by Don Felder
We talked to Gerry about replacing the Chevy, and he recommended a Mercedes. “I’ve been driving them for years, and they’re really great,” he told us confidently.
I didn’t feel ready for a Mercedes. It seemed a step too far, but Susan was all for it. “Let’s just go take a look,” she pleaded, then drove me to the Beverly Hills Mercedes dealership, where she fell in love with a little four-door, chocolate brown 280. I was relieved she hadn’t gone for one of the big Mercs for cigar-smoking rich men, so I arranged to buy the 280 on monthly payments. After that, I felt much better leaving her and Jesse to go on the road, even though I was heavily in debt with a car and a house. My father, who’d never owed a penny to anyone, would have thrown up his hands.
One of These Nights became our first album to debut at number one, when it was released in June 1975, as Saigon fell, and it helped every other Eagles album skyrocket in sales. The title track, released as a single, with me playing the precise guitar solo I’d created for it, leaped into the Top 10. The underlying theme of Hollywood, with all its good and evil, struck a chord with critics and fans alike. The band had progressed from being dust-covered outlaws in the desert to living it up in the Hollywood hills. Songs like “Lyin’ Eyes,” with its incredibly evocative lyrics, enhanced our reputation for not only playing great music but for telling a story, too.
The idea for that particular track came one night in Dan Tana’s restaurant, next to the Troubadour. We were sitting at a table when we noticed a pretty young blonde with a much older but clearly wealthy man. Glenn laughed and turned to the group and said, “Look at those lying eyes.”
Don and Glenn received all the credit for writing five of the nine songs on the new album. The album marked another milestone: It moved Don to the front of the band. His days of singing as many songs as Glenn had ended.
We embarked on a sold-out world tour of fifty-nine stadiums. “Lyin’ Eyes” was our second single, reaching number two on the pop charts and crossing over to the country charts. “Take It to the Limit,” sung so soulfully by Randy, rose to number four, becoming our fourth consecutive top-five single. Bernie’s songs, “I Wish You Peace,” for which Patti Davis received joint credit, and “Journey of the Sorcerer,” were never released as singles. Neither was the song that Randy and I wrote together, “Too Many Hands,” a raucous rock-and-roll number with a rhythm guitar riff that Don and Glenn had really liked and with toe-to-toe guitar solos by Glenn and me.
That song actually made my hands bleed. The basic track was played on a twelve-string acoustic guitar, which you need the hands of a gorilla to play, because it just eats you up. During the recording at the Record Plant, I took a break and jumped into the “scum pond” to relax a little. The hot water softened the calluses on my hands, and when I went back in to finish laying down the track, the skin on my fingers opened up and bled.
Our new album, more than all the others, was composed of mainstream, AM-oriented cuts. Song structure, choruses, vocals, even the length—everything was written to be more commercial and achieve national and international airplay. AM radio used to play a set number of songs per hour with commercial slots in between. A five- or six-minute piece of music cost the station a commercial segue. Three minutes thirty seconds was the limit, they insisted, or they wouldn’t play it. “Lyin’ Eyes” was five minutes long and initially didn’t get much airplay, but it bucked the trend and proved to us that, with the right track, anything was possible.
In September 1975, we were on the cover of Rolling Stone, a first for us. There was a front-page photograph of us all looking cool on a yacht in Chicago, wearing aviator sunglasses, and an article raving about how great we were. With typical media perversity, however, in the back of the same issue there was a formal record review panning our new album. For some critics, we were ballad-heavy and theatrically boring. We didn’t have fireworks or wear makeup like Kiss, whose album Alive had sparked Kiss-mania. Fans could buy everything from Kiss makeup to Kiss-endorsed pinball machines. We didn’t leap around on stage and smash guitars like the Who or dress up in outrageous costumes like Elton John.
The critics were missing the point. The Eagles were always about songwriting and song power, reaching people and touching their hearts with words and music that meant something. We wanted our songs to endure. Compare any Eagles verses to the repetitive, head-banging lyrics by some of these “rock opera” bands. We didn’t need gimmicks, nor did we need to sell lunch boxes with our faces on them.
Don Henley was especially incensed about the Rolling Stone review and immediately fired off one of his poison-pen letters to the editor. To be fair to him, this time I think he was probably right. The magazine was using our celebrity to sell its product and at the same time telling the world we sucked. It was a perfect example of how the press sometimes exploits artists for its own benefit. For us, this was a stark realization. It sparked an ongoing feud with the media, and especially with Rolling Stone, which has never really been resolved. Interviews were kept to a bare minimum after that, or strictly controlled by Irving, Don, and Glenn, and the Eagles consequently became one of the most intensely private bands in the world.
The same month as the prestigious cover article, we played to a crowd of fifty-five thousand people at Anaheim Stadium. It was the biggest gig we’d ever done in Southern California since the California Jam (which I’d missed)—an incredible, memorable night. It was the twentieth anniversary of James Dean’s death, which meant a great deal to Glenn, who was a big fan. We followed Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt, and I can remember looking out on the sea of eager young fans camped out under the spotlights while the stage literally shook with the reverberation of their cheering and foot-stamping.
After the gig, we went backstage and bumped into my friend and Malibu neighbor Carole King, who at the time was married to a lovely guy called Rick Evers. I’d never seen Carole happier than she was with him. He was a songwriter and part-time leathersmith, and he presented each of us that night with beautiful handmade hide coats. I still have mine. I wore it in one of the Eagles photo shoots. It is sheepskin with tassels, Indian motifs, and elkhorn buttons. It’s exquisite, and I cherish it both for the memory of that extraordinary night and in remembrance of Rick, who tragically died of a heroin overdose a few years later.
Time magazine named us the top U.S. rock band. The article described each of us in turn: I was a “recluse” because at my last house, “an eight-mile-long dirt road separates Felder’s rustic ridgeline house from the Pacific Coast Highway far below.” Don was called a “card-carrying intellectual,” Glenn a “charming, harmless ladies man,” Randy a “happily married family man,” and Bernie a “loner who prowls music stores for new instruments.” Right on, I’d say.
Far better than the incredible accolade of that article, though—which would have impressed even my father—was going back to my home state with the band. We had a gig playing on Florida Field in Gainesville, where the Gators play. I invited Jerry and Marnie and their kids, Mary and Brian, to come and see the show. Instead of staying in a hotel with the band, I rented a condominium in a golfing resort for four days, and Susan and Jesse joined us. I arranged for a stretch limousine to pick up my brother and his wife and the kids and gave them front-row seats at the side of the stage. It was one of the first times in all these years that Jerry had seen me play, and here I was, standing center stage in front of a crowd of tens of thousands, playing rock-and-roll guitar just like I used to in the bedroom we’d shared. I think he realized then the magnitude of what had happened with the Eagles and how successful we’d become.
Later that night, in the kitchen of our condo, we sat chatting about Mom and Dad and our childhood, when he suddenly got up, came over to where I was sitting, and hugged me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a very good big brother to you, Don,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, choked up.
“Well, I was pretty mean and beat you up and made you wash my car all the time. I think I should have bee
n there for you more. I apologize.”
I told him not to even think that, and we embraced as we had in the funeral parlor when Dad died. That night, I think we both recognized that our childhood hadn’t always been easy.
With our continuing success and the simmering disagreements that lay behind it, life on the road became wilder and wilder as we toured North America, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, England, Germany, Holland, and France. Drugs and women featured heavily, and individual band members began to let their guard down.
Halfway through the American leg of the tour, during a rare break of seven days, we decided to fly to Nassau in the Bahamas and get some rest. We’d been flying around and dashing here and there in rental cars; we were exhausted. It made sense to stay out on the road, rather than fly home, unpack, and repack a few days later. So we chartered a Learjet out of North Carolina and slipped down to a place in the Caribbean called Paradise Island.
I recall when we arrived at Nassau’s tiny airport, customs officials greeted us with some suspicion. Here we were, longhaired hippies with ripped jeans, in the rock business. I suppose we seemed like fair game. I had nothing to fear. I wasn’t carrying any drugs, and as far as I knew, nobody else was either, because that’s what we’d agreed. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones had been caught bringing drugs through customs once, as Paul McCartney would be later in Japan. We didn’t want to be tarred with the same brush.
Needless to say, the customs men pulled us over and started asking questions. Irving was running around, but I told him to chill. “It’s OK, Irv,” I whispered. “Nobody’s carrying.”
At that point, I saw Bernie stop, reach down, open his bag, and scatter handfuls of pills across the baggage-area floor. As people arrived from another flight, we could hear the pills being crunched underfoot. Glenn dragged Irving to one side for a quiet word. As the customs officers pulled each of us in and started searching through everything—the linings of our suitcases, our clothes—Glenn moved his way farther to the back of the line, so that he was the last one to be searched.
When Glenn was searched he was waved through. We grabbed our bags, headed out to the taxi stand, and piled into a series of cars. We’d only been off the airport complex a few minutes when Glenn pulled off one of his cowboy boots, retrieved some pot stuffed into the toe of it, and sat in the back rolling a big, fat joint.
The times grew still wilder. I remember coming offstage in Amsterdam once, sweating profusely, and a fan who had somehow managed to get backstage was standing there waiting for me, waving a huge brick of hashish.
“Give me your T-shirt and I’ll give you this,” he said. I looked down at my soggy, sweat-stained Eagles T-shirt, which I was about to throw away anyway, and nodded with a grin. Peeling it off, I made the best trade ever. Trouble was, we were leaving the country the next morning, and there was more hash in this softball-sized block than I could possibly smoke, so I handed it out to everyone I knew—the band, road crew, lighting guys, everyone. I was the most popular Eagle that day.
Touring was so much fun, especially when we did gigs that also featured the Rolling Stones or Tina Turner. The best part of the whole gig was when she came onstage. She’d light the place up, especially when she and Jagger sang “Proud Mary.” The audience and even the band members seemed to crank it up a notch or two just because of her presence. We all knew she’d have a great solo career ahead of her if she wanted it.
The Stones were pretty wild boys, especially Keith Richards, who played real dirty, Neanderthal guitar and was a walking human chemistry set. I remember arriving at our first hotel, in Kansas City, a Holiday Inn or a Marriott, and being taken to “meet the boys.” My tour guide was our ever-smiling, supremely likeable, and unflinchingly dedicated road manager, who’d been with the Eagles from the very beginning and who was good friends with many of the other road managers. The Stones kept to themselves usually, and we weren’t allowed on the top two floors they occupied, which could only be reached by elevator and were patrolled by private security guards.
Richie got the OK on the telephone for us to go up, then escorted us. When the elevator doors opened, a wall of pot smoke hit us. We wandered into a room, and on the dressing table was a large mound of what looked like dirty cocaine. I didn’t know what it was.
Someone in the room, asked, “Hey, do you want some H?” and I realized that I was looking at heroin for the first time. I passed. I’d seen what heroin did to young guys living rough in New York, and for me, that was a step too far. I drank a beer instead, and we sat chatting for a while until Richie said to the tour manager, “So, where are the guys? Don would sure like to meet Keith Richards.”
“OK,” the road manager said. “Come with me.”
He led us down a corridor and into a large suite, its doors thrown open. From a distance it sounded like there was some enormous party going on, the music was so loud, but when we walked in, the room was empty except for a giant stereo system, about three feet tall and six feet wide, on casters. It could be wheeled into a room, opened up like a road case, and plugged in. There was a guitar amp built in, with two huge speakers, and it was cranking out some really heavy rock-and-roll track.
“Maybe he’s in the bedroom,” someone said, and we wandered into his bedroom and stared at the detritus of what had obviously already been a good night—Jack Daniel’s bottles, beer bottles, clothes, and the residue of drugs.
“Nope, not here,” Richie said, and we started to walk out.
Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man’s foot sticking out of the open bathroom door. “Jesus!” I said. I ran around to find what nobody wants to discover—Keith Richards doing a very good impersonation of a corpse. His skin was gray, and he was completely motionless, facedown on the bathroom floor. I thought he was dead.
Barely batting an eye, the road manager grabbed the phone and called the tour doctors. Richie and I were unceremoniously ushered from the room and into the elevator. “I’m sure he’s a goner, man,” I told him, as we returned to our floor. “I’ve only ever seen one person look like that before, and he was in his coffin.”
To my astonishment, there was no bulletin on the news that night, and the following evening, at the Kansas City Stadium, a very much alive Keith Richards, looking none the worse for his brush with death, pranced around the stage cranking out his raunchy rock-and-roll guitar for all he was worth. Now that’s what I call stamina.
ELEVEN
There was considerable rivalry among the various rock-and-roll bands at that time over which of us were having the most fun on the road. Led Zeppelin were considered to be the world masters, with bands like the Rolling Stones and the Who a close second. Hotel rooms would be ceremonially trashed, industrial quantities of drugs and alcohol consumed, and excesses logged in folklore. By comparison, we were Little League, but the one area we did excel at was in attracting women. We were young, famous, good-looking, and rich. We’d made it to the big time and were right up there on the list of rock-star scalps the eager groupies wanted to add to their belts.
Glenn once publicly described our life on the road as “got crazy, got drunk, got high, had girls, played music, and made money.” He challenged Led Zeppelin to the claim of supreme party animals, maintaining, “We threw the greatest traveling party of the seventies.” He was right.
It wasn’t just the regular groupies who were on offer. Adoring female fans of all ages, sizes, shapes, and colors threw themselves at us. Songs like “The Best of My Love,” “Desperado,” and “Witchy Woman” were heart-warming numbers that appealed predominantly to a female audience. They were, I soon realized, highly effective lures. Night after night, during On the Border and now on this tour, I witnessed the barrage of pussy that was offered up. It was a sleet storm of women; they were literally everywhere—in hotels, at shows, and on planes.
Before One of These Nights, the system of pairing up those who wanted to get laid and the women who were more than happy to oblige had been a bit haphaza
rd. As a band, we had a policy of only ever doing two two-song encores, and that was now used to our advantage. While we were onstage, wooing the fans, trusted road crew would be asked to scout the audience for willing participants and offer them backstage passes for what became known as the Third Encore—the party after the show. Each was handed a laminated pass with the words 3E THE EAGLES printed on it in Gothic lettering. These passes became popular souvenirs. While the stadium was being cleared and the traffic was dying away, the band, crew, managers, promoters, local radio DJs, and just about anyone else associated with the business would remain backstage to meet the forty or so attractive young women who’d been handpicked. Some of the record company promoters would even bring Playboy girls or “special groupies” for the occasion, along with copious amounts of cocaine and champagne.
For the latest tour, however, Don and Glenn took the system to a higher level of sophistication. The laminated passes were dispensed with for being too indiscreet; in their place were specially made little buttons, small, round, beveled, like a campaign button, with a pin on the back, and “3E” written on them in yellow English Gothic on a black background. Very discreet. They were passed out to the road crew by the handful. They would hand them to the loveliest girls in the audience. Some crew members would even loiter by the ladies’ bathrooms, eyeing the girls as they walked in and out. The message was that the Eagles were having a party and would like to invite these women back to their hotel suite. No boyfriends were ever invited.