Heaven and Hell

by Don Felder

  I still mourn his untimely death. Of all the wastes of life due to drug abuse in the music business, I think that was the one that hit me hardest. I couldn’t get over the fact that all that vital, vibrant energy had been snuffed out in one single, stupid moment. It gave me serious pause for thought.

  Another great moment of that tour was playing Wembley Stadium in England. It was a huge art deco place with something like seventy thousand people all standing on the field and in the stadium, with us down at one end. The acoustics were such that the sound carried away from us like in a baseball stadium, when you see the ball fly and hear the crack of it against the bat later than seems possible. We could see these people jumping to our music in tiers around the stadium, but all in sequence a bit like the Mexican Wave, as the music reached them. I’d never seen that happen before. It was awesome. We had a lot of laughs during that show. The place and the people just made us high. We didn’t need anything else.

  On nights like those, I realized that we kept going and remained together because we all knew this was the best any of us could do musically, financially, and artistically. There was no place else to go. The sad part was that we were so completely burned out, physically and creatively, that the moments of pure joy were rare. The machine kept wanting more, and we simply couldn’t deliver. The strain was becoming too much, and the drugs were making us increasingly paranoid. We were a train wreck waiting to happen.

  The new decade began with us at the top of the charts. The Long Run was certified platinum and topped the record charts for thirteen straight weeks, making it 1979’s biggest-selling record. It sold five million copies and helped put Greatest Hits and Hotel California back into the Top 100. The music we’d provided for the film Urban Cowboy that year also kept us in the public eye. The movie, starring John Travolta and Debra Winger, was conceived and produced by Irving and the sound track featured us, Jimmy Buffett, and Dan Fogelberg. By January 1980, though, nonstop touring was getting us all down. After each show, we’d head off to our individual hotel rooms. The Third Encore parties became a means to an end, not an opportunity for us to hang out together and talk about the gig. Only when the stage lights came on were we a unified rock-and-roll band. Irving tried to spin the situation but finally admitted to the Los Angeles Times that The Long Run might actually have marked the end.

  In February 1980, “Heartache Tonight” won a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or a Group. Critics reviewed our shows in Los Angeles that March as the finest since the Desperado days. We’d proved we still had the magic. Our record company, sensing the end was near and panicking, demanded a live album. At the end of July, we booked five nights at the three-thousand-seat Santa Monica Civic Auditorium to record it. The tickets sold out within hours. We took our places in that little theater each night like automatons, standing in the shadows on the stage, listening to the familiar well of noise from the crowd, before launching into our set and playing the best of our classics. It was a spotless, brilliant but utterly soulless performance by five exhausted, shattered young men.

  A few days later, on July 31, Glenn committed us to playing a benefit gig at the Long Beach Arena for the reelection of liberal California Senator Alan Cranston, a night that would forever become known as “Long Night at Wrong Beach.”

  Don and Glenn had been into fund-raising for newsworthy political issues for some years, chiefly for the Chumash Indians and for high-profile antinuclear and environmental projects. I didn’t mind about the apolitical events, but I didn’t see the point of benefit gigs for politicians like Cranston or Governor Jerry Brown, most of whom I regard with the greatest suspicion. Jerry was all right. He was dating Linda Ronstadt at the time; he came over to my house, and he was cool. He even helped me find a new site for the Malibu Little League team when their baseball field was being turned into the Malibu Lagoon Bird Sanctuary, and my kids, among others, had nowhere else to play. I called him up, and he sponsored a bill that set aside Malibu Bluffs Park for the Little League players, which was neat. But I was tired, fed up with being told what to do and when, and I didn’t even know who the Cranstons were. (Later, Cranston was severely reprimanded in the largest savings and loan scandal in U.S. history.) I made my views clear, but I knew that if “The Gods” wanted to get into political campaigning, then I wasn’t in a position to argue. Still, you never saw John Lennon, Bob Dylan, or Jimi Hendix getting into bed with a politician.

  Glenn knew I wasn’t comfortable with a rock-and-roll band doing a show for politicians. His hostility was compounded when Mrs. Cranston walked up to me backstage to say hello just before we went onstage.

  “Hello,” I replied. “Nice to meet you . . . ,” As she walked away, I added, under my breath, “I guess.”

  Glenn, standing next to me, heard this and viewed my comment as an intentional slap in the face for the Cranstons, but he was wrong. I truly had no idea who they were, nor did I care, for that matter. He found me in the dressing room and started yelling at me for what I’d said. I don’t know if it was the alcohol, the other drugs, or the fact that we’d been on tour for so long, but he just blew up. As usual, I sat there strumming my guitar and let him do his thing. Trying to keep the peace, I finally walked out. Just before we stepped onstage for the benefit, I turned to him and said quietly, “You know, Glenn, what you just did back there? You’re an asshole for doing that.”

  He replied, “That’s an honor, coming from you.”

  We walked onstage, and he came over while we were playing “The Best of My Love” and said, “Fuck you. I’m gonna kick your ass when we get off the stage.”

  Both of us were burned out after our months on the road. Neither of us really wanted to be there that night, and for me it was one gig too many. If only we’d taken a break after the Santa Monica shows, we could have recharged and rested up. Instead, frazzled and fractious, we focused our unhappiness that night on each other. I started drinking Jack Daniel’s and was soon drunker than I’d been in a while. As the night progressed, we both grew angrier and began hissing at each other under our breaths.

  In the sound booth, the technicians feared the audience might actually hear our outbursts, so they lowered Glenn’s microphone until he had to sing. He continued to approach me after every song to rant, rave, curse, and let me know how many songs remained before our fight.

  “That’s three more, pal,” Glenn said. “Get ready.”

  “No sweat.”

  Then we started playing “Life in the Fast Lane,” and the crowd leaped to its feet.

  When we came offstage, waiting to be called back for the first encore, I kept out of Glenn’s way. I knew if I went near him, it would only make things worse. He went over to where the other guys were standing and started shouting something like, “That fucking guy! That fucking Felder!” I could hear him on the other side of the stage.

  I stayed by myself, trying to calm down and finish the gig. Then I remembered something Joe would do to release his tension. Whenever he was pissed off, he’d go somewhere and relieve his frustration by smashing something. Before returning to the stage for the encores, I told my guitar tech, Jimmy Collins, “Take that shitty Takamine acoustic guitar I play on ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ and put it by the back door. When I get offstage after the encores, I’m gonna break that fucker.”

  When the gig finished, I walked off the side of the stage opposite to the rest of the band again. Most of them took off in their limos—anything to get away from the atmosphere between Glenn and me. I thought I’d be the last to leave the building. I toweled myself down in my dressing room, gathered my senses, and headed out toward the back door and the final few cars lined up outside. Seeing the Japanese guitar that Jimmy had put out for me, I took a deep breath, picked it up, held it in my hands for a moment, and then smashed it as hard as I could against the side of a concrete column.

  My eyes closed, I repeated the exercise again and again, venting all the anger and frustration I felt inside, feeling the strain on the arm I’d broke
n falling out of Irene Cooter’s chinaberry tree and on the shoulder the drunken quarterback dislocated at the Rucker Brothers gig. I thought of Glenn and of Don, of the way they sometimes treated me, and of my increasing sense of helplessness and isolation. I thought of the sheer exhaustion of being on the road and away from my family and what it was doing to my relationship with Susan. I mourned the loss of my fidelity and regretted the numerous sterile sexual encounters that always left me feeling cold and empty.

  That guitar splintered into a million pieces. By the time I’d finished, it was kindling on the floor. Wiping my forehead with the back of my hand, I turned and saw Alan Cranston and his wife standing right behind me, their mouths agape. A few feet away stood a stony-faced Glenn. This had had little or nothing to do with the Cranstons, but Glenn thought I did that right in front of them to drive it up his butt. Honest to God, I didn’t even see them there.

  “Typical of you to break your cheapest fucking guitar,” Glenn told me, cursing, when the Cranstons had hurried off to their car in case I started on them.

  Afraid of what I might do if I opened my mouth to respond, I jumped into my limo and sped off.

  A few minutes later, Glenn did the same, the two of us locked in mutual enmity.

  Within a few days, I’d completely cooled down. I was in Hawaii, staying in a rented house with Susan and the kids, having a rare week off together. Glenn had offered me his place down there, but after the Cranston benefit, I decided not to take him up on the offer and rented somewhere else. After just twenty-four hours in Susan’s company, the steam had stopped pouring from my ears and I felt calm again. I promised myself I’d try to stay cool the next time I saw Glenn.

  The phone rang. It was Bill Szymczyk. He was in the studio, cleaning up and fixing some of the tracks for the new album, Eagles Live. I assumed he was calling to see when I could come in and fix my parts.

  “What’s the schedule for the band?” I asked.

  A small silence fell.

  Bill advised me. “There is no band at this time,” he said. His voice echoed hollowly over the line.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  It was 1980, and the Eagles were history. We would never be the same again.

  FOURTEEN

  The news came like a slap in the face out of nowhere. Although we’d not been getting along for some time, I never thought we’d split. There was too much at stake. The emotional shock was such that I couldn’t even think straight for a moment. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears and my legs virtually collapsed under me. My initial reaction was, “My God, what’s going to happen now?” This seemed like the end of the only life I’d known. We’d had breakups before, and there was usually some sort of problem between two or all of us, especially by the end of a tour, but this was different. This was serious. Glenn Frey had called time.

  He told one reporter later, “I knew the Eagles were over about halfway through the Long Run album. I told myself I’d never go through this again. I could give you thirty reasons why, but let me be concise: I started the band, I got sick of it and I quit.”

  Don admitted, “We probably peaked on Hotel California. After that we started growing apart, as collaborators and friends . . . We put everything we had into it at the expense of our health, friendships, and everything else.”

  I spent several broken nights worrying that I might have been the sole cause of the split, but I learned much later what had gone down in Miami. There was so much outside pressure from the record label, the critics, and the public to produce high-quality work and surpass the previous album every time that Don and Glenn simply couldn’t handle it. Don was the gifted writer and the perfectionist; he’d criticize the work Glenn submitted and ask for slight revisions. Glenn finally announced he was quitting to do a solo album.

  Irving called us all up and told us we each had to finish editing the live album without Glenn. I guess he of all people had seen it coming for years. Everyone except Glenn flew to Bill Szymczyk’s studio in Miami and started fixing guitar parts, background vocals, drum parts, and bass. Then we flew the tapes to L.A., where Glenn and Bill’s assistant in another studio fixed his parts, then FedExed the tapes back to Miami.

  There we were, a continent of resentment and unhappiness between us, recording on opposite coasts, entirely separate from each other. Glenn wouldn’t talk directly to anybody in the band but was yelling and screaming at everyone else. Finally, he fired Irving, hired his own manager, and withdrew completely.

  Everybody kept hoping Glenn would reconsider, even me. We thought he’d get the stress out of his system, do a solo album, and be back. We were at the peak of our success—the biggest band in the world. Why quit now? Yes, it had often been shitty, and yes, he and Don and I often rubbed each other the wrong way, but what else was there? Could there be life after the Eagles?

  The record label refused to make any announcement to the fans, trying to keep hope alive. They spoke vaguely of solo albums, rest periods, and studio work. Joe Smith believed that two new songs would sell more copies of the proposed album, Eagles Live. He offered us $2 million for the new songs, but Glenn still refused to work with the rest of us. Eagles Live, featuring the best from our gigs in Santa Monica, arrived in the stores on November 7, 1980, reached number six on the charts, and sold over a million copies. Our live cover of “Seven Bridges Road,” the harmonic a cappella song we used to sing together in the shower room before each gig as a unifying theme, but which—tellingly—we hadn’t sung in years, reached number twenty-seven on the singles charts.

  On the liner notes, the album carried a picture of an Eagles nest with four eggs in it and a grenade. Someone has pulled the pin on the grenade.

  As far as our fans knew, the Eagles simply vanished. The 1980s heralded a rock scene that relied largely on synthesizers and drum machines. After the assassination of John Lennon in December 1980, it felt like the end of an era for all of us. The music business was something we no longer recognized or felt a part of. Blondie was riding high in the charts, along with people like the Police, ABBA, David Bowie, and Michael Jackson. Irving, who realized his best-selling act was no longer going to make him millions, became head of MCA Records, dropping all but five of the company’s almost fifty rock acts and thereby rescuing it from bankruptcy. The move made him one of the most powerful men in the music industry yet didn’t prevent his retaining indirect control of Front Line Management or his own independent record label, Full Moon. Joe Smith, head of Warner and the last connection between Warner and the Eagles, resigned.

  The only headlines the rest of us were making were unwelcome ones. Don Henley threw a party at his L.A. home at which a minor took an overdose of drugs. The paramedics had to be called and the sixteen-year-old girl resuscitated. Don was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, cocaine, and Quaaludes, as well as contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He claimed he never even knew she was there among all the other groupies and partygoers. He was fined two thousand dollars, placed on probation for two years, and ordered to attend drug counseling. Later that same year, he and his actress girlfriend were involved in a plane crash in Aspen.

  Glenn did some film work in Mexico and ended up detained by authorities briefly in Veracruz after a minor car accident. He was so freaked out by the experience that he chartered a private plane to fly him home to Aspen, Colorado, as soon as he was released. Joe and Tim were out on the road or doing solo work, and I was home, trying to make some sense of my family life.

  The year the Eagles broke up turned out to be one of my worst personally, too. For a time, I felt as if my whole world was falling apart.

  The day before the Long Run tour ended and I was due home, Susan opened a fan letter from among scores that had been delivered to our Malibu house by the management company. Sacks of mail were collected together and held back until our return, then delivered to each member of the band personally. Susan rarely bothered to read the letters and cards adoring fans sent, but for some r
eason, this time she did. My mother was staying with her, awaiting my return as well, when Susan happened upon a letter from a fan in Texas.

  This particular fan was the most sexually adventurous creature I had ever met. During our brief liaison on the road, in a hotel room in Dallas, she had led me through experiences I’d never previously known. In her letter, she expressed her delight at our “wonderful night together,” and cataloged some of the things she’d like to do to me if ever I was in Texas again. Poor Susan, who’d always chosen to ignore the rumors and media stories about the excesses of life on the road, found herself sitting in her own living room, her mother-in-law a few feet away, reading a sexually explicit billet-doux from a woman I’d had sex with. This was irrefutable evidence, in black and white, held in her trembling hand.