Their Greatest Feuds (1976-2001): The Eagles Part 2

Our special series on The Eagles continues with their post-"Hotel California" years, in which the band was more popular than ever, selling one million albums per month while also falling apart. There was tension between the band's twin leaders, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, who fought for control of The Eagles. But most of the ire was focused around Don Felder, the talented guitarist who wrote the music for the song "Hotel California." This carried over to the band's reunion years in the 1990s, when they were making more money than ever. Felder resented Henley and Frey for not giving him equal say in the band, creating tension that resulted in his firing in 2001.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music, beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:21):
I'm Jordan's and today we're back for part two of
our three part exploration of the Eagles and the battle
royal within their ranks when they were at the height
of their fame in the late seventies. If you tune
in for peaceful, easy feelings, well, have you got the
wrong show. Yes. In the first part of our series,
we discussed the feuds between the two leaders of the Eagles,
Done Henley and Glenn Fry, and the other two guys

(00:43):
in the band in the early seventies, Bernie Leaden and
Randy Meisner. In this episode, we'll be focusing on the
bitterest intromand feud in the Eagles, the one involving guitarist
Don Felder, which Drey down for more than twenty five
years now fingers. Felder is most famous for co writing
the eagle biggest hit, Hotel California, and it's safe to
say that for most of his time in the band

(01:05):
he was thinking to himself, this could be heaven. Or
this could be hell Well bold move burning that song
pun this early. I have to say this is the
Eagle series. Man, We're bringing out all the guns I mean,
and you're right there, I mean. Henley and Fry ultimately
mended fences with most of their ex band mates in
the early two thousand tens when they were putting together

(01:26):
their History of the Eagles documentary and the accompanying tour,
which this took a chronological look at their discography. They
extended invitations to Randy Meisner Bernie Leaden to play with them,
but notably, they did not ask Felder, despite from his
multimillion dollar lawsuits were just too great. And let's also
not forget his Tell All memoir. Yeah, an interesting wrinkle

(01:49):
of that book is that it also illuminates the tension
between Glenn Fry, the jock is energetic quarterback of the band,
and Don Henley, the taciturn perfectionist. So we'll be delving
to that as well. There's so much to cover here,
so without further ado, let's get into this mess. As
far as I'm concerned, the Eagles fate was sealed when

(02:10):
Don Felder enters the picture and he joined the group
in January nine four, apparently just one day after being
called in to add slide guitar to the tracks Good
Day in Hell and Already Gone. He assumed he was
just being brought on as a full member. He was
cut into the band's business organization, the Eagles Limited, which
we'll talk more about later. But he quickly realized that

(02:31):
Henley and Fry, uh, they had this alliance that ran
the band, as in Felder's terms, a benevolent dictatorship, and
this wasn't gonna work for him. He wanted to be
an equal Eagle, not a session player and employee. He
wanted equal say in the studio. And you know, I
see both sides of this. On one hand, if you're
as talented a guitarist as Don Felder, you might expect

(02:51):
to be treated with a certain amount of, you know, respect.
Maybe Fry on some level was jealous of his musical abilities,
I don't know. On the other hand, you know, seniority
matters in the Eagles and in any band, and no
one wants to like to have a new guy come
in and just start throwing his weight around. As Felder
tells it, he was being disrespected on a daily basis.
As Henley and Fry tell it, the new guy wasn't

(03:13):
accepting his place. Now in this episode, we're gonna be
frequently referencing Don Felders tell all book Heaven and Hell,
which is one of the pettiest rock memoirs ever, and
I can't think of a better endorsement of a rock
memoir than that. Uh. After reading this book, I had
two main takeaways. Number one, being in a band with
Glenn Fry and Don Henley sounds like it was hell.

(03:35):
I mean, Glenn Fry could be a bully and Don
Henley was an extremely controlling perfectionist. Fry himself once said
about his partner, no one can suck the fun out
of a room like Don Henley. But Fry himself, it
seems like he relished torturing Don Felder. So that's my
first takeaway. My second takeaway is that I'm not sure

(03:55):
exactly why Felder is complaining so much. I mean, he
joined the Eagles when they were already successful, and being
in that band caused him to make tens of millions
of dollars and that was due mainly to Don Henley
and Lenn Fry, who we're basically correct, and their management
at the band, even if they were tremendous jerks. Right.

(04:16):
I mentioned this in the last episode, but I'm always
reminded of the quote from The Big Lebowski when he
is having an argument and heated discussion with with his
friend Walter. You're not wrong, Walter, You're just an asshole.
I feel like Henley and Fry were very rarely, if
ever wrong. They were just assholes. They could have approached
things better. And that's why Jeff Lebeski hates You're right exactly.

(04:37):
And you know, if Fry and Henry would defend themselves
by saying that they were leaders, they weren't dictators, and
that bands aren't a perfect democracy. And the analogy they
always used in interviews is that the Eagles are a
sports team. You know, not everybody gets to touch the ball,
but if people play their positions, play their strengths, everything
turns out well. The whole is greater than the some
of their parts. And they always took a view that

(04:59):
Felder was sort of, you know, an egotistical maniac who's
squabbling over credit. And it's a great Don Henley quote
where he's always saying, I think of how much could
be accomplished if no one cared about credit, which is,
you know, at some level true, but it's pretty rich
coming from him. Well, I was gonna say, like, yeah,
Don Henley, Mike mr. He never cared about credit at all.

(05:19):
Like you'll give me a break, They're done, Henley says
in the In the History of the Eagles documentary, Don
Felder was never ever satisfied, never ever happy, and all
this bleeds into the sessions for it would become Hotel California. Yes,
Hotel California comes out in nine and it's preceded by
the album One of These Nights, which was a big hit,

(05:40):
but it's kind of all over the place. I mean,
you have the title track, which is like this kind
of disco rock song. You have Lion Eyes, which is
like a throwback to their country rock era. You have
the power ballot take It to the Limit. And you
also have like that very weird Bernie Leaden track Journey
of the Sorcerer, Like I don't know if you know
that song, it's like the psychedelic bluegrass son. It really

(06:01):
shows the Eagles, I think, like in the last throws
of their like we're trying to be a real band
type thing, you know, everyone kind of gets their showcase
and that record is pretty good, but it really I
think suffers from being a little scatter shot. So heading
into Hotel California, you really see that like this is
gonna be We're done in Glann take the reins. It

(06:22):
feels a lot more like the work of our tours,
I think, than like their previous records. The other big
thing that happens before Hotel California is the release of
the Greatest Hits record, their Greatest Hits nineteen seventy one
and nineteen seventy which was actually like released against their
will as a parting shot from David Geffen, who again
we're gonna be covering him in the third part of
our episode, so we'll get more into how that album

(06:45):
came about, as well as all the problems they had
with Geffen during the Eagles and also after the Eagles.
But anyway, that Greatest Hits album, which they didn't want
to have put out, but it ends up being just
a huge hit. And then you have the lineup changes
that took place. Bernie leads out of the band, Joe
Walsh comes in, so there's a lot of uncertainty heading
into Hotel California, and you know, the Eagles want to

(07:07):
remake themselves as this arena rock behemoth that can compete
with like the led Zeppelins and the Kisses and the
Peter Frampton's of the world. But at this point it's
not clear if this evolution is going to work. And
you really see that the Eagles find a direction for
themselves with the title track from Hotel California, which was

(07:28):
the first song that they completed for that record, and
it really sets the tone for that album. And it's
also an example of like how collaborations worked in the
Eagles because Don Felder wrote basically the music for that song.
He put it on like a real wheel like four
track tape, and he sent it to Don and Glenn
for them to basically turn into a song, and Glenn

(07:51):
Fry came up with the concept of the Hotel California,
this sort of symbol of like lost youth, lost potential
in the sixties, and Don Henley wrote the lyrics, which
I think are pretty brilliant. I mean, I have to
say that, like, as a member of Generation X, I
hated this song for a long time just because I
resented the Eagles. They represent like kind of like the

(08:11):
most obnoxious parts of like baby boomer culture, I think
for like a lot of younger generations. But like, at
some point I just realized that you can't deny the
brilliance of Hotel California. I mean this, it's like a
pretty great song. I mean, don't you think, Yeah, I
mean I always just like the fact that there's this
the mystique around what the lyrics are actually about, you
know what I mean? Is it satan? Is it a
dig at Steely Dan? The Steely Dan twist in that

(08:33):
is always really interesting to me too, that they were
just like writing the lyrics essentially as like a mockery
of the like hyper specific Steely Dan lyrics, and and
even like the line about Steely knives was a dig
at them. It's a song that it's like I wish
I could almost hear for the first time because I
I'm so sick of it, and you know, you almost
don't even hear it anymore, but to actually sit back

(08:55):
and appreciate it and let it unfold, it really is
an incredible piece of work. So in terms of the
songwriting of Hotel California, because again this ended up being
the eagles most iconic song. It was a number one hit.
It was the showcase of like their most successful studio
like non compilation record. It makes me think about, like

(09:15):
we touched on this in our first episode in this series,
the songwriting for for Take It Easy, because again, that
was a song that Jackson Brown basically brought to the Eagles.
Glenn Fry added like a line to it, and then
he got a co songwriting credit, And it speaks to
how songwriting often worked in the Eagles because I think
from Don Felder's perspective, he looked at Hotel California as

(09:36):
his song. You know, even though he didn't write the lyrics,
he didn't come up with the concept. A lot of
the things that people love about that song, you know,
the majestic introduction and also like that guitar duel between
him and Joe Walsh at the end of the song,
all that was come up by Don Felder. From Don
and Glenn's perspective, however, they basically just like looked at

(09:57):
the demo that Don Felder recorded as just like like
a cool progression that they then turned into a song
that without them it just would have been like this
sort of like weird reggae sounding demo that Don Felder
came up. It didn't become an Eagle song until Don
and Glenn took it and they took it to a
different place. And uh, in a way, I think that's right.

(10:18):
I think it speaks to how collaborations worked in this band.
But it is the beginning I think of Don Felder
starting to feel presentful about his place in the Eagles,
and in later years to both Don and Glenn would
be really sort of dismissive of what Felder first presented
to him. I mean, I think Glenn Fry would say,
you would get these cassette tapes from Felder and with

(10:38):
the music on there, it's like, what are we supposed
to do with this? Where do you sing? It's just cluttered,
random guitar licks. And so over the years they were
kind of put for the story of like, you know,
Felder were given these tapes of kind of garbage, and
they noted this diamond in the rough, where, oh, I
see some potential in this, we can make something out
of this. So there would be sort of squabbles in

(10:59):
in the press and in memoirs and stuff over the
years about how much each person had you know in
in creating that song that would defined the Eagles legacy,
and I always thought that was really interesting. The other
Felder track on Hotel California also created a huge headaches
for him, and that's a victim of love. And on
the first album that he he worked on as a

(11:19):
full time Eagle, nineteen is one of these nights. Felder
was given lead vocal duties on his song Visions, which
is a song he co wrote with Henley, and as
far as he was concerned, I think he felt that
this sort of set a precedent and he would be
allowed to sing his own compositions on occasion. And this
created a huge problem when Hotel California came around, because
in addition to writing the instrumental passage for Hotel California,

(11:43):
he wrote probably I think he said he had like
sixteen or seventeen other pieces that were rejected by the band,
which I'm sure must have been infuriating at some some part.
Uh So, he has a victim of love which he
really wanted to sing himself, and he did apparently dozens
and dozens of takes of really trying to to to
nail this song. And these bandmates are less than pleased

(12:03):
with the results. I mean, you know, he's not He's
not Don Henley. He's not a good a singer, is
Don Henley? A few people are something to be ashamed of.
And so they say in the History of the Eagles documentary,
there was no space for Filler and Don Felder, for
all of his talents as a guitar player, was not
a singer. So they make Irving Hayes off, take him
out to to lunch, and while he's out to lunch,

(12:25):
they have Don Henley do the vocals for the song,
and over lunch, Irving tells Don Felder, you know this
isn't working. We gotta let Don sing the song. So
they come back from lunch they play the track that
they've been working on with Don Henley's vocals, and he
feels like, you know, okay, I can't deny it sounds
a lot better with Don Henley singing it. But hey,
it's it's it's my song. He felt in later years

(12:47):
that that song had been taken from him, and so
then you have really the two opposing viewpoints of what
a band should be. You know, this is my song,
I really want to do it, versus this is what's
best for the band. The hell with what you know,
your feelings and what you think you're entitled to. If
this is the guy who sounds best singing it, he's

(13:08):
gonna sing it. And that really stuck in his crawl,
I think, for you know, the rest of his time
in the band and in years later. It's a huge
part of the history of the Eagles documentary. See. One
thing that I find a little confusing about the Victim
of Love story is that you're right. In the documentary,
they make a big deal about how Don Felder wanted
to sing this song, and the implication is that because

(13:28):
the song was taken from him and they had Henley
sing it and like him and his offer at lunch,
and there's like this sort of like ruse going on
to keep Felder away from the studio, that like that
was the beginning of Felder feeling unhappy and that he
felt betrayed. But when you read Felder's book, which came
out about five years before the documentary, he really doesn't
make a big deal of the Victim of Love thing,

(13:51):
Like he mentions that, you know, he wrote the progression
that he wanted to sing it, and then he tried
to do it, but then Don Henley sang it, and
he was like, oh, yeah, Don Henley's obviously a better
singer than me. Let's let's keep it with Don Henley.
Like it's not like in the book, it's really downplayed
versus the movie. So like I'm not really clear im like,

(14:11):
like how big of a deal this is? If maybe,
you know, Don and Glenn were trying to make Don
Felder look bad in the documentary, or if maybe Felder
was like doing damage control in his own book, like
he didn't want to admit, like how much of a
baby he was like about this victim of love thing.
Because I think the thing that's undeniable is that, like, yeah,
Don Henley should have sang that song. He's the best

(14:31):
singer in the band. It sounds good when he's doing it.
That doesn't make sense for Felter to sing it. Yeah,
I think Henley was saying, like, you know, it's like
me wanting to play lead guitar on my song when
you've got Don Felder like that, it doesn't make any sense.
So yeah, I mean that's definitely interesting and I could
definitely see how uh you know, in in the in
the film, maybe maybe Henley and and Fry. I wanted

(14:54):
to to, you know, use this as an example and
really really hammer away at, you know, how possessive that
that he could be about his music. Felder also at
other reasons to be annoyed with Fry and Henley, whom
he dubbed the gods, which I always thought was really
funny for their their vaulted status in the band. And
he does that more and more as like the book
progresses like like once again to the reunion years. Like

(15:15):
he never calls them Henley or Fry. It's just strictly
the gods. It just gets more and more sarcastic as
the book goes along, and he's really annoyed by their
their habits on tour. He's annoyed by Henley and Fry.
They make these costly demands which he believes are coming
out of the band's collective coffers. I mean, Don Henley
demands on having his personal mattress be lugged around from

(15:38):
hotel to hotel because he's a bad back from playing
the drums, and they have to hire these guys to
you know, lug it out of a touring van into
the hotel and get it all set up, it's this
whole thing. And then he also, um, I guess sort
of was when he was dating um Stevie Nicks at
this period, would occasionally squire her around on lear jets
and felt the thought that was also coming out of

(15:58):
like tour expenses, which he wasn't happy about. And then
I don't know, both of those you could almost kind
of see apparently Glenn Fry paid to have his tennis
coach brought along, which is sort of slightly slightly less
excusable than like Don Henley wanting to get a good
night's sleep on his own mattress, but uh, yeah, the
tennis coach, that's definitely interesting. And he thought that, you know,

(16:19):
Glenn Fry and Don Henley had all these perks on
tour that he he wasn't entitled to, and he thought
that was unfair. It sounds too just in general that
like being in this band for as successful as they were,
and again and you know, like the Eagles were like
we're living it up. I mean, there's all those stories
about the Third Encore them like having access to tons
of drugs and beautiful women. It seems like they were

(16:41):
living the dream. But like as far as like performing
in this band. It sounds like it was not fun
at all. Like, you know, dun Felders talked about how,
you know, he was told where to stand on stage.
You know, he was told like what code shoes that
he should wear on stage. Yeah, he tells the story
in the book about how they were rehearsing one day
and Glenn Fry like made fun of like Don Felder's walk,

(17:03):
like how he would walk up to the microphone when
he sang, because Feather said, you know that he felt
a little insecure singing on stage because he knew that
he wasn't as good of a a singer as certainly Henley
or even Fry, and he felt like Fry was kind
of like finding his weak spot and exploiting it. And
this was another instance. I mean, we saw this in
our previous episode where Randy Meisner was pushed to the

(17:24):
point of like throwing Glenn Fry against the wall. Well,
now Dan Felder was throwing Glenn Fry against the wall.
Everyone was throwing Glenn Fry against the wall in the
late seventies because he was kind of an obnoxious guy.
It sounds like, and this was I think just compounded
again by Don Felder's feeling that he was not being
treated as an equal in the band, even though he
was a shareholder in the band, that he wasn't just

(17:45):
a hired hand like Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt were,
And uh, you know, I think that was really like
what was behind him being upset about these perks that
Henley and Fry were getting, because he felt like, you know,
if we're well, you shouldn't be, you know, getting these perks.
I should be getting them too, or none of us
should be getting them. And that seems kind of stupid

(18:07):
to me in a way, like it's kind of like
a petty thing to be complaining about. But the conversations
that were happening on those private planes, like where it
was Henley, Fry and as Off basically deciding the financial
future of the band, that does seem more subsidutive to me.
And I understand like my father would be upset about that,
and that really seems to be like another issue for him,

(18:28):
you know. As the seventies progress and attentions were so
high in the band at this point anyway, that even
the bond between Henley and Fry was starting to crumble.
And partially this had to do with this. They're very
different personalities, and we touched on this in the first episode.
They're very very different people, and Dawn's generally been portrayed
as sort of the more likable of the two, the
more personable and gregarious and magnetic, whereas Glenn is sort

(18:52):
of more edgy and attention seeking and kind of less
afraid of like being an asshole making unpopular calls, and
Dawn could just sort of sit back and be liked,
which I'm sure must have, you know, annoyed Glenn even
more that he was the one having to make the
difficult calls. Uh. Someone who knew them both famously said
that Don Henley had extraordinary charisma and that Glenn Fry

(19:13):
had Charison TMA, which is a brutal thing to say,
and I'm sure that that really really bothered Glem and
I guess also they would live together at different points
in the seventies, and it was kind of an odd
couple scenario going on where Don Henley was this like
controlling neat freak and Glenn was sort of the the
Oscar Madison slob figure. Minor tension, but still tension. And

(19:36):
you couple this with just the general stress of of
constantly being on the road. I mean some of their
tours were like eleven twelve months long and massive amounts
of cocaine that just heightens everyone's emotions. Anyway, something was
gonna blow. You know. It's interesting to me that, like
the Eagles have always been pretty candid about the tensions
in the band, and you watch that documentary and they're

(19:57):
very upfront about, you know, the problems with Bernie Leaden,
Randy Meisner, of course Don Felder, but like you don't
hear quite as much about the tensions between Henley and Fry.
And I feel like there's a bit of like protection
going on there, you know, because that's the power center
of the band, and it seems like some decision was

(20:18):
made somewhere along the line that no matter what went
down between those guys, that they were going to present
a unified front. But you know, I feel like those
guys must have had a lot more you know tension,
dislike flat out hatred you know, going on than has
been admitted to. I think because if you look at
the Eagles, you know, they started out as a band

(20:40):
that was essentially, you know, guided by Glenn Fry. He
called himself the quarter back at the band. He was
a big proponent of what he called song power. You know,
that this band should be about the songs, and I'm
going to be really pushing that. And all of the
tensions that we've talked about so far, I mean it
seems like Glenn Fry is always at the center of it.
You know, he was the one drove Bernie Leaden out,

(21:01):
he drove Randy Meiser out. Pretty soon, He's going to
have the same sort of thing with Don Felder. Agressive
as he was. Yeah, Glenn John's so he was in
a way, he was like the CEO of the band.
But like by the end of the seventies, it was
pretty clear that like Don Henley was going to be
dominating this group creatively. And you know, as much as

(21:21):
I think Glen Fry, you know, he could make public
statements about how, you know, we should put Don Henley
to the front because that's best for the Eagles, that
must have rankled him on some level. I Mean, he
has a pretty big ego. I I find it hard
to believe that he just like accepted that, you know,
without any sort of like you know, discontent in his
heart over that. You know, like when I psycho analyze

(21:43):
Don Henley and Glenn Fry, and if it's not already clear,
I love to psychoanalyze Don Henley and Glenn Fry. You know.
I think that they were both ultimately like pretty insecure
about losing what they had, which prompted them to like
micro manage this band to an extreme degree. Like they
have this image as being like these cool above it all,

(22:04):
like slick rock stars, but I think deep down they're
both like extremely self conscious. Like there's this Rolling Stone
profile where Henley has I think a very revealing quote.
He says, every minute I'm awake, even when I'm asleep,
I'm worried about the next album and what's going to
be written on it, and how it's going to do,
and how it's going to be accepted, and how my

(22:25):
peers are going to react, and how we're going to
make it better than the last one, and how the
record company is on our case and about hurry up,
we didn't get our album from you in and it's
not going to be good on our soack report and
what about the proper sharing plan that's all like hyphenated
by the way, very long quote John Henley you know,
I know you're into s sainct songwriting. That's not a
very sistame quote, but I think you get the idea

(22:47):
here that you know, he thought constantly, not just about
his art, but like how he was being perceived and
how he was going to be accepted. And I think
that drove their behavior. It's like why they wouldn't let
Don felderstand where he wanted to stand, or let Joe
Walsh be as crazy in the Eagles as he was
outside of the Eagles. They felt that everything that this

(23:08):
band did ultimately reflected on them, and it just made
being in this band kind of a miserable experience. I think. Yeah.
And and Don Felder's memoir, he talks a lot about
It's it's probably the most revealing document I've seen about
the descent between Henley and Fry. And there's a moment
when he's talking about Henley studying promo photos endlessly, just

(23:31):
like looking at his hair and making sure it was
right and just and and Feller rights, like you know,
these were just gonna be on like T shirts and
given away to fans like these weren't. These weren't like
Mount Rushmore like this was and it just you're right.
It really like like shows just how image conscious even
begin to describe it, just how how meticulous he was
and how he presents himself and how the band would
be presented. So, yeah, you're you're right. I think that's

(23:52):
it's a wonderful way to put it. And also, these
were not like teenage friends. It's kind of like when
we were talking about the police. These like sort of
older guys who had several bands in their past. When
they got together and they were bonded more out of
mutual ambition than any kind of real genuine friendship, and
when they achieved that goal of you know, musical superstardom,
all that was really left between them was sort of

(24:14):
their differences, you know. I mean whatever common ground and
camaraderie they enjoyed was just eroded by the constant pressure
of having to to bang out songs or lead the band.
And I mean Glenn Fry would later say, you know,
we always had to worry about doing this or living
up to that. We could talk about girls or football
for a while, but it wouldn't be long before we'd
remember we had to make a decision about this. We

(24:34):
had to get another song written for the next album.
So the tension in their relationship that have been present
really from the very beginning just by their different personalities
was just exacerbated by these years of pressure, and instead
of discussing feelings, they would, you know, they took more
of approach of a path of least resistance and just
storming out, and now they would never get resolved. And
then with all the cocaine in the mix, it was

(24:56):
like pouring gas on the fire. So all of these
tensions really come ahead because of the album Hotel California,
which drops in nineteen seventy six, and of course it
becomes one of the most successful albums in rock history.
The band decides to release the title track as a
single in spite of it being six minutes long and
a ghost to number one. The album, of course has

(25:16):
rock radio staples like Life in the fast Lane, Wasted Time,
New Kid in Town, the before mentioned Victim of Love.
I mean pretty much like every song on that record,
I feel like has been played on the radio to
some degree. We're gonna take a quick break to get
a word from our sponsor before we get to more rivals.

(25:41):
In the late seventies, the Eagles just had an incredible
run of success because not only did they have Hotel California,
but they had their greatest hits seventy five, which dropped
like right before Hotel California. There was this eighteen month
run with the Eagles were selling one million albums per month.
I mean, just an incredible amount of records, just unprecedented

(26:03):
really in the record business at that time. And you know,
by then it was beyond a shadow of a doubt
that the Eagles were the most popular American rock group
of the nineteen seventies. And this all leads up to
the album The Long Run, which they start working on
I think that's about seventy eight or so, and it

(26:25):
proves to to be just like this torturous process. And
basically the problem is is that Henley feels burned out
because he feels like he's like kind of blown his
wad on Hotel California, Like all of his great themes
have come together on that record, and he really doesn't
have anything else to write about. And there's also that
thing you were talking about before that Glenn Fry was

(26:46):
talking about, where this band really felt a lot of
pressure to constantly live up to the previous album's success.
You know, this wasn't a situation say like with Fleetwood
Mac for instance, when they put out Rumors and Lindsey
Buckingham besides consciously that he's going to make an anti
commercial record with Tusk, you know, where they knew going
in that it wasn't going to be as successful as rumors,

(27:08):
and they were doing it by design. The Eagles didn't
think that way. You know. They really felt like with
the Long Run, that like, we have to make this
record as good and as commercial as the previous record,
and really that was going to be impossible, you know,
and it really kind of set up this, uh situation
with the Long One, where you know, they would get
into a studio and just stare at each other. You know.

(27:31):
Joe Walsh talks about how, you know, they were down
in Miami working on the record and they would have
tapes going, and they just sat around for months in
a day's you know, trying to figure out what to do,
which is really troubling considering that all five members were
songwriters too. I mean, you think that the fact that
like between the five of them they were having such
a hard time just probably just being the first one

(27:51):
to put an idea forward. I mean, as we mentioned earlier,
I mean they were not gentle in their criticism too,
So I'm sure for everybody who wasn't Don Henley and
Glenn Fry, it was probably a pretty daunting proposition to
put a song in front of them. But yeah, I
mean it just thought the sessions during those times, I
think it was eighteen months spread out over five studios,
and it was just a pressure cooker. I think I

(28:11):
read that Felder and Fry got into like actual like
physical tussles at certain points, and by the end of
the sessions even Fry and Hanley weren't even talking, and
I guess they were sending their assistance to relay messages
back to each other, which was, you know, making other
people's lives hell in the process. So this was not
a pleasant experience of making the long run. Now, it's
interesting with this record because I feel like it's often

(28:34):
looked at as a commercial failure, and like even the
band members themselves, they often talk about this like being
like their least favorite Eagles record. But like this record
sold like seven million copies. You know, it comes out
in the fall of seventy nine, and like there were
like three hits from this record. You had the title track,
you had I Can't tell You Why, and you had
Heartache Tonight. And I have to say that for myself,

(28:56):
like this is actually like one of my favorite Eagles records,
you know, maybe because I'm just like addicted to intra
band drama and like the exhaustion that the Eagles were
feeling at this time. I think it's very apparent when
you listen to the record, but I think there's like
some good deep cuts, like that song Those Shoes, which
is a song I first heard when it was sampled
by the Beastie Boys on Paul's boutique, Like look for

(29:16):
that sample on that record, and like King of Hollywood,
which is like one of their I think best like
Hollywood narratives. It kind of sounds like a darker sequel
to Hotel California. Um. It also has the song Disco Strangler,
which is like one of the dumbest Eagles songs, but
like at least it's like likably dumb. I'mli get over it,
which we're gonna talk about that song later in this episode.

(29:38):
Like that song is dumb and like a loathsome kind
of way, but like Disco Strangler, I think it's kind
of likably dumb. I want to call back to something
I said in our previous episode about the Eagles being
a microcosm for America in the seventies, because like The
Long Run to me, is like the end of the
decade disillusionment album, like the one where you really feel
like all that was lost in the band in spite

(29:59):
of the Grade six as Like I think of that
song the Sad Cafe, like where Henley sings, I don't
know why Fortune smiles on some and lets the rest
go free. You know, it's a similar kind of statement
to like the Last Resort from Hotel California. You know,
like Henley really became an expert at these like forlorn
end of the Innocence ballads. You know that I feel

(30:20):
like ended up on all of his subsequent records, culminating
with a song literally called the End of the Innocence,
you know, like like that Paradise Lost stuff. It really
became like Don Henley's overwriting theme. I think it's definitely
a darkness in the album. I mean even on the cover,
like it has this funereal cover and always reminded me
of of the Beatles. Let it be where it feel

(30:40):
like you knew that they were kind of at the
end of the road there. I mean, just even looking
at the cover alone, it seems very uh, just very dour.
And yeah, it looks like a tombstone, it does. Yeah,
and you know, and and that that's what it's sort
of in a lot of ways, proved to be for
fourteen years. Uh. There, Feuding reached a critical mass on

(31:00):
July thirty one night, which was the night that the
band played a benefit concert for California senator named Alan Cranston,
who also is notable in rock history for writing the
leaflet that had the phrase mega death, which inspired Dave
Mustain on his bus ride back from New York to
California after getting kicked out of Metality. So major, oh yeah,

(31:24):
major figure in rock history, Alan Cranston. Uh. He was
a lefty environmentalist, anti nuclear weapons, very much in line
with Don Henley and Glenn Fries's political leanings. Uh. Felder
preferred that the band steered clear of these political causes,
and he was really bitter about having to go along
and do this benefit. Henley and Fry put the notion
across that that Felder was just greedy and didn't like

(31:46):
not getting paid for gigs. It was probably more of
just not really liking being, you know, told to beat
a certain place at a certain time by the gods
to do this thing that he didn't really feel that
strongly for. So before the benefit concert, Senator Cranston's going
down sort of receiving line and thanking each of the
band members for for being there and putting the show on.
And he gets the Felder and thanks him and fell

(32:09):
the replies with a Kurt, you're welcome, Senator. I guess,
uh see. This is another instance where because Felder writes
about this in his book, and I think he's trying
to make Glenn Fry look like a dick, which he does,
but like I think Felter also comes off like pretty
poorly here because they're playing a benefit show. You're already

(32:30):
like a multimillionaire. You can play like a benefit show.
It's like not that big of a deal. Even though
I'm sure he resented it because Henley and Fry wanted
to do it. It had nothing to do with the cause.
Of course, you know, Glenn Fry, he hears this like
snarky comment from Felder and he like blows his stack.
He has like a confrontation backstage before this benefit concert,

(32:51):
and it's hilarious because they're walking on stage and like
Felda writes about this in his book and Felder turns
to Glenn. You know, Glenn, you did back there. You're
an asshole for doing that. He's calling him an asshole
for being disrespectful to this senator and Glenn Fry says,
that's an honor coming from you, and uh, it just
gets worse from there. Like these guys are just like

(33:14):
talking shipped to each other throughout this show, and pretty
much after every song, Glenn Fry is like pointing at
Felder and he's saying, you know, three more songs to go.
I'm gonna kick your ask when we get off the stage,
and uh, they're just exchanging insults and all this was
caught on tape and you can hear it in the documentary.
And uh, this is this part where he says you're

(33:36):
a real pro, done all the way, and then Don says, yeah,
you are too. The way you handle people except for
the people you pay, nobody gives a shit about it.
Fry says, fuck you. I've been paying you for seven years,
fuck head, And all on my all on Mike, this
is like the biggest, you know, American band in the world,

(33:56):
and like they're tearing each other apart on stage like
the Replacements, you know, and it's beautiful. And like, this
is the thing about the Eagles, because you know, if
they were just like this pleasant, easygoing band with all
these hits, they wouldn't be nearly as interesting. The fact
that they had these kinds of blow ups on stage,
to me makes them way more fascinating. And I think

(34:19):
that's why people relish this kind of stuff like can documentaries,
because yeah, without this, the Eagles are just kind of
like a boring seventies band, but now, yeah, they're like
the country rock Replacements with this kind of stuff. So
the show finally ends and Feller goes backstage and he
asks the roady to hand him an acoustic guitar, which
he then just smashes on the floor. It's kindling, uh,

(34:42):
he finishes. He looks behind him. Senator Crasson and his
wife are there looking horrified, like what the hell is
this guy doing? And Fry comes up to him and says,
typical of you to break your cheapest guitar, like you
can't even you can't even erupt in age, right, you dumbass.
So this becomes like an infamous moment in Eagles history.

(35:04):
It's called Long Night and Wrong Beach, that's like what
it's been dubbed, and it's basically blamed for the end
of the Eagles, although it really seems like it was
more like a catalyst, you know, for all the tensions
that were going on in the band, that it was
inevitable that something like this would happen because these guys
already hated each other. But before they could break up,

(35:25):
they were contractually obligated to deliver this live record, Eagles Live.
And it's crazy because, like the record label, they wanted
the band to record some new songs from from the record,
which is what record labels often want for live records
or for greatest hits albums, because it's more likely that
like hardcore fans will buy a record with new material

(35:47):
that they don't already own. And apparently, like the band
was offered like two million dollars a song, you know,
to put on this record, and they only wanted like
a couple of songs, but the Eagles refused to do it.
And it was really like Glenn Fry, like at this point,
Glenn Fry was like, I'm not going to be in
the vicinity of any of these guys anymore. And when
it came to mixing Eagles live, they basically, you know,

(36:09):
and this was like a long time ago, so well
before pro tools or drop box or anything like that.
They had to do the mixes via like Federal Express,
like because like wasn't Glenn Fry was he in l
A and the rest of the band was like in Miami.
They were like an opposite coast and like like just
total like rock star petulants. Basically at this point, you know,

(36:29):
mixing this like forgettable live record to fill out a
contractual obligation so that they can like finally break up
and do their own thing. Two million dollars two songs
wouldn't do it. It's incredible, and you know, and they
spent the eighties enjoying varying degrees of solo success. I
think it shook out pretty much like you'd expect. You
have Hemley navigating the transition to the MTV age really

(36:51):
the most successfully scoring a string of hits, including I
have to say one of my least favorite songs of
all time, The Boys of Summer, I absolutely to me,
I know it's not an unpopular hold on, hold the
phone here, that's insane to me. Look, I find Don
Henley to be like pretty hateable as a person, but

(37:12):
like I think he's written like a handful of perfect songs,
Like I would say Hotel California is a perfect song,
like Desperado is like pretty great. I love the end
of the Innocence because I'm a total sucker for Boomeer
rock apparently, and I think Boys of Summer is like
a perfect song personally to me, it's everything that that's
clinical about eighties production and everything that's clinical and soul

(37:33):
is about rock stars of a certain age. You've made
enough money, And I don't know, there's something and I
know what it's about. I know it's about the end
of the sixties, innocence and everything. I know it has
substantive lyrics, but I just I think it's mostly the
production to me, Like it's just even the way it begins,
it's it sounds stressful. The opening synth lines sound like
an ambulance siren to me, And it's just I don't know.

(37:54):
I never liked that song. I'm not a Henley solo
fan at all really, Actually, I like some of Len
Fries all that stuff a little better. I mean, no
fun allows a great record. Oh man. See Glenn fry
solo career to me is like way more hilarious. Like
to me, like his peak in the eighties, he was
like a second tier Kenny Laggins essentially, Like his best

(38:15):
gig was recording like yacht rock songs for soundtracks like
You Had the Heat Is On from Beverly Hills Cop
and You You Belong to the City and the Immortal
Smugglers Blues from Miami Vice Smugglers Blues. I was listening
to that song before recording this episode. That's like a
pretty violent song, Like when was the last time you
heard that. There's like people getting blown away in that track,

(38:35):
and like you know, there's like big drug deals. It's
like Scarface. You know Glenn Fry, right, Scarface. Wasn't he
in that Miami Vice Episode two? I think he had
a part in that too. He was pretty good. I
liked him my Miami Vice. But yeah, anyway, you know,
Don Henley, he was like a huge star in the eighties.
I think people kind of forget like how successful he was,
like building the Perfect Beast, his four record that had

(38:57):
Boys a Summer on it, that's sold three million copies.
The End of the Innocence which came out in eighty nine,
that sold six million copies. So like he was like
doing Eagles type numbers on his own, but eventually, like
he wanted to return to the band, like he's talked
about how like when you're a solo artist, you have
more pressure on you. You have to make all the decisions,

(39:17):
and he wanted like the relative ease of being in
a band, although like is being in the Eagles relatively easy?
I mean that this that doesn't make a whole lot
of sense to me. It seems like your your solo
career was probably less toxic than being in the Eagles.
But ultimately I think the businessman and Don Henley knew
that like if I get back together with with with

(39:37):
these guys and we just play our hits, we're gonna
make like a ton of money on the road. And
there are plans of foot as early as for a tentative,
like they didn't call a reunion resumption and uh, and
they had sessions. Were just hilarious that they held sessions
to refuel the band. Irving as Off put it together
and they had four of the five. H Glenn, who was,

(40:01):
you know, the least interested in reuniting, he was gonna
come by a little later. So the four other guys
were in the studio working on some songs together, and
then a couple of days into it, Irving showed up,
you know, stone faced. Well, Glenn's not coming to the party,
I think was the phrase. Uh, you'd say, you know,
I was having a fine time doing what I was doing.
So uh. The other four, I guess briefly considered trying

(40:24):
to do their own, like almost Eagles thing, and then
Glenn got wind of it and said, you know, if
you do, I will go to the press and possibly
make some you know, horrific legal issues for you. So
that whole thing was put on ice until another irving
A's off production, an album called Common Thread, which is
an Eagles covers album done by various country stars uh,

(40:44):
and it was done mostly to raise money for Don
Henley's charity of the walden Woods project. Travis Tritt did
a cover of Take It Easy, pretty good cover and
asked if the band would be in the video for
the song, and it was kind of a cool concept.
I mean, basically he was playing like a honky talk
and his backing band on the stage would be the
actual Eagles. Would be the first time that these four

(41:06):
or five guys had all gotten together since. You know,
I think that that night in Long Beach in nineteen
eighty and it was such a kind of off the
wall idea that they all went along with it, even Glenn,
and they were all on stage at this band stand,
at this little dive bar, and they were all holding
instruments together for the first time in thirteen years, and um,
and they started saying, you know, I think Felder said
to Glenn, Yeah, you know, you did this more often too.

(41:29):
I guess everyone's surprised. Glenn said yeah, And that really
set the stage for the Health freezes Over reunion the
following year. Yeah, and of course health Freeze is over.
It's a reference. I think it was a done Henley
quote where someone asked him in the early eighties, like
when the Eagles would reunite, and he said, when health
Freeze is over. Well, in four hell Froze over. The
Eagles got back together, but it wasn't going to be

(41:51):
the same as it was in the seventies. Like there
was this edict passed down that was dubbed the Glen
Commandments from Glenn Fry that love that basically, you know,
there wasn't gonna be any drugs or alcohol backstage, you know,
big contrast from the seventies. I think part of the
reason for that was that Joe Walsh was just getting

(42:11):
out of rehab at this time, so they were trying
to look out for Joe, making a more sort of
friendly environment for him, which you know, I think makes
a lot of sense. I think that was a nice
thing for them to do. But the most important demand,
and the one that ended up being the most divisive,
was that Glenn wanted him and Don to make more
money than the rest of the band. And of course

(42:31):
this was going against the whole idea of one for
all and all for one that they had when they
first started out. But to me, it also makes a
lot of sense. I think, especially Don Henley, Like I
wonder if Glenn and Don made the same amount of money,
or if Don made the most money, because if you're
doing this in terms of like who's the most important
member of the band, like, it seems like Don Henley,

(42:54):
you know, after his very successful solo career was clearly
the biggest star. But it makes sense to me that
like they would be making the most in the band.
But Don Felder didn't like this at all, like he
was the loan hold out. I think Joe Walsh and
Timothy B. Schmidt, those guys, you know, their music business lifers.
They know a good gig when they see it. They're like,

(43:15):
whatever you say, Glenn and Don, we know we're gonna
make millions of dollars no matter what. But Don Felder,
for whatever reason, could not accept that. And it really
sets the tone for the tension of the reunion years right.
And I think it goes back to when he was
first asked to join the Eagles in the seventies, when
he was cut in as a joint owner of their
their internal company, Eagles Limited, And so I think it

(43:38):
gets back to that. He's thinking, well, wait, why I'm
a part owner of this What do you mean I'm
not making as much as you guys are. We are
equal in this business structure we had in place for
years and years. Uh So he's dragging his feet signing
this new deal, and then Glenn Fry ends up calling
Felder's representative and tell us us representative. Look, man, I'm
sorry you have to represent the only asshole in this

(43:58):
whole band. The older signs by sunset or he's out
of the fucking band by sundown. Yeah, I love that.
By sundown, it's like he's still a little bit of
cowboy in him at that point. I think that that's
that's so classic. But the strong arming works. Felder's back
in The Health Freezes Over tour kicks off with you know,
a long stream of very well regarded blockbuster tours. There's

(44:21):
a live album with truly horrendous new song called get
Over It and it's uh, Hanley writes the lyrics. It's
about sort of whiney self help disciples who you know
aren't taking responsibility for their own problems in their lives. Uh.
And it features the memorable lyric I'd like to find
your inner child and kick its little ass. Truly one

(44:43):
of the worst songs of all time. I mean, the
lyrics are terrible, Like the music is just like some
knockoff chuck Berry riff. It just sounds like something they
crept out in like fifteen minutes, you know, such a
big contrast to like an album like Hotel California, which
is so impeccably crafted, and then they just like crap
out this garbage, you know, sort of anti PC song. Um. Yeah.

(45:05):
You know, in Don Feather's book, he writes a lot
about this period and how you know he really felt
like he was being screwed over because again, you know,
he's part of Equos Limited, he's like one of the
owners of like the band name. He feels like there
should be an equals say, and he really feels like
he should be equally compensated to Don and Glenn. But
I don't know how you feel about this, but like
reading his book, I don't feel like he really makes

(45:27):
a convincing case for any of this. I mean, he
just comes off to me as like petty and whining.
Like he complains that Don and Glenn get like fancier
hotel rooms and like better limousines on tour, but like
Felder is still staying in luxury hotels and being whisked
around in limousines. You know, it's not like he's you know,

(45:48):
being carried around in a burlap sack or something. You know,
he's he was still like a very pampered like rock
star at this time. So yeah, I just don't get it.
There's another story in the book too, where he talks
about this model that was built for the health freezers
over like stage setup, and like there's little figurines for
each member of the band, and like the figurines for

(46:08):
don and Glenn are white and the rest of the
band is black. And he like takes this as like
some profound slight from the gods. You know that he's
not the same color as the other guys. It's like
the scene from Almost Famous with the T shirts, like
I just wanted the out of focus guys, Like, yeah,
it's makes no real sense. Yeah, I mean it's like, yeah,
I get it. Like Donn and Glenn, I'm sure they're assholes.

(46:32):
It was probably like not fun to be in this
band at all, But you're still being paid tens of
millions of dollars to put up with these guys. And
I have to say that, like, who among us wouldn't
pick up a double neck guitar and tour with the Eagles,
you know, for that amount of money. I mean, it
really was a privilege that I think at some point

(46:52):
he lost perspective on the stress of this reunion really
continues to build throughout the nineties. There's a brief respite.
They have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony,
the only time in history that all seven members of
the Eagles took the stage. They performed Take It Easy
in Hotel California. Evening featured pretty funny line from Glenn Fry.
We all got along fine, We just disagreed a lot um.

(47:15):
But still although even even like with that, though, like
in his book, like Dan Felder complained that he wasn't
allowed to speak as long as Glenn and Don It's like, dude,
come on, no one wants to hear from you. I'm sorry,
It's just true. So this keeps going. It's early two thousands.
I think it's two thousand one. Feller starts making more
and more noise about the bottom line. He's really wasn't

(47:37):
happy about this deal that he was coerced into signing,
which you know entitled I think it was Fryan Henley
something like twice what all the other bandmates made. And
he discovered that Henley and Fry had found a legal
loophole to make three times as much on a new
box set selected works, and also Felder believed that Henley
and Fry had extra tour expenses like the whole mattress

(48:00):
thing and tennis coach back in the seventies that he
thought was taken out of the band's collective call forers
as well, so he was also paying for their extra
amenities that he wasn't able to enjoy in two so
he started to demand financial records, which as a member
of the Eagles Limited, he was actually entitled to. But
Henley Fry didn't take kindly to having their their finances
being poked around and looked into. As Fry would later say,

(48:23):
you know, he couldn't appreciate the amount of money he
was making. He was more concerned about the money I
was making. So in February two one, they fire Felder
um unleashing an avalanche of messy legal proceedings that would
go on for years to come, with Don Felder filing
suits for wrongful termination, breach of contract for something for

(48:45):
like fifty million dollars a lot of money, and attorneys
for Fry and Henley said, you know, he wasn't fired
because he was like messing around with money. It just
was creatively, chemistry wise, performance wise, he was no longer
good fit for this band, so that was the official
band line as it had nothing to do with him
complaining about money. It was more just that they've grown
apart creatively, which I mean, I think his right. Yeah,

(49:07):
come on, I mean this part of Felder's book is
actually like pretty heartbreaking for me because he's like really
candid about how hard he begged not to be fired.
Like he called Glenn Fry, He like calls like every
number that he has for Don Henley. You know, he's
calling Irving as Op basically saying like, look, I take
it back, I'm sorry, I'll sign the paper, I'll do

(49:28):
whatever you want. Please let me back in the band.
And as we've learned so far in this series, Don
Henley and Glenn Fry are very good about keeping grudges,
I think, and like they were not going to let
him back in the band at this point. There's just
been too much bitterness. And it just reminds me of
like that scene in Mier's Crossing, like where John Taturo
is begging Gabriel Burn like not to shoot him. It's

(49:52):
it's his brutal It's like the one part of the
book where Don Felder comes closest to admitting that he
fucked up big time by just pushing these guys too far,
you know. And there's this scene in the book where
he calls up Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt like
right after getting like fired, and both of those guys
are like actually kind of annoyed with him for like
not just like signing this agreement, like even like like

(50:14):
Timothy B. Schmidt like the gentlest Man and Rock like
he tells off Don Felder. Like in the book, Felder
frames it as those guys not supporting him, but like,
to me, like Schmidt and Walsh, they were just like
more level headed, like I think they recognize it that. Yeah,
like Don and Glenn or eaglemaniacs, we know that. But
being in the Eagles, even with all the bullshit, is

(50:36):
a lot better than not being in the Eagles. And
they were able to, I think, do that calculus in
their head, and Don Felder just wasn't all right hand.
We'll be right back with more rivals. So we've not

(50:56):
reached the part of the episode where we give the
pro side of each part of the rivalry. Let's talk
about Don Felder first. You know, Don Felder came into
the band when the Eagles had to make a transition
from being a country rock band to more of an
arena rock band. And I think if he hadn't have
come into the Eagles, it's it's very possible that they
could have had, you know, some hits in the early
seventies and then faded away. But because of Felder and

(51:19):
then of course later Joe Walsh, they were able to
become this like behemoth of Hotel California that just kicked
their career to a whole other level. And of course,
speaking of Hotel California, Don Felder like wrote the music
to that song. He's an integral contributor to the signature
song in this band's catalogue, and that can't be like underestimated.

(51:39):
And wherever Don Felder is now, you know, he might
feel sad that he's on the Eagles, but I'm sure
he's being well compensated for his contributions to the band
and writing like one of the most popular rock classics
in history. I mean, killer guitarist, amazing musical legacy, just
for that song alone. In his memoir he talks about
this scene. I mean it could have been a pagened

(52:00):
in his own mind of Glenn actually coming up to
him and offering him, you know, pretty a fusive praise
for Glenn Fry's and you know when you came along,
you really brought us to a new level and effectively
like we couldn't have done it without you. And it's true, Yeah,
I mean he was the guy that they needed. I
think he was the great midway point between the kind
of the more country stuff that Bernie Leadon was doing
and all out like rock and roll that that Joe

(52:23):
Walsh provided to I think that he really fulfilled that
niche right in the middle between the boat that will
let them do these kind of weird sounds like the
you know, Mexican reggae type stuff of Hotel California. Now
going over to the pro Don Henley and Glenn Fry side,
you know, I'm I'm reminded of a quote from Don
Henley that sticks out to me where he once said
for us, there were no times of sustained happiness. Happiness

(52:46):
came in waves and then disappeared talking about his time
in the Eagles, and look, the Eagles were I think
a fairly joyless like business like operation. But you know,
we've said this many times in this series, but like,
while these guys could be dicks, they were almost always right.
And as much as I like sympathize with Don Felder
in a lot of ways, I consistently come down on

(53:09):
the side of looking at Don Henley and Glenn Fry
and being like, I don't want to defend you, but
you know, it's hard for me to dispute like how
you've gutted this band and even like your request to
make more money on these reunion tours. I mean, they
were the two guys in the band that were the
least replaceable, although ironically they did replace Glenn Fry when
he passed away with his son, so I guess Don

(53:31):
Henley is the only one who's not replaceable. But at
any rate, they were the guiding forces of this band,
and as hard as they could be, I think to
be in the same band with you can't really fault
a band that has as many classic songs and as
many hit records as the Eagles do. Ultimately, yeah, I mean,
Henley is the star, outshone as other supremely talented bandmates,

(53:52):
and you know, as a songwriter and vocalist, he's one
of the best to ever do it. Glenn Fry, By
Henley's own admission, was the man with the plan, you know.
I mean it was his band from the start. He
was the one who put the band together, the original
front man, and he had the drive and that type
a energy to really push the band into the stratosphere.
And you know, I think that it really speaks to
his ambition to actually be willing to take more of

(54:15):
a back seat and sing less over the years and
give more of the spotlight to Hamley because he knew
that was the best for the band, and his commitment
to the group, you know, in later years never wavered.
I mean he was in really great pain through a
lot of his uh the later concerts, with rumor, twitter,
arthritis and other ailments, but he still performed the History
of the Eagles tour every night. I don't think he
missed a show. So yeah, I think that really it

(54:39):
wouldn't have happened without Fry. So when we look at
all these guys together, you know, I know in our
first episode you said that you prefer the early country
rocky years at the Eagles, whereas I am more of
a fan of like the arena Rocky Eagles of Hotel,
California in the long run, and I think you look
at these guys together what they were able to do,
especially on that song Hotel California, which I think really

(55:01):
does seem like a true collaboration between Hanley, Fry and Felder,
and like, look, I think that speaks for itself. I mean,
these guys together, even though it came apart in spectacular fashion,
they created a timeless classic that I know somewhere in
the world right now there's some radio station playing Hotel California,
and it's gonna be like that, I'm sure until the

(55:22):
end of time. I guess you could say with Felder
and Walsh, the Eagles really took it to the limit.
You could say that. You could also say that they
were the new kids in town who gave them the
best of their love. That's what I get for trying
to add pun the song pun Master. That's right. So
we have one more part of our Eagle series coming up.
We're gonna be diving into the band's relationship with David

(55:43):
Geffen talking about irving A's off lots of blood feuds
on the business side of the band. Man, I can't
wait to get into it. I've had so much fun
here with the Eagles, and I'm excited to get to
the third encore in the final episode of our series,
so they thank you again for listening to Rivals. We'll
be back with more beefs and feuds and long simmering

(56:04):
resentments next week. Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio.
The executive producers are shaun Tytone and Noel Brown. Supervising
producers are Taylor Chicoyn and Tristan McNeil. The producer is
Joel hat Stat. I'm Jordan run Tug. I'm Stephen Hyden.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

(56:25):
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