Heaven and Hell

by Don Felder

  Randy, Bernie, and Don all played separately. Randy brought his own band and sang “Take It to the Limit” and “Already Gone,” Don sang “Desperado” and a couple of his solo hits. Bernie stayed onstage most of the night as a backup musician, but they never all played together. Randy’s wife, who wanted a photograph of her husband with Don Henley, approached him with her camera and asked him if he’d mind posing. Without saying a word, Don turned on his heel and walked away.

  I was very hurt not to have been invited along. I knew Fred well and would have gladly volunteered my services. I knew most of the people on that stage intimately, and yet no one had thought to pick up the phone. I began to wonder how much my ongoing negotiations with Irving and “The Gods” were affecting every aspect of my life, including my associations with such good friends in the business.

  Later that year, I finally moved off the boat and started looking around for someplace of my own to live. I decided to rent a house in L.A. to begin with, until I could find what I wanted to buy. The divorce negotiations were proceeding at a snail’s pace, now that Susan’s lawyers were involved—even though I’d told her from the start that I was happy for her to have half of everything I owned. I didn’t yet know exactly how much I’d be left with or even if I wanted to stay in L.A.

  There were times when I wondered where my life was leading. I was homeless, divorcing, and without any sense of self-worth. I hated myself for what I’d done to my family, I resented Irving and “The Gods” for what they were doing to me, and I longed for a return to the happier days of my youth, when the Eagles were just starting out and Susan and I were different people.

  “I feel like we’re on the brink of something here,” I’d said in the Miyako Hotel in San Francisco the night she’d first told me she was pregnant. “Like this could really be the beginning, you know?” Twenty-nine years on, and it felt like everything was ending. The brink I faced now was far less appealing.

  During the extremely dispiriting process of being newly single after almost three decades of marriage, while searching for a small rental house on my own, something extraordinary and totally unexpected happened. I met Kathrin Nicholson who made me feel as if I’d tripped and fallen into heaven. From the moment I set eyes on her, it was like I’d been reunited with someone I’d been madly in love with for hundreds of years. Kathrin was beautiful and, although almost twenty years younger than me, had a wise head on her shoulders. She was like a bright light illuminating the darkest period of my life, a lighthouse on a stormy coast, as steadfast as could be, showing me the way. Believe me, I have clung to that light beam ever since.

  After months of trying to find out the details of the deal from Irving, I was finally told. A new company called NEA had been set up to handle the box set, with Don and Glenn as its sole owners.

  I was never told what NEA stood for. I assumed it was New Eagles Agreement, although it might well have been Never Expect Anything. Elektra, with distribution through Giant Records, Irving’s company, was releasing the box set, called Selected Works 1972-1999, in November 2000, in time for the Christmas market. Music from the Millennium gigs would feature on the last of four discs.

  When I called Irving and dared to suggest that what he was suggesting might not be fair, the man who’d once said he had more money than God was unequivocal.

  “If you don’t sign that fucking deal,” he screamed at me over the telephone with that terrifying, booming voice of his, “you’ll never set foot onstage with these guys again.” And I was paying him commissions?

  Furious, I screwed all my courage up into a ball and yelled back. “Don’t talk to me like that, Irving,” I shouted. “Do you ever call up Don and Glenn and scream at them over the phone? If you want to talk to me reasonably about this, then call me back when you’ve calmed down, but don’t fucking scream at me. You’re supposed to be my manager too, remember?”

  To my amazement, Irving apologized and seemed calmer for a day or two, but within the week, he was back on the phone, swearing and cursing and threatening. Don and Glenn were out of town and permanently unavailable. I hadn’t had any contact with either of them since New Year’s Eve. When I told Irving I wanted to speak to them, he went into the stratosphere. “Don’t you dare call those guys,” he shrieked. “They’ll freak out if you do, and that’ll be the end of it.” I didn’t know which way to turn.

  I knew Irving was playing everybody off against everyone else, as he always did, and that I was probably being portrayed as the one who was unnecessarily delaying matters for the box-set deal, which had to be in the stores by Christmas. I was depicted as “the wrench in the works.”

  Whatever reservations Timothy and Joe may have had privately, they signed the agreement without question, leaving me completely isolated. I agonized over what to do and spoke to my lawyers about my legal position, but it was obvious I had no real choice.

  As one musician who worked with them had once told me prophetically, “We’re just pumping gas in Mr. Henley’s gas station.”

  It felt to me like we’d all been on the same farm eating from the same trough, but two pigs had gotten so fat they were crowding everyone else out. If I were to try to force myself into the trough, I’d be run off the farm. I didn’t want that to happen. The farm was all I knew. Reluctantly and with bile in my throat, I signed their damn papers. The so-called equal partnership was over.

  Christmas 2000 was to be my first on my own, without my family. I didn’t have any lights or any ornaments. I’d only just moved off the boat and was living in much reduced circumstances. Kathrin, ever sensitive to my emotional needs and worried for my health since the band had steamrollered me, came up with an idea.

  “I know,” she said, brightly. “Let’s buy a small Christmas tree and invite a few close friends and ask each one to bring an ornament for a festive tree-trimming party. That way, we can start again with our very own decorations.” Her suggestion was so genuine and heartfelt, I could have wept.

  We invited a bunch of people, including Joe Walsh and Timothy Schmit, to come and help us in our small celebration. I didn’t invite Glenn, Don, or Irving, none of whom I’d seen since being forced to sign the new agreement, and not just because of the delicate situation with them, but also because, frankly, I was embarrassed about where and how I was living. Irving’s main house is a $25 million mansion in Beverly Hills. Glenn has a similar, $10 million house nearby, and Don’s, in Dallas, is even more impressive. I was renting a one-bedroom single-story building off Mulholland Drive, living out of suitcases, my belongings packed in lockers in a downtown storage unit.

  I’ll admit that, with the way I felt that they were bludgeoning me emotionally and financially, I also didn’t feel inclined to invite them into my home at that time. Apart from the unexpected delight of having Kathrin in my life, I was miserable enough about everything without having to put on a fake smile. In any event, neither Joe nor Tim turned up anyway. Their ornaments arrived courtesy of Federal Express.

  When Sean, a kid from Irving’s office, came around that holiday season with the usual van full of Christmas gifts from the Eagles and Irving’s office, the back of his “sled on wheels” was laden with huge baskets of fruit and flowers, toiletries and candy, ostentatiously wrapped in cellophane and ribbons, being sent out to everyone connected with the band.

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Felder,” the young assistant told me as I opened the door to my house and prepared to help him carry my gifts inside.

  “Merry Christmas, Sean,” I said, managing a smile.

  As I stood watching, he reached into the back of the van and pulled out two small presents. They were from Timothy and Joe.

  “Is that it?” I said, staring at him at disbelief.

  “I’m afraid so, Mr. Felder,” Sean said, before jumping into the driver’s seat and driving off with the rest of his goodies. For the first time in decades, neither Irving nor Don had sent me a thing. I stood there shivering in the driveway as the electric gates slid shut behind
him.

  My attorney,Barry Tyerman, had penciled a date on his calendar to check back with Irving on the progress of the box-set deal. The date finally arrived in early February, and Barry duly fired off a gentle letter, asking for copies of certain agreements with the record label. A response came back that they were not signed.

  Two days later, I went out with Kathrin for the evening to see a play about the Notre Dame football team, at the Ahmanson Theatre, with our friend Gordon Davidson, the theater director. We rode back with Gordon in the car afterward, laughing about how awful the play was.

  “It was so bad, it was funny,” I joked. Gordon dropped us home, and we walked into the house arm in arm, still laughing about our evening.

  It was eleven thirty when I clicked on the answering machine. There was just one message. It was from Irving, left three hours earlier.

  “Fingers, call me at home, here’s my number, I gotta talk to you.” The very fact that he’d called me at all was highly unusual, and there was a tone to his voice I didn’t like the sound of.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed while Kathrin made some coffee, I dialed his number immediately, even though it was late.

  “Irv, it’s Don Felder,” I said, wondering what was so urgent that he’d give me his home number.

  “Hi, Fingers,” he said, with a sigh. “I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid. The guys have had a meeting, and they’ve decided to go on without you.”

  My entire body ran cold as his words lingered in the air, their resonance hitting me in waves. “W-w-what?” I stammered, my mind tripping and tumbling.

  “It’s nothing to do with your playing, it’s nothing to do with you, they just think it’s in the best interests of the band if they let you go.”

  “Oh, my God, Irving,” I said, blood rushing to my head. “They can’t do this. What do they mean? Why are they doing this? What . . . ?” But the words died on my lips. Tears spurted from my eyes, and I started trembling all over. I felt as if I’d been hit by a truck.

  Irving told me to calm down and try to get some sleep, but of course I couldn’t. I sat up most of the night with Kathrin, writhing with anxiety. At seven o’clock in the morning, I called Irving back, hoping to catch him before he went to work, but I couldn’t get hold of him until about three.

  “Yup,” he told me. “I’ve spoken to them, and they’re determined to go ahead with this. They’re gonna send a letter over to your attorney this afternoon, confirming that you’re fired.”

  I listened in disbelief, still unable to take in what I was hearing. “I just don’t understand,” I said. “I thought we were meant to be in this together. Forever.”

  “I know, I know,” Irving sighed. “But it just didn’t work out that way.”

  “Irving,” I said breathlessly, “I’ll do anything, I don’t care. Tell them there’s been a misunderstanding. I signed their agreements and it’s cool. I don’t want to be out of the band.”

  Kathrin sat with me for the next two hours, while I sat by the phone, anxiously waiting for word.

  Irving eventually rang back. “Sorry, Fingers,” he said. “You’re still fired.”

  “Give me Don’s phone number. I wanna speak to Don in person,” I told Irving. The numbers I had for him were obsolete. My distress and fear had turned to anger. “I’m fed up with speaking through you. I want to speak to ‘The Gods.’

  He didn’t give me Don’s number. In sheer frustration, I dialed all the numbers I had for Don and left messages with his secretary and his business manager, but he never returned my calls.

  In a last exasperated act, I called Glenn’s studio, and to my astonishment, he came to the phone. Overwhelmed at hearing his voice, I begged him not to get rid of me. “I’ll do anything you say, Roach,” I told him. “But don’t cut me off like this. The Eagles is all I know.”

  “I never want to get another fucking letter from Barry Tyerman,” he said, gruffly. Hearing the obvious emotion in my voice, he added witheringly, “Try to reach some higher ground on this, Felder.” The phone line went dead.

  My legs dropped away from under me, and I slumped to the floor. Kathrin helped me into a chair and did all she could to calm me down. The combined emotions of the last year, of all the years of angst I’d gone through with the band, hit me in the chest like a mallet. I couldn’t breathe properly and I couldn’t speak. I felt physically sick. When I had sufficiently composed myself, the first person I called was Joe.

  “What the hell’s going on, Joe?” I asked, still distraught.

  His attitude was decidedly cool. “Well, I dunno, Fingers,” he said lamely, from his home in San Diego. “As far as I can see, those guys have decided that they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. There ain’t much I can do about it.”

  I’d never been more in need of my old buddy Joe, but he wasn’t there for me anymore. There was no compassion in his voice. There was no offer to “come up and have a beer and we can talk about it.” His response was shattering. Joe had always been my friend. We’d spent the most time together of all the band members over the years, hanging out in his room, taking drugs, drinking too much, sawing up hotel rooms, playing on his ham radio. I’d driven him to rehab, for Christ’s sake. I’d taken care of his daughter on the road. Now, when push came to shove, he was going with the rest of the band and the money. He wasn’t even going to try to fight for me. I felt betrayed.

  “Well, thanks, Joe,” I told him, angrily. “Right now I feel like blowing my own brains out. If I ever take this nine-millimeter gun out of my mouth, I’ll be sure to call ya.”

  We’ve not spoken since.

  The last conversation I had with any of the Eagles was with Tim, whom I’d also considered a good friend for many years. To my utter dismay, his response was similar to Joe’s.

  “What’s going on, Fingers?” he said, his tone irritable, when his wife, Jean, handed him the phone. “All I know is they sent me some papers, they looked good, and I told my attorney that I’d sign. Why couldn’t you just sign the papers like everyone else so we can get on with this? You keep harking back to some deal you made in the seventies, which is history. I don’t know why you think you’re entitled to more.”

  “You don’t understand,” I told him. “I’m not doing this just for me, you know. I’m doing it for you and Joe and Randy, and Bernie, too. My Lord, don’t you realize? If Irving was representing us against Don and Glenn, he’d never let us anywhere near these contracts.”

  Timothy sighed. “You should have just signed the damn papers and sent them back,” he said, before hanging up.

  My next call was to Susan. After all the years she’d endured of me being an Eagle, I felt she had a right to know. She listened in silence as I told her what had happened and then said something unexpected.

  “You know, Don,” she told me, “this is probably the best thing that could have happened to you. You’ve been in that unhealthy, abusive environment for far too long. It’s affected your health, and it’s indirectly caused the death of our marriage. I’m glad you’re out of the whole nightmare. You’re a free man. Use that freedom wisely.”

  My respect and admiration for the mother of my children and the woman I had shared my life with grew enormously. To her eternal credit, her support and sympathy was unequivocal, despite all I’d done to break her heart. I was hurting far too much at the time to realize just how true her words were, but I came to understand afterward that she was right.

  The official termination notice sent to my lawyers stated that “the company’s board of directors decided that the needs and goals of the company were better served on an ongoing basis” without me. They added that it was “in the best interests of the company” to “terminate” my employment. But there was something else. They wanted my shares in Eagles Ltd. They even sent my business manager a check to buy them back. They had another think coming. On my instruction, he sent it right back.

  TWENTY

  I dreaded reading the official announcement of my
departure from the band in black and white. When I did, in a small newspaper article two weeks later, it was as if someone had taken a baseball bat and hit me in the solar plexus. Up until that moment, my attorney had still been trying to negotiate on my behalf, and I’d held a small, flickering candle of hope that it was all some terrible mistake and that I’d still be able to reach out to Don and Glenn in some way. When I saw the announcement in print, it stuck to the flypaper of my brain. I knew then that hell would never freeze over again.

  For months afterward, I was left gasping for breath. I walked around in a daze, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with my life. My foundations had been shaken, not just with the breakdown of my marriage, but the end of my career. Everything I’d known was gone. For twenty-nine years of my life, I’d been married and for twenty-seven years of my life, I’d been an Eagle. I didn’t know anything else. Being an Eagle was my identity. To lose it felt like a bereavement, and I went into mourning for well over a year. I worried that I might collapse under the weight of my grief. Now I knew how Susan felt, I realized with humility, to have had the world ripped out from under her. I suddenly missed everything about being in the band: the hours in the studio, the times on the road, the gigs, the friendships, and the fun. My mind rewound and replayed my times with them, quickly fast-forwarding over all the bad stuff and the long months of hell. If I pressed pause and allowed myself a tiny glimpse, I convinced myself that even those times would be better than this sense of utter desolation and emptiness.