley of the Eagles.They were the band that simultaneously told listeners to take it easy and take it to the limit, and for the Eagles, the contradictions didn’t end there. Over a career filled with laidback hits like “Peaceful Easy Feeling,†“Lyin’ Eyes†and the enigmatic “Hotel California,†this best-selling rock group, led by Glenn Frey and Don Henley, was internally a aldron of professional determination and personal conflict. They spent the 1970s fighting, drinking and drugging while frequently revising their lineup and their sound, and seemed to split for good in 1980. Then, just to throw everyone for a loop, the band reunited in 1994 and has continued to tour and record ever since.
This story is told in unflinching detail in a new documentary, “History of the Eagles,†directed by Alison Ellwood and produced by Alex Gibney (the Oscar-winning director of “Taxi to the Dark Sideâ€), and which will be broadcast in two parts on Showtime, on Friday and Saturday. Mr. Frey and Mr. Henley, who gave the filmmakers free rein to interview friends, rivals and bandmates past and present, spoke recently to ArtsBeat. In these excerpts from that conversation, they talk about their lives in a lane faster than anyone could have suspected.
What inspired you to finally! tell this story
GLENN FREY We all knew that we wanted to do a history of the band. Starting around 2000, we kept checking - “Is now the right time†“Nah, maybe not yet.†[laughs] About two and a half years ago, we started to get serious. We had finished our touring cycle with “Long Road Out of Eden.†Everybody’s still alive and talking.
DON HENLEY Since we survived, we decided that, after 40 years or so, it was worth keeping some kind of record. I’m going to have some explaining to do to my children.
Are they old enough to understand what you do for a living
HENLEY They’ve just reached those ages. My son and I had a talk about marijuana the other night, the first one we’ve ever had. He said, “Dad, I don’t understand some of your songs. ‘Hotel California,’ for example - what is ‘colitas’ And I said, “Well, it’s a panish word.†[laughs] Trying to avoid a direct answer. “It’s a botanical term. It means ‘little flowers.’†So he knew, because he’s looked on the Internet. The damn Internet, you can’t hide anything.
Did Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood approach you about this, or did you seek them out
FREY Our management sent me what they thought were some of the best music documentaries that had been done. And I wasn’t crazy about any of it. So I said, “Why don’t you just send me the reels on the guys that won the Academy Award for best documentary, the last five years†The work of Alex Gibney was very impressive. I went to New York and we had a meeting, and the only thing we had to agree on was that we were going to tell the truth. We were going to let him and Alison Ellwood make the movie. We said, “Absolutely, talk to everybody. Let’s unearth as much stuff as we can and! tell the! story.â€
HENLEY We encouraged them to speak to everybody, including ex-members of the band, who don’t necessarily have warm and fuzzy feelings toward us.
When you two met in Los Angeles in the 1960s, you came from very different parts of the country. But Glenn’s father was a machinist in Detroit, and Don’s father had a car-repair shop in East Texas. Did that help you bond
HENLEY We were trapped on a small independent label called Amos Records. Glenn and his then-partner, J. D. Souther, were a duo on that label, and my group, that Kenny Rogers produced, and we both wanted out. The fact that both of our fathers made a living based on the internal-combustion engine was just sort of a coincidence.
FREY I think the first thing we had in common was ambition. We were looking to write songs with meanings and messages. That was the way we started.
FREY Those are the best meanings. The unintended ones. The misinterpretations. [laughs]
HENLEY It’s what keeps the whole thing going. People still ask me what “Hotel California†means and I just say to them, “Whatever it means to you is fine with me.â€
One theme that recurs in the documentary is the constantly shifting lineup of the Eagles. Did that make the group stronger
FREY The ride wasn’t for everybody. Some people stayed on the bus longer. It started with the disenchantment of Bernie Leadon, and that was something we had to deal with.
HENLEY We had been given the impression by our early management that if we didn’t keep the four original members, we wouldn’t have a chance. So ! we labore! d under that fear for a long time. Then we realized after Bernie left, and then Randy [Meisner] left, that some people were replaceable, and life would go on and the band would go on. Because the band was built around songs - not around personalities, not around a front man, but the music.
Glenn, the film gives you a chance to revisit a notorious onstage falling-out you had with Don Felder in 1980, that precipitated the original breakup of the band. Were you chastened by this experience
FREY Let’s put it this way: I’m glad I’ve had a second chance. I could have handled some things a lot better. We put the band back together in 1994 and I played music with Don Felder for six years. So I feel like that’s water under the bridge. We were young and I had a temper. I still have a temper. [laugh] I’ve just retired it.
You’re also very candid, when it came to the reunion, about explaining why you felt you and Don Henley deserved more money.
FREY That’s the way I felt. I watched Don Henley work really, really hard for 14 years. I felt like he and I were the guys that continued to work in our business, and it was a way that we perpetuated the Eagles as well. I just felt that fair was fair.
Henry Diltz/Showtime The first of many incarnations of the Eagles: Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, Don Henley and Glenn Frey.When you look back on four decades of! your pas! t fashion and hairstyle choices, were there any you were especially proud of
FREY Proud is not the word I would use. Appalled, maybe. Troubled. Regretful. I’m just thankful it was just hair and clothes. I’m not stuck with any tattoos or piercings I hate.
HENLEY I wish I had that hair now. I wish had that much hair.
Was it important to you that the documentary include Joe Walsh, who appears as a wild, John Belushi-like figure in the first part, but whose story takes a darker turn in the second part
FREY The Eagles were partly responsible for Joe turning his life around. That’s a wonderful thing. We’re happy for Joe.
HENLEY It wasn’t like he was the only one who was abusing drugs and alcohol. We were all doing it. But Joe’s story has a more dramatic thread running through it. Becuse it was conditional to him joining us for the reunion and it gave him a reason, I think, to clean up his act.
You want audiences to see there are consequences to a lifestyle filled with drugs and alcohol
FREY It permeated everything - the movies, television, you name it. I’m not using this as a justification, but everybody was doing it. Doctors, lawyers, managers, accountants. It was just a big part of the culture.
HENLEY We all want to spare our offspring - we want them to learn from our mistakes, and of course that doesn’t always happen.
Don, when you finally had that conversation with your son, how did he take it
HENLEY He was pretty cool. I was never a big pot smoker. But I told him everybody was doing it back then. And he said, “Well, of course you did it, Dad. You were in a rock’n’roll ban! d in the ! 70s.â€
Has working together on this film got you thinking about collaborating on a new album
HENLEY It’s not like we don’t see each other.
FREY The Eagles are a working band. Some years we play a lot of shows, some years we play a dozen shows. We do one year at a time, we think that’s a good way to do it. The band’s going to start thinking about coming back together, and talk about whether everybody wants to uproot themselves from their lives and try to make a record, with all that involves. It’s a shared thing, the leadership. Don and I take turns driving the bus, depending on who’s around.
HENLEY Over the past two years we’ve toured China, including Beijing. We’ve been to South Africa, we’ve been to Dubai. We’re still playing places that we’ve never been before, which is really the most fun of all.
After telling a storylike this, is there anything left over for your memoirs
[almost in unison] FREY Oh, plenty.
HENLEY Oh, sure. [laughter] You can’t get 42 years into three hours.
FREY There’s certainly more. That’s to figure out later.
