Eagles

Interview transcript from Sunday Night Live - 24.02.08

Ben Jones caught up with founding member of the Eagles Don Henley as they chatted about the first Eagles album in 25 years, life on the road and Hell not freezing over.

The Eagles were nothing short of a phenomenon in the '70s with fans spanning the globe, and were no stranger to the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle.

Don Henley, who will be 61 this year, said that they are lucky to be alive after what they put their bodies through in their heyday.

Despite Henley publicly saying that there would not be another album, it wouldn’t be the first time he contradicted himself.

In 1980 when he was asked when he thought Eagles would reform, he said, "When Hell freezes over!" 14 years later the group announced a tour called - you guessed it - ‘When Hell Freezes Over’.

You can listen to the interview in full.

Full Transcript

BJ: So where are you and what is the plan for today?

DH: I am in Dallas, Texas which is my home. Lets see at 6am I made pancakes for my children and then drove them to school, and then I went back to sleep.

BJ: So you have had a busy day already, done the dad thing.

DH: I’ve had a full day already.

BJ: Out of all the bands that have picked up from where they left off really none has been more successful than the Eagles. As a band you knew this would be of serious interest to a great number of people. But to this extent must have been beyond your expectations..

DH: Well I suppose so, you can never be sure these days, I mean after being away so long. We knew a lot of people come to see us in concert but that doesn’t necessarily translate in to album sales. We thought that perhaps a lot of people would be interested but there are no guarantees so we are quite pleased with what’s happened with this album?

BJ: Yeah because the Rolling Stones I would argue are a live band, a touring band whereas their album sales – they don’t have anywhere near the album sales that you guys have enjoyed in the last sort of 12 – 18 months I guess.

DH: Mmmm.

BJ: With this volume of success now in 2008 comes the demand, demand to see you, demand to hear you. Is the pace of life in the eagles something you can all take at this stage in your careers?

DH: Oh certainly – we separate our personal lives and our work quite well. Everybody in the band has children and everyone in the band is quite into the parenting thing. So I would say we have very normal private lives so we do that and then we go to work and we keep the two very well separated. And when we tour we make it as easy as we can on ourselves, we don’t stay out on the road for more than 3 maybe 4 weeks maximum, at a stretch. And then we go home and do our home thing and then we go back on the road so we’ve gotten the touring thing down quite well we have a wonderful crew and touring entourage that numbers about 100 people and everything runs like a Swiss watch its quite a well oiled machine so we actually look forward to it. Getting out of the house.

BJ: There is a track on this album ‘Business as Usual’ – when I listened to it I listened to the lyrics and I get the impression – well the lyrics say - that you didn’t really expect to be doing this at this stage in your life, you expected to be sat in the shade, sitting in the garden enjoying life.

DH: Yeah – I’m trying to do both actually but it’s a bit difficult.

BJ: Have your cake and eat it I think is the expression.

DH: I think very few people who start out in bands expect to be doing this when their 60, and its really a blessing we are all extremely grateful for this, if somebody had told us when we were 25 years old we would still be doing this – you spoke about the Stones - I think Mick Jagger once said he didn’t plan to be doing this when he was 30-35 years old, and look at him now he’s an inspiration to all of us. So you know I have my garden, and my yard, I do my vegetables and that bit. But were just extremely thankful that we have this all going on and that we have so many fans at this stage of the game who have stuck with us for decades really I mean in 3 years the Eagles will have been together in some form or another for 40 years. It’s just extraordinary.

BJ: Are you planning to do anything special for that milestone?

DH: Well I’m sure somebody will plan something, I’m sure the management or the labels or somebody will plan some sort of 40th anniversary hoopla, you know, we shall see.

BJ: The rock star life is not for the faint hearted – the got crazy, got drunk, got high, had girls, played music, made money lifestyle – looking back with maturity with hindsight and I guess some level of sobriety are you surprised that you survived the 70’s?

DH: Well as Joe Walsh likes to say if I had known I was going to live this long I’d have taken better care of myself. But Joe is enjoying his, lets see this is his 14th year of sobriety I believe. He’s in great shape, were all in good shape, were all in better shape than we have any right to be actually. And as for myself I’m going straight from this interview to the gym, work out for an hour and a half.

BJ: An hour and a half? I’m 30 and your putting me to shame Don.

DH: It includes stretching.

BJ: Well that’s the important thing, when I go to the gym I blitz it and then two days later I’m in agony and my gym instructor tells me its all about the stretching.

DH: That’s correct we stretch before and after. But we all live very different lives now, I mean we did in our time, in our heyday we did what young men do. We were part of a generation that was quite self indulgent – and we indulged and we had a great time. I think what is it? “The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom” – is what William Blake said. So we are older and we’d like to think wiser, and we are enjoying our lives now and actually remembering it.

BJ: Much has been made in this country of your return – first album in 28 years – congratulations by the way on the 2 Brit nominations, best international group, best international album your very first UK No1 as well. As a band that has achieved so much over the years and a band that is synonymous with being the great American band does a milestone like a little UK No1 does that actually matter to the Eagles?

DH: Absolutely. As you know we have ties going back to the beginning of our career with England and we recorded our first two albums in London and part of the third album ‘On The Border’ was recorded in London with the great English producer Glyn Johns, and so we have a great fondness for that part of the world and for the people there and we always look forward to going there, I’m bringing my kids over and my wife when we play there and letting them muck about.

BJ: March and April some big shows at the O2 and we’ll talk about those a little later. Did you have trouble when you guys decided to actually do a new album and it had taken quite a while for you to actually… because you had been playing… people think this is some kind of reunion its not you have been together in studios mucking about with a few songs over the years. But when you actually decided to put a new album down was it trouble was it difficult to bring new life into a band that had been dormant for so long?

DH: Yeah well as you say we had been in and out of the studio really since the mid nineties when we got back together and never really could get any traction in the studio we for one reason or another again we all considered parenting to be our first and foremost duty and most of us have young children so we were involved with that, plus we were having some friction in the band with certain band members who are now departed, that was an obstacle to getting the creativity going again and once we got that obstacle behind us things started to flow much better and we brought in a new guitarist named Steuart Smith who has been a real catalyst in this band as far as creativity is concerned, he’s a brilliant powerhouse of a musician plays multiple instruments, was heavily involved in the production and the song writing on this new album. And another gentleman that was brought in named Richard Davis who was also a musician and was involved in the production on this album and that all helped to infuse some new life into the proceedings. So we finally got traction this album really the bulk of it was done in a year and a half – in 2006 and 2007.

BJ: When I listen to ‘The Long Road Out Of Eden’ I hear an album that yes clearly there is new blood and new life been injected into the Eagles but its like picking up from where you left off. Eagles fans are not disappointed by these record, new fans enjoy listening to this record. I mean to be blunt there is a phrase ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ does that kind of apply to these 20 songs on this new album?

DH: Yeah well that was our motto really about this album, we went round and round for a long time going oh my god, how do we make a new modern sounding album how can we be current and hip and you know how can we make an album that appeals to younger people and our fans at the same time. And finally after a couple of years of agonising about that we just said well you know what we should really be who we are, we should do what we do and the cycle in music has sort of come around to what we do again. So we just stopped worrying about it and we just did what we do, we wrote some good material and we produced it and recorded it the way we have always have done… and our fans responded in kind. I think that the songs on this album are more mature in some ways than some of our earlier work. I think some of the songs are more fully realised as pieces of work. It took us a while but we arrived at the right decision.

BJ: 20 songs on this record so there must have been a lot of stuff that didn’t make the record you’re clearly going through another prolific period in your song writing Don.

DH: Yeah there were several songs that didn’t make the record, we simply didn’t have the room, technically speaking you can put about 72 minutes of music on a CD without losing sound quality but if you go over 72 – some people will argue that its more or less than that but that’s an average number - if you go over 72 minutes you start to lose sound quality so didn’t want to do that. So we split the album up into two CD’s and the thing that was attractive to us about the deal with Wal-Mart who is the exclusive vendor in this country is that the album was reasonably priced people got a lot of bang for there buck – and we like that. But there are songs on the cutting room floor that may appear on another album if we decide to do one.

BJ: Obviously you have been in studios and you have been playing instruments and being part of a band in the last few years but to actually go into a studio and to start recording a new album 28 years since the last one, technology has changed quite a lot did that make it easier for you too record a new eagles album?

DH: Well actually it did in some ways and in other ways as I’ve said before all this new technology is a wonderful thing and it can do a lot but it still cant write lyrics.

BJ: Someone needs to invent one of those computers because I’d love to write a record!

DH: Me too, just punch in a button and there you are!

BJ: You put in something woeful and it comes out with a great record!

DH: yeah but… 3 of us have studios I have a studio of my own and Glenn Frey has a studio and Timothy B Schmit has a studio and we used all three of those studios and we all laughed every day about the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of obsolete equipment that we have sitting in our studios that nobody wants or cares about anymore. I suppose if we hang on to it long enough it will become valuable again like old things do. Some of the new technology’s wonderful, it really streamlines the process but you have to be careful with technology you can over do it, we were very mindful of trying to keep an organic quality to this album we didn’t want it to sound too cold and too digital and too remote. We still use analogue machines on occasion we record drums sometimes with analogue machines and sometimes vocals things like that – so we use the technology gingerly.

BJ: It amazes me when I watch documentary’s as I did last year about the making of Sergeant Pepper, and you see the studios at Abbey Road 40 years ago, it beggars belief how anyone made music that still to this day stands the test of time with that archaic equipment. I wouldn’t even know how to work it. Its alien to me compared with what I’ve got in front of me today and probably what you’ve got in front of you sat where you are – yet the music still sounds great.

DH: Well that’s because of the genius of the Beatles and George Martin, you know they were very creative people and also the engineers that worked on that album and a lot of the Beatles albums they were simply.. it demanded a lot of creativity and you figured out ways to do it whether you were running the tape backwards or putting certain kinds of reverb and echo on things, and those albums will never grow old, Sergeant Pepper and some of the others that they made will stand the test of time, because in the final analysis its not about the technology, you know its about the songs and the production and the creativity that goes into it.

BJ: But do you miss the crackle and hiss of vinyl? I do.

DH: Yeah I do to tell you the truth. I like vinyl.

BJ: I don’t think you can re-create that sound with Mp3 or Mp4 or digital or whatever it is. I like putting the needle on the record and that first few seconds of it finding the first groove, you can’t replace that sound.

DH: Hell I don’t even like stereo, I’m one of those back to mono guys, you can never sit in the centre anyway!

BJ: As you have done in the past, you musically sort of hold a mirror up to America to reveal itself both politically and socially. ‘Long Road Out Of Eden’ has a great lyric, I love this lyric.. ‘Weaving down the American highway through litter and wreckage and cultural junk…’ Are you worried about your country in 2008?

DH: I’ve been worried about my country for a long time now – with good reason, particularly for the last 7 ½ years. I think things have gone terribly awry and I hope that come November or perhaps January, we can get things back on track.

BJ: Forget the politics for one second, I find America’s obsession with celebrity quite disturbing as well, would you agree?

DH: Yeah well we got that from you all I think.

BJ: Well yeah actually, you know what, we did start that and I’m sorry!

DH: I think we can all blame Rupert Murdoch for that cant we?

BJ: I think so, although I’m sure somewhere he probably signs my checks somewhere down the line so I’m not going to slag him off too much.

DH: Yeah right.

BJ: Being in a band for as long as you have – the highs, the lows, the good times, the bad times - It’s the closest thing I can imagine to being in a marriage. How do you make it work when things have been said and things have been done that in the past have hurt.

DH: In this band? We’ve had our ups and downs – we’ve been slagged off in the press.

BJ: But I’m talking about the inner relationships of group members.

DH: Well I think if you talk to any band – you know, any band from the Who to the Rolling Stones to U2 to the Beatles, any band will tell you that its not easy, that there are great difficulties in keeping the relationships healthy. It’s the nature of creative people it’s the nature of the beast when you work so closely and so intimately with other people particularly in the studio in a closed close environment. And when your working on things that are very personal to you, its also difficult on the road, people come up to me and say ‘you must really have a lark on the road’ and I say no mate its work and its hard work. Even as cushy as we try to make it these days its still very difficult – its difficult to be away from your family, difficult sleeping in a different bed every night, difficult finding healthy food. And of course there’s the 3 hours on stage that are very intense, you want to do your best and hope that everybody’s on the case every night, you know there’s a lot of pressure, a lot of emotional pressure being in a band but its better than working at the petrol station.

BJ: Talk me through a song which is getting a hell of a lot of airplay here in the UK, a song called ‘How Long’ – tell us a little bit about this record if you would please Don.

DH: Well we have an old and dear friend named John David Souther, who is a fellow Texan raised in Amarillo, Texas up in the Texas pan handle. We were all part of the same mafia if you will. Back in the early 70’s. Mr Souther and Glenn Frey were in a group together, they had a musical duo as a matter of fact, and we all sort of ended up on the same label together and John David was our mate, he was a bit like the secret Eagle he wrote or co-wrote a lot of the songs that were hits for us including ‘New Kid In Town’ and ‘Best Of My Love’ and some others. ‘How Long’ is a song that he wrote and recorded back in the early 70’s it was on his first solo album which was recorded for David Geffen’s label Asylum records. And we used to do that song, actually I had forgotten about it. We used to do it in the early part of our career in fact there’s some footage I believe on YouTube of us performing that song somewhere on a TV show in Holland in about 1973, and Glenn’s kids saw that on YouTube and said dad ‘Look at your hair’! And so Glenn decided that we should record that song and it was decided that it should be the first release from this album and so that’s what we did and it worked out quite well because again its one of those things it just sounds like us, it sounds like an Eagles song its reminiscent of ‘Take It Easy’ or ‘Already Gone’ and some of those things so really we went full circle with that song, back to our roots so to speak.

BJ: Musically it seems the time was absolutely perfect for your return, something you touch upon in the song ‘Waiting In The Weeds’ – ‘I’ve been biding my time with crows and sparrows while peacocks prance and strut upon the stage’ talk us through that track as well because that for me is another stand out track on the album.

DH: Thank you – that’s my favourite actually, best song I’ve written in some time and thank you for mentioning it. That sort of happened in the late going that came to me… I think I started writing it last August. Steuart Smith was a part of that as well he and I started the song in my living room here in Dallas I sat down with a guitar one day I believe and just started strumming. Like a lot of songs. Some of the best songs just come at you, you know and that song just started coming out, I took it to Steuart and he helped me finish it off and the rest of the guys in the band were very excited about it, everybody liked it a lot. It was difficult, the harmony parts took some doing to figure out, it’s a real aerobic exercise to sing that thing and I hope we can re-create it live. But I love that song, I love the imagery in it its been told that its very cinematic, its like a little movie, I love old black and white movies and I was thinking of some movies.. there’s an old black and white movie called ‘A Face In The Crowd’ which stars of all people Andy Griffith - I think he was nominated for an Oscar for that movie - and a beautiful blond woman who is now deceased named Leigh Rimmick American actress and that’s one of the movies that inspired that song.

BJ: It’s a beautiful record, its also the one that seems to be getting a lot of critical acclaim, out of all the songs, all the 20 songs on the album when you read a review of the CD, that’s the one that everyone seems to spot – which is nice for you isn’t it, if you say that’s your favourite that’s quite some pat on the back. I’ve read as well and you’ve got to be careful with what you read although you just talked about YouTube its frightening the internet how people can discover things, you were saying Glenn’s family… his children discovered that clip on YouTube, nothing is secret anymore you will always find something on YouTube or the internet. I’ve read in an interview with you that this album could well be your last, surely never say never?

DH: I just don’t know – I did say that yeah - so we’ll see after this round of touring we are going to tour the entire planet and that will take at least two years and then we’ll see after we’ve had time to recover from that, well see if anyone’s interested in making another one.

BJ: These UK shows… lets talk about the O2 dates the only dates your doing in Europe in the spring, I guess your going to be playing at the O2 which is a marvellous venue, I take it you haven’t been there yet?

DH: Well actually I have, I haven’t been in the big room, we flew over there in October this past year and played a sort of private concert for a lot radio people that were flown in from all across Europe and Asia. We played in the small room there but I didn’t get over to the soccer field but I hear good things about it.

BJ: So the dates that your playing the 20th, 22nd, 23rd and 26th and the new dates due to popular demand you’ll be playing the 5th and 6th of April. Tickets are on the web-site. What has the new show – ‘cos I believe its an all new production - got in store for UK fans.

DH: It is an all new production and we are in the process of putting it together now, I’m flying out to LA in about a week to begin production rehearsals, were rehearsing in a rather large venue out there so that we can set all this stuff up. The whole thing is new the stage and the lighting and all that are being designed and built as we speak and were pretty excited about it, and of course the show will include several of the songs from the new album.

BJ: We play a lot of Eagles you are still among the most requested artists on the station – if one of your songs come on the radio in Dallas can you enjoy it or do you have to turn yourself off.

DH: It depends on what song it is, it depends on how recent it is and how many times I’ve heard it, if it’s some of the older Eagles material I switch the channel and my kids don’t understand that yet, they go daddy what are you doing and I say Im going to have to go and play that 300 times this year kids – I don’t really want to hear it right now. On the other hand if it’s some obscure track from one of my solo albums that I haven’t heard for several years then I’ll listen to it and it sounds fresh to me.

BJ: We’ve got one of your good friends coming on the show, next week, Sheryl Crow is going to come in and play live for us on the show, and her new album Detours – I haven’t heard all of it yet but I hear its very, very good. I was wondering if you have a question for Sheryl that we can ask her and see whether she can instantly spot that its you?

DH: Where’s Pooky?

BJ: That’s great because we don’t really know what your talking about and I’m sure she’ll instantly know what that is. Don I would like you to chose one song from the new album ‘Long Road Out Of Eden’ UK No1 album and double Brit nominee, what would you like to play and tell us a little bit about that song before you go?

DH: How about playing ‘Busy Being Fabulous’ because it’s the new single.

BJ: Tell us a little bit about this record because this is… when you listen to the album you can tell this should be a single it’s a stand out track – why ‘Busy Being fabulous’?

DH: It’s a song I started that phrase just came to me I don’t know where I got it, I don’t remember at all where that came from. I started messing about with it and sort of put it to the side for a while, I got tired of it – I couldn’t really write the verses, I had the hook but I couldn’t get the rest of it. I took it to Glenn and he thought it was great and then I went back to him later and said I don’t think this song should be on the album. He said ‘your out of your mind, this has to be on the album and we have to finish it so we finished it and then eventually I came round to seeing it his way – and so there it is.

BJ: Thank you for your time and thank you for being here, we’ll see you early spring, Don Henley.

DH: We are looking forward to it, goodbye.

You can listen to the interview in full right here.

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