Latest / DISGRACELAND / The Eagles Pt. 2: Death, a Plane Crash, and Innocence Lost at What Cost

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The Eagles Pt. 2: Death, a Plane Crash, and Innocence Lost at What Cost · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The story of
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the Eagles, their beginnings as a band, their Southern California swagger,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: their unprecedented success, and their abrupt breakup is so complex
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: that two episodes were needed to properly tell this story.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: If you're just tuning in now, I suggest you hit
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: pause and go back to Part one of the Eagles story,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: where we discuss the band's beginnings, their relationship with would
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: be mogul David Geffen, Glenn Fryes, smuggling of acapoca gold
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: in the near Dead Girl in Don Henley's bathroom. In
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: this episode, we get into the band's immeasurable excess, including
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: pranks with private jets overseas, gambling in high speed corvette
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: rides with delirious drug dealers. We of course refused to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: refer to the Eagles as Eagles, just as we do
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in Part one, and we also introduced the band's new
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: ball busting manager, Irving Aza, Fast talking the Eagles out
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of a Bahamian drug bust, And of course, we dive
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: into the soaring success of the band's twenty six times
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: platinum album Hotel California, truly great music. Unlike that music
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I played for you at the top of the show.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: my melotron called Medicated thumb Blister MK one. I played
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Lady by Kenny Rogers. And why would I play you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that specific slice of rejected Commodore Cheese? Could I afford it?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America On
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: November twenty one, nineteen eighty In That was the Knight,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Don Henley rang the paramedics about the underage girl overdosing
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in his bathroom, a girl that was about to be
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: as dead as his band's career. On this episode, private
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Jet pranks, private jet crashes, ball busting managers, so Cal's swagger,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and the masters of life in the Fast name the Eagles.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: In this this Disgraceland.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: You're driving, it's late, your friends are with you in
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: your car. One of the master piss It's annoying to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: have to pull over, but extra annoying because you're so
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: close to home.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Can he wait?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: No, he can't, and he won't shut the fuck up
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: about it. So you pull over. To the side of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the road, a random stretch of road abandoned at this hour.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: You're silly, it's so late, so are your friends, who
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: remain in the car with you. The car idols, your
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: foot on the gas, your friend outside finishes his business,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: shakes himself off, and reappears from the wooded area beside
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the road. In the rear view mirror, you spy your
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: friend coming up to the back seat door from behind
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the car. He's getting closer. He's about to put his
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: hand on the door handle to open it up and
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: jump on in. You quickly put the car in a drive,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: your foot on the gas, and jerk the car forward
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: about fifteen feet. Your friend outside gets the joke, but
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't find it nearly as funny as your friends in
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the back seat, who are cutting up outside. Mister almost
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: pissed his pants trots quickly to the back seat car door. Inside.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Your friends don't even not to say anything. You don't either.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: You all know what is going to happen next. Once
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: mister almost pissed his pants gets to an inch of
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that door, you're gonna gun it again and move the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: car out of reach. And that's exactly what you do now.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Your friend outside is visibly angry, and your friends in
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the back are dying Outside. You hear him tell you
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: to fuck off. You yell back some fake apology and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: a surem it's now cool and out of your system.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Tired annoyed, he doggedly accepts your apology intentatively shuffles back
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: to your car, which is now about thirty feet away
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: from him up the road. Once he gets to the
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: door for the third time, you peel out and leave
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: him with a face full of dust and take off
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: down the road. Mister almost pissed his pants has now
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: mister pissed the fuck off and begins kicking at the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: dirt on the ground and punching randomly in the air
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: while screaming in frustration. It's the funniest thing you and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: your friends have ever seen, and you've seen it a
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: million times. We all have, in movies and in real life.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I myself have pulled this trick on a band member
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: who got so pissed he temporarily quit our band. Didn't matter,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: We're gonna kick him out anyway. I've done this to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: my wife, and my wife has done this to me.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: It's one of the oldest car tricks. In the book,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: but the Eagles. The Eagles pulled this prank not in cars,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: but in private planes at airports, and not just on
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the tarmac. They'd actually make the pilot achieve lift off
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: for a brief moment and then touch back down. Wait,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: allow bassis Randy Meisner or a new guy guitarist Don Felder,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: who joined the band to bring that extra rock and
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: roll additive to Bernie Lennon's country style, and bam. Just
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: when whichever poor sap would reach the plane, the pilot,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: on instructions from the band inside, would take off again
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and again, racking up majorly expensive airport fees with every
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: takeoff and landing. But it didn't matter, such was the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: level of success afforded the Eagles from their first few albums.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Their self titled debut rocketed from number one oh two
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to number twenty two on the Billboard two hundred and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: six weeks and charted three top forty hits, including Witchy Woman,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: which cracked the top ten. Their second album, Desperado, sold
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: modestly by comparison, but regained chart positioning once their third album,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: On the Border was released. Self titled debut had just
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: been certified gold when on the Border yielded more hits,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: their incredibly rocking single already gone at number thirty two,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: but most importantly, their first chart topping number one single,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Best of My Love. The full album On the Border
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: hit number seventeen on the Billboard two hundred and was
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: certified gold in under three months. Their fastest and best
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: selling album yet. The Eagles made taking off into the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: upper stratosphere of the charts look easy. Private planes weren't
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: a problem, but even still, customs agents were to rockers,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: ramblers and gamblers alike, and to the Eagles in nineteen
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: seventy four, who were all three high stakes. Gambling as
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: it was to the Old West characters depicted on the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: cover of their second album, Desperado was a new pastime
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: for the suddenly flush rock and roll band, so in
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the middle of tour they headed to the Bahamas on
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a private jet with new manager Irving Azof. Don't know
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: who Irving Azov is. He's a legend in the business
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: who his bones with the Eagles, at first under David
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Geffen and then on his own. These days, he's a
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: respected elder of statesman of sorts within the music industry.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Not exactly shy or saw spoken in his old age,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: but definitely gentle by comparison to who he was in
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the seventies. This guy not gonna fucking pay my artist
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: played for you, motherfucker, like they fucking agreed to. Where
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the fuck is our money? The promoter quite literally was
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: near shitting his pants. It was a short helicopter ride
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: up for Azof, garbed in his satin tore jacket, glasses
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: and slight afro poking out from under his orange construction
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: helmet which he wore because well, who the hell really knew,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: But regardless, a short ride up for Azof and the helicopter,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: but a long way down for the promoter. If he
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: happened to be thrown out of the helicopter, give me
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the fucking money, shit fuck. The promoter at that point
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: would have given Azof as first born, and that was
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the point irving. Azof got what he wanted, especially for
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: his clients. And when the chopper landed, he's sure as
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: shit at the performance fee the promoter owed him. But
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that was a different time with a different aircraft. Here
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: in the now, at the airport in the Bahamas with
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the eagles, the heat was now on him and not
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: the other way around. Glenn Fry was holding grass in
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: his boot. The rest of the band, with the exception
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: of Don Hemley, was holding too. Irving was even holding
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: thirty value shit, even the pilot was holding. As soon
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: as they got off the plane, customs agents rounded the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: band up and took them off to be searched busted.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Jail was imminent. Bahamian customs officials were notoriously strict, unable
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to be bribed. They said money.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Didn't matter to them.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Somehow, Irving Azov was able to convince them to let
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: him the rest of the band and crew go. They'd
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: give up the dope and operate in the Bahamas under
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the watchful, responsible eye of their drummer Don Henley, the
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: only one among them who wasn't trying to smuggle drugs
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: on to the island. Howarving Azov did it to this day,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: no one really knows. Persuasion confidence the eagles new manager's
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: superpowers not only worked on Behamian customs agents, they worked
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: on the powerful David Geffen as well. As successful as
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the Eagles were over the course of their early career,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: their music industry benefactor and head of their record label,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: David Geffen was even more successful. The same year he
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: launched Asylum Records. In nineteen seventy one, Geffen signed Linda Ronstadt,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell, and of course Glenn Fry. So successful was
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Asylum that by the very next year, in nineteen seventy two,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Records purchased Asylum Records and made David Geffen
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: already a very rich man and even richer man. The
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Eagles record contract was then transferred to Warner Brothers, as
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: was half of their publishing revenue Geffen's half as part
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of the sale. Technically, the publishing was Geffen's to sell.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: The Eagles signed it away to David geh so much
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: for protecting the artists, so much for providing asylum for
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the artists. Regardless, the publishing was Geffen's to sell. It
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: was his again signed over to him from the band
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: as part of their first record contract. But Irving Azof
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: claimed that when the deal was signed, it was signed
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: under all manner of conflicted interests from Asylum label heads,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: business managers, and lawyers who were all allegedly working in
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: concert to come up with contracts that favored the business
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: interests of David Geffen and not his artists, the Eagles.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Irving Azof had Geffen by the balls right where he
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: wanted him, so he put on the squeeze, ensued David
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Geffen to get the Eagles out of their original contract
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and into a more favorable one. David Geffen dug in,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: unwilling to relent. Artists didn't leave David Geffen, and they
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: could check out, but leave never, or so he thought.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Irving Azof thought he was doing the right thing, even
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: if he was completely submarining his and his client's relationship
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: with one of the most powerful men in the music
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: business in the process. If he and the Eagles came
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: out on the losing end, they would have been worse
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: off than before. Incredibly, though, the high stakes gamble paid off.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: David Geffen settled out of courner. Irving Azof stared down
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the Master from inside his chambers. There was a new
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: outlaw in town. Don Hemley said of Irving Azof, he
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: may be Satan, but he's our satan.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: God. Damn.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: The count drove fast. Glenn Fry couldn't blame him. The
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Pacific Coast Highway was built for this seventy five core
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Stingray and the vent blew. Didn't matter that they were
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: holding big time top off ninety miles per hour and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: buco blow in the back seat. Also cash, lots of it.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: The Count was one of Hollywood's most successful drug dealers,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: so lots of coke and cash, and his possession wasn't
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: out of the norm. Glenn Fry wasn't freaked out by that.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: They needed the cash and they needed the coke. They're
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: on their way to a high stakes poker came. What
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: had Glenn freaked out was the speed. Not for fear
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: of crashing, for fear of getting pulled over and popped
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: by highway patrol. The Count wasn't afraid. When you're young,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: good looking, rich, drivi a stingray, I hang out with
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: rock stars, bang models and actresses on the rag and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: are high on blow all the time, you need to
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: push it over the line every now and then in
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: order to feel alive. Otherwise it all just feels normal blah.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: But Glenn Fry was in a different position. He was
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: on top of the world. Life was pretty fucking far
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: from normal. Normal life for Glen Fry was a factory
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: job back in Detroit, an American eight cylinder in the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: garage two point two kids and a pretty but average
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: looking wife who gave you a blowjob once a year
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: on your birthday. Fuck that. He was Glen Fry. He
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: was an Eagle. He counted on blowjobs from different beautiful
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: women on any day that ended with a Y, and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: was seldom disappointed. He was rich, respected, relied on important
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and none of that was going to change anytime soon
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: because he was in a band, a great band, one
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: of the greatest bands on the planet at the moment,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: The Eagles nineteen seventy six. Life was sweet. Why risk
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: losing it? Going one hundred miles per hour on the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: pch with a trunk full of blow The Eagles were
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: on top of the world, and by the mid seventies,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: record sales for the band were so abundant that Warner
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Brothers Records could account for an entire quarter of their
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: financial years balance sheet on revenue from one new Eagles release.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine that one band so successful and important to their
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: record label that their label depended on them to cover
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: an entire quarters balance sheet. It's because people loved the Eagles.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Kids loved the Eagles, parents loved the Eagles, daughters, moms,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: some mother daughter duos went as far as to offer
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: themselves up as a dual sexual treat for the band
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: after they're sold out shows, and boy did their shows
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: sell out stadiums, racetracks, auditoriums crammed with kids whose entire
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: high school careers in the early seventies have been soundtracked
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: by the Eagles. The band's hits blanketed airways because powerful
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: FM radio DJs and programmers also loved the Eagles. Shit,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: even the Eagles loved the Eagles. Glenn Fry and Don
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Henley knew what they had a great fucking band, despite
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: what the critics said, many of whom, especially East Coast critics,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: loathed what they perceived as insipid harmonies and watered down
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Graham Parsons country vibes. But it didn't stop Henley and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Fry in their pursuit of greatness of it. Not the success,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: not the critics, not the grind. The two co leaders
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of the band were on a mission to continuously outdo
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: themselves creatively and commercially, which, given their success, was a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: pursuit made more difficult every time they went to record
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and release a new album. Following the release and success
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: of their third album on the border, they upped Annie
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and became a fivesome by adding hotshit young guitarist Don
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Felder to bring that driving, hard rock and roll vibe
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that the Eagles were missing, and you can hear the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: results immediately on the album's leade off track Already Gone,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: which is in the running as the Eagle's greatest single.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: The song burns off the wax out of the speakers
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and raises America's collective middle finger high in the air,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: out of the sun roof and in the direction of
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: every bullshit lover, overbearing parent, principal, and or authority figure.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: It's the ultimate Kissoff song, and in short, it fucking
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: rocks thanks to Don Felder's guitar playing and Glenn Fry's
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: drived be great because it was Glenn's idea to add
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Bernie Leden's friend Don Felder to the group. The album
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: not surprisingly flew off of shelves and the Eagles burned
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: out on the road, putting in discipline but somehow still rocking.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Now legendary live performances, partying their faces off at night
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and doing it all over and over again. Another album,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: One of these Nights, their first, topped the Billboard two
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: hundred chart came screaming into seventies musical zeitgeist with another
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: trio of top ten hits, Take It to the Limit,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the title track one of These Nights, which went to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: number one, and Lie in Eyes, which won the Grammy
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or a Group
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: with Vocals, and then again The Road After the Road.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: It was tough sledding creatively. Henley and Fry weren't factory workers.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: They had now become experienced creative songwriters and producers, and
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: their experience told them they needed a fucking minute. Warner
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Brothers was left waiting for a new album to follow
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: up These Nights for much longer than they wanted. Their
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: bankers weren't happy, but neither was their board of directors.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: It was decided unilaterally, without input from the band, without
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: input from Don Hemley and Glenn Fry, the leaders of
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the band, that Warner Brothers, in order to save their
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: financial ass in nineteen seventy six, would release the greatest
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Hits album from the Eagles, from a band with only
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: four full length albums, from a band who'd only been
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in existence for four years. So in February nineteen seventy
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: six Their Greatest Hits by the Eagles was released, and predictably,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: it went straight up the charts. More than that, the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: album sold a million copies by the end of its
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: first week of release, becoming the first record to ever
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: receive platinum certification introduced just that year. By nineteen ninety,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the album had sold more than twelve million copies. It
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: is now the highest selling album of all time in America,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: with more than thirty eight million copies sold, selling more
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: than not only Michael Jackson's thriller acdc's Back in Black,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: but more than anything by the Beatles or Elvis Presley
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: as well. So with the rest of nineteen seventy six
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: stretched out perform just like an open road, Glenn Fry
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: needed to top that. But first he needed to not
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: get arrested on the Pacific Coast Highway for going one
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: hundred miles per hour with a drug dealer named the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Count and holding a mountain of cocaine. As the Stingray
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: raced north, its top off, Glenn's long hair blowing in
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the California wind. Glenn turned to the Count and as
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: coolly as possible, said, hey man, they may want to
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: slow down. The Count pushed his foot of a gas
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: pedal to the metal. James Dean be damned. He turned
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to Glenn, smiled and said, what do you mean. It's
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: life in the fast Lane.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this, word, word word.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Life in the fast Lane was the third single off
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: of the eagles next album, Hotel California. It, like the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: rest of the album, was a massive success. The album's
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: title track, Hotel California, set the theme for the rest
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: of the album's set of songs, and as a track,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: its composition would forever set the Eagles apart from their contemporaries.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: As seventies rock bands were pulling hard on the influence
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: of reggae sensation Bob Marley, Eric Clapton with his cover
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: of Marley's Eye Shot, The Sheriff, Paul Simon with Mother
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: and Child Reunion, and most recently, the Rolling Stones with
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Hey Negrita. The Eagles managed to take the reggae influence
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: drafted from the guitar of Don Felder, who now firmly
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: supplanted his pal Bernie Leedden as the band's only lead
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: guitar player, and with Leeden's ousting, made room for Madman
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: guitarist Joe Walsh to ride Shotgun as a rough twin
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: lead player. Felder's Latin style guitar riff for Hotel California
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: inspired a Jamaican groove from Don Henley's drums and Andy
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Meisner's bass, and that groove, along with the song's lyrics
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: penned by Henley and over the top virtuoso guitar playing,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: constituted something entirely unique sounding. Hotel California was a revelation
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the Eagles Stairway to Heaven. It clocked in at six
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and a half minutes, and the record label insisted on
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: an edited version so that radio stations would play it.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: But just as Glenn Fry's real life experience told him
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: that racing down the highway with piles of cocaine was
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: just the right fodder for a hit single, Henley's experience
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: told him that Hotel California was perfect as is and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: not to be fucked with. There would be no edit.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Radio stations would play it as is, all six and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a half minutes of it, and if they wouldn't, it
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: would be their loss. Per usual, the gamble from the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Eagles paid off. The song went to number one on
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the Billboard Hot one hundred, their fourth chart topper. The
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: single sold a million copies in three months and went
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: on to win the Grammy for Record of the Year.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: The Eagles were used to gambling, except now they gambled
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: with experience, and that's what Hotel California.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Was all about.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Experience, the cost of experience, which has lost innocence. He
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: could never go back, and the Eagles, with even more
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: success than they ever imagined, were never going back to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: that place they were before. Joe Walsh didn't understand innocence.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: What he understood was destruction. The chainsaw he wielded inside
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Disaster Towers hotel suite growled. Joe's buddy, Chicago local and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: funniest comedian on the planet at the time, John Belushi,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: howled in delight. Joe took the chainsaw to the bed,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: then to the chair, then the waltz. Belushi's laughter faded away.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Joe Walsh, rock and roll, chainsaw slinging, hotel destroying lunatic
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: on the outside, was cowering on the inside. The violent
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: grind of his weapon was silenced by the voices in
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: his head. From down the corridor. They taunted him in
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: perfect harmony. He'd never be able to do what they
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: were doing. All he was good for was destruction or
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: perhaps a good laugh. Belushi, the funniest dude on the planet,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: thought so. At least that had account for something, right.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: But comedy wasn't why he was in this. He was
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in this for the music to be one of the greats.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Glenn and Henley, they were great. Joe Walsh knew this,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and it fucking tore him up inside, so he tore
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the world up on the outside, one hotel room at
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a time. Checkout was at eleven. But what did it matter.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Joe knew he could never really leave. He'd be right
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: back here in the same place tomorrow night. That's the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: thing with hotel rooms. You see enough of them, and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: they all look the same. The same goes for fans audiences.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: They're all the fucking same.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Might as well get blotto ball, laugh and destroyed and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: cut the world into little pieces so you can try
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to put it back together and make sense of it all.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: He was a fucking side man. It's all didn't matter
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: how mad they went for Rocky Mountain wage night, it
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: was the Glenn and Hemley show. Joe couldn't compete with
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: those songs. Those harmonies, that confidence that greas the voices
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: told himself more than the chainsaw. God damn, they sun
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: it so fucking good. They scared him, and Joe was
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: scaring Belushi, which was saying something. Belushi stopped laughing. Joe
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: had gone ballistic. He was lost, thrashing about the room
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: with the chainsaw, screaming. It was cathartic, it was paink
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Belushi saw it. Joe saw the look in Belushi's eyes,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the fear, the pity. Fuck this. Joe dropped the chainsaw,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: grabbed the television, hurled it through the window of the
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: fourteenth floor sweet He just destroyed and waited for the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: sound of the bottom, which is where the Eagles were headed. Remarkably,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: despite the success of Hotel California, which as a full album,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: had gone platinum in a week, just like their Greatest
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Hits album had prior, and it topped the Billboard two
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: hundred for eight weeks, total, selling nearly six million copies
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: in its first year, Long Time Bassis, the only non
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: alpha in the group, Randy Meisner was out. He couldn't hang.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: He did the beta bounce and fucked off to Saint Elsewhere.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: He was replaced by another Poco Bassis Timothy B. Schmidt,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: who finally landed his dream gig and promptly made his
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: presence known by writing and recording what is possibly the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Eagle's greatest song, I Can't Tell You Why. On their
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Hotel California follow up, The Long Run, Glenn Fry sunk
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: into deeper cocaine use, doing so much of the drug
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that he had to have his septums surgically repaired twice,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the second time with surgeons installing teflon to replace his
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: mucous membranes. Glenn was a mess, and Don Felder, for one,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: was sick of it. The two nearly came to blows
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: on stage, and the result was Felder splitting the band.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: It was all enough to nearly spin the normally controlled
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Don Henley out of control. Here they were the fucking Eagles,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: at the top of their game, at the end of
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: a decade that they owned five number one hits, the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: biggest selling album of the last ten years, able to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: sell out any stadium in the country, enough record royalties
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: to retire four times, over nine Grammy nominations and four
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Grammy Awards. Greatness by any measure finally achieved, but somehow
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: they were never so low. Somehow the greatness they sought.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Had destroyed them. The eagles were over. October nineteen eighty.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Don Henley's eagles were broken up, and Don Henley was
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: racing for his life back to that place he was before,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: trying to get there anyway. Pilot of his leared jet
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: misjudged the landing en Aspen. The altitude had a mall
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: out of sorts. The jet ripped after Nordway after.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Touching down at over sixty miles per hour. Fear had
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Henley and his girlfriend on the plane with him gripped.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Cheap headlines flashed across his sideline. Eagle Don Henley crashes
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: to his death. It offended the well read English major
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: in his girl screamed. The plane of grost through a fence,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: then tore through a cow pasture, then out of the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: pasture and onto jagged earth that peeled back the bottom
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: of the plane below them. Henley worried about the gas tank,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a spark an explosion, another cheap headline. Eagle Don Henley
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: fires himself, plane explodes. He looked out the window and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: saw the co pilot out of the plane, sprinting across
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the cow pasture. He looked ahead to the cockpit. The
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: pilot was frantically trying to slow the plane, but to
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: no avail. They were headed for a collision, a spark
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: an explosion. Don Henley gripped the emergency door as the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: plane continued to roll and ripped it off. His girl
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: dove out first. She landed face first on a boulder.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Henley jumped from the moving plane next landed, picked his
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: girl up, and the two began to sprint away from
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the plane, Faster over the barbed wire fence, faster through
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the cow pasture, faster still over the boulders, faster away
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: from the now burning record of the plane and net.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Don Henley made it out alive, literally and figuratively, out
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of the records of the plane crash, out of the Seventies,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: and out of the Eagles, but he barely survived himself.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: The excess of the nineteen seventies spilled over like a
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: deluge into nineteen eighty. It truly was the end of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the innocence for Henley as well as for the rest
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: of the Eagles, and nothing illustrated it more than the
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: dying girl in nineteen eighty getting caught with a teenage
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: sex worker half dead on your floor wasn't enough to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: derail your career In the decades that followed, though the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: incident would haunt him. When report asked, Don Henley developed
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: a standard response that he'd selflessly taken the rap for
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: everyone else at the party, for the coke, for the grass,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: for the ludes, and that he didn't have sex with
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: those girls, and that he didn't give them the drugs.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Of course, he didn't know they were underage, went the response,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and the journalists who asked those questions most shrugged and smiled,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and that was that. After all, nobody died right at
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the end of the day. What are the cops given
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Don Henley anyway? A two thousand dollars fine and two
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: years of probation. How bad could it have been, they wondered.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: But while the press swarmed, Don Henley took it in stride,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: channeling his angst into a number three solo single, Dirty Laundry,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a highlight of an impressive solo career for the Texas
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Eagle that included other top ten hits like All She
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Wants to Do Is Dance, The End of the Innocence,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: and the stone Cold classic The Boys of Summer and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: these latter two also want a Rockmail Vocalist Grammys. Glen
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: thrived as a solo artist as well, with two hits
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: that reached number two, The Heat Is On from the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Beverly Hills cop soundtrack and You Belonged to the City,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: one of two tracks he contributed to the smash hit
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: TV show that defined the nineteen eighties, Miami Wes, a
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: show he himself would appear on. The eighties worked out
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: fine for Henley and Fry, so much so that when
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: they finally reunited with band members Don Felder, Joe Walsh,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and Timothy B. Schmidt in nineteen ninety four, it didn't
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: seem so much like a reunion as it did or reconvening.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: They had simply made music for a decade, took the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: next decade off, but benefited from classic rock radio playing
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: their hits constantly. It was like they never left and
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: then picked up their instruments two decades removed right where
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: they left off. It wasn't that easy, of course. They
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: named the resultant live album The Hell Freezes Over for
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a reason, but pretty much Joe Walsh needed to kick,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: blow and booze after tearing ass across his own personal
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: rock bottom for the entirety of the eighties. Don Felder
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: needed to be convinced to some degree. Timothy B. Schmidt
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: needed no convincing. He was right back where he was
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: born to be. Randy Meisner and Bernie Letten weren't invited
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to rejoin the regrouped Eagles their time had passed, but
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: they were invited to join the Eagles at their induction
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in nineteen
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: ninety eight, and deservedly so. The Hell Freezes Over album
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: hit the Billboard charts at number one with a bullet
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and sold six million copies in the US. The band
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: continued touring throughout the nineties, and in the year two thousand,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: they followed up with a box set Selected Works nineteen
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: seventy two to nineteen ninety nine. It was another certified
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: platinum album. In two thousand and one, Don Felder quit
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: or was fired, depending on which band member you listened to,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: ensued the band over wrongful termination and breach of fiduciary duty,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: claiming the band used to split profits evenly, but that
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Henley and Fry had taken a larger cut ever since
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: they reunited. Henley and Frye counter seed that Felder broke
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: contract by writing a tell all memoir, but all charges
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: were dismissed in two thousand and seven after they settled
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: out of court. Glen fry died unexpectedly in twenty sixteen
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of complications from pneumonia, alterative colitis, and rheumatoid arthritis, with
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: which he had struggled quietly for years. Joe Walsh remains
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: in the Eagles alongside Don Hemley, and the band is
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: still touring, still alive, sort of, and no doubt still
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: chasing that greatness, albeit it was only one original band member.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: But like most surviving rock and roll bands, particularly those
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: from that heady golden era California in the nineteen seventies,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: that era of endless cocaine groupies, money, excess beyond anyone's
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: wildest dreams, all the innocence is gone. It's been replaced,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of course, by experience. Experience that kept the Eagles alive
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: in the long run, but very nearly grounded them in Disgrace.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
• 32:24
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• 32:27
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• 32:30
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• 32:33
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• 32:51
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• 32:54
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• 32:58
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• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Rock and Roller.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: He's a bad, bad man.