Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 407] Eagles: Inside the Chaotic Making of Hotel California with Sean Egan

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[EP 407] Eagles: Inside the Chaotic Making of Hotel California with Sean Egan · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Enormous success, but also enormous cocaine usage. The thing about cocaine,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: it makes you extremely egotistical. The Eagles, certainly Fry and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Henley were already, shall we say, not exactly modest people.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe they had good cause for their immodesty. They were
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: hugely talented and hugely successful. But you've got the combination
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of their lack of modesty, their cocaine usage, their rivalry
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  Speaker 1: for the dominance of the band that's only going to
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  Speaker 1: end in tears.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Were totally bombed in rock and roll.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I leave you with your reading little hands.
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  Speaker 2: This it's time to rock and roll.
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  Speaker 3: We totally booked.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Booked on Rock conversations with authors, musicians
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: and insiders revealing the stories behind classic rocks, greatest songs, albums,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and artists. If you enjoy the show and you'd like
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: to support it, you can send it for the book
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: down Rock Backstage pass on Patreon for just five dollars
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a month, get every episode commercial free and before everybody else.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Just use the link of the show notes or visit
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: bookdonrock dot com. Now onto our show. A few albums
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: have captured the promise. Excess and Dark undercurrent of nineteen
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: seventies California quite like the Eagles Hotel California. In his
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  Speaker 2: new book, Eagles and Hotel California fifty Years, veteran rock
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  Speaker 2: historian Sean Egan explores the turbulent making of this landmark record,
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  Speaker 2: the stories behind its songs, and the enduring mythology that
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  Speaker 2: continues to surround it. Welcome back to the podcast, Seawan.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, how are you doing.
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing great? You contrast the Beach Boys California of
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: optimism and innocence with the Eagles California of disillusionment and
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the morning after the nineteen sixties party. Do you see
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  Speaker 2: Hotel California as the end of the California Dream or
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  Speaker 2: as an attempt to expose the darker truth that was
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  Speaker 2: always beneath it? It was.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It's a slightly confused project. It is sort of a
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  Speaker 1: concept album, although not every track on the album is
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  Speaker 1: about the concept, and people can raise caveats such as
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  Speaker 1: the album seems to be more about Los Angeles rather
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  Speaker 1: than California per se. But yeah. The creative fulcrum of
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  Speaker 1: the Eagles, which was Glen Fry and Don Henley, they
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: had this idea about the disillusion of America and the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Western world. I guess posts the nineteen sixties. It's slightly confused,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it's slightly inco hat, but you've got to give credit
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to them because people depict the rock aristocracy as it
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: were pre punk, as being very complacent and uninterested in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: addressing social issues. But they decided to to address what
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: interested in them and what concerned them, and whether you
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  Speaker 1: agree with it or not, you can't say that they
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  Speaker 1: were actually doing anything other than the gazing at their
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  Speaker 1: belly buttons.
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  Speaker 2: The making of the album was often chaotic, but the
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  Speaker 2: finished album sounds incredibly polished. Did the Eagles perfectionism did
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: that help hold the band together or did it create
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: even more tension both?
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  Speaker 3: I think. I mean.
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  Speaker 1: The thing is the album was delayed because their manager,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Irving Azof, was notoriously fond of brinkmanship, and when he
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: found out that ACE, or nine percent of all profits
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: made by Asylum Electra, their record company, derived from Eagles Records,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: he realized what an incredible bargaining hand he had, so
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: he was trying to get them a better deal. They
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: didn't have a bad deal, but he wanted to make
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: it better. And I guess that's legitimate considering how important
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: they'd become to the label, but that caused delay in
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the recording. He told them not to go into the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: recording studio until he sorted all of that out. And
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  Speaker 1: they also had a new member, Joe Walsh, who they
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: had to break in, so they were still touring at
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the same time as they were recording this new album,
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  Speaker 1: which you might imagine doesn't lend itself to great creativity
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and productivity, but with the Eagles, they somehow seemed to
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  Speaker 1: thrive on that. So, yeah, it was chaotic, but the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: proof of the pudding is in the eating. And if
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  Speaker 1: you listen to that album, it doesn't sound chaotic at all.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds absolutely seamless.
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  Speaker 2: What's interesting is none of the original Eagles were from California,
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  Speaker 2: yet they became known as the quintessential California band. Did
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  Speaker 2: being outsiders help help them see the state differently musicians
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  Speaker 2: who may have grown.
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  Speaker 1: Up there, Yeah, I think if you're not from somewhere,
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  Speaker 1: it does give you a different perspective than people who
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  Speaker 1: just grow up within that milieu. I mean, to people
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  Speaker 1: in California, the name Hollywood doesn't actually mean what it
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: means to all of us who didn't grow up in
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  Speaker 1: California know, Hollywood is just an iconic, an iconic locale,
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  Speaker 1: and it's almost inconceivable that somehow there could exist a
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  Speaker 1: real place called Hollywood. But of course somebody from California,
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  Speaker 1: Hollywood is somewhere that they drive through on the way
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  Speaker 1: to a restaurant. So yeah, I think that did give
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  Speaker 1: or the Eagles a different perspective, And maybe some Californians
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't agree with that perspective, but it certainly does make
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  Speaker 1: for an interesting point of view.
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  Speaker 3: You right.
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  Speaker 2: The nineteen seventy three's Desperado mark the point when Glenn
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  Speaker 2: Fryn Don Henley began taking control of the band. Did
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: that leadership help make the Eagles better, even though a
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  Speaker 2: created tension with Bernie Lennen and Randy Meisner?
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean you can't really argue with the
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  Speaker 1: art that they produced. It wasn't although Henley and Fry,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: it's spelled Frey, but it's pronounced Fry. Although they were
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  Speaker 1: a team, they weren't like a Lennona McCartney or a
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  Speaker 1: Jagger and Richard. They didn't write exclusively with each other.
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  Speaker 1: They wrote in various combinations with the other members of
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  Speaker 1: the band as well. But what they did do is
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  Speaker 1: they took control of the overall direction of the Eagles
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  Speaker 1: and their concepts such like, So they did become the
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  Speaker 1: creative axis of the band in that sense. And yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they took the Eagles in the direction they wanted them
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  Speaker 1: to go. Desperado was a concept album about the wild
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  Speaker 1: West and the alleged similarity between cowboys and outlaws and
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  Speaker 1: modern day rock stars. Slightly fatuous similarly, and they later
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  Speaker 1: admitted at that, but it made for an interesting album.
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  Speaker 1: And then they gradually took the Eagles into more of
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  Speaker 1: a rock direction because they started out as a country
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  Speaker 1: rock artist that they sort of jumped on that bandwagon
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  Speaker 1: and come up with quite an air brushed and ultra
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  Speaker 1: commercial variant of it. But then they decided quite cold
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  Speaker 1: bloodedly that the only way that they were going to
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  Speaker 1: fill stadiums was to become more of a rock and
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: roll band, so they added Don Felder as a second guitarist,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: and Felder actually turned out to be very, very crucial
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  Speaker 1: to Hotel California, especially in the title track.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely came over with that opening and Joe Walsh
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  Speaker 2: as well, and you described his arrival as both a
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  Speaker 2: risk in a declaration of intent. The sacrificed some of
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  Speaker 2: Bernie Lennen's vocal purity and country influence for a harder
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  Speaker 2: rock sound. As you say, was Joe the final ingredient
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  Speaker 2: that made Hotel California or as a feather?
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  Speaker 1: I think both of them, and of course they combined
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: beautifully on the guitar solo of Hotel California, which is
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  Speaker 1: regularly voted the greatest guitar solo of all time, This beautiful,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: unending twin guitar solo. The thing about Joe Walsh is
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: that when he joined, people were actually asking whether this
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: was the end of the Eagles, because they'd made four
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: albums together and they lost a member. And when Joe
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Walsh was added, replacing Bernie Leadon, who was much more
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  Speaker 1: country oriented and sort of aggrieved that they were moving
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: to a pure rock sound. When Joe Walsh was added,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: it was quite an odd choice because he was a
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  Speaker 1: solo artist, very rock oriented. But more importantly I guess
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  Speaker 1: he was quite an irreverent character, and that the Eagles,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: wonderful artists though they were, they were quite a solemn
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  Speaker 1: live act, and to have this clown on stage a
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  Speaker 1: great musician, but a bit of a buffoon as well.
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  Speaker 1: People were questioning that, and if you look at press
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  Speaker 1: of the time, there were people saying, well, have the
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  Speaker 1: Eagles come to the end?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: I think it wasn't his nickname the clown Prince of
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  Speaker 2: rock and roll Joe was.
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  Speaker 3: I think he had many nicknames, some of them one principal.
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  Speaker 1: He's one of the last rock and roll head in
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  Speaker 1: this somebody who would go through a hotel wall with
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a chainsaw simply because he could. And of course he
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  Speaker 1: wrote an entire song about it, called Life's Being Good,
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  Speaker 1: which some people thought it was a parody of a brainless,
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  Speaker 1: destructive rock star, but actually it was pretty much auto biographical.
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  Speaker 2: The Eagles describe Or to California as being about the
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  Speaker 2: death of the dream and the darker side of la
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  Speaker 2: but they rarely explained exactly what they meant, and I
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  Speaker 2: always wondering were the intentionally creating mystery or were they
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  Speaker 2: themselves trying to figure out the album's meaning as they
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  Speaker 2: make the album.
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  Speaker 1: I think they were. I think it was a little
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  Speaker 1: bit vague in their heads. But basically at the time,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and this is half a century ago now, but it
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: was quite a big issue the way that the westward expansion,
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  Speaker 1: as it were, manifest destiny had somehow led to, you know,
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  Speaker 1: these sprawling conturbations, the way that the suburbs were spreading
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  Speaker 1: out and despoiling the land and all that kind of
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  Speaker 1: thing and turning a beautiful natural environment into something quite ugly.
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  Speaker 1: That was a big issue at the time. It's sort
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  Speaker 1: of been forgotten the cause because now that's been and
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  Speaker 1: gone and done. It's a done deal, as it were.
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  Speaker 1: But Don Henley, the drummer stroke songwriter, has always been
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  Speaker 1: concerned with ecological issues. So and of course there's also
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  Speaker 1: this thing about these nineteen seventies that it was the
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  Speaker 1: overhang of the sixties and people were wondering where all
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the idealism had gone. And I think those two things
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  Speaker 1: combined in his head. Basically he saw that society it
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to be going in a positive direction. And
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: then the seventies was a very ulserous time as well,
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  Speaker 1: with the Opec oil crisis and all these background problems.
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  Speaker 1: So although it's not a completely coherent Cotton said, you
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  Speaker 1: can kind of understand the vibe, namely that society seems
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  Speaker 1: to be moving in a depressing direction.
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  Speaker 2: A really interesting comparison you make Henley's dominance of Hotel California,
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  Speaker 2: you compared to John Lennon's dominance of A Hard Day's Night.
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  Speaker 2: How much tension did that create with the others in
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  Speaker 2: the band? I mean, this was probably the closest he
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  Speaker 2: came to really leading the band during the Fray era, right, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, apart from the.
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  Speaker 1: Song written by Randy Meisner, which he sang, and the
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  Speaker 1: song written by Joe Walsh, which he sang, Henley sang
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  Speaker 1: all of the rest of the songs apart from New
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  Speaker 1: Kid in Town. So he was really basically dominating the album.
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  Speaker 1: And you just have to wonder, you know, how Glenn
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Frye was thinking about that. Although they were colleagues, they're
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  Speaker 1: like all great collaborators, they were also rivals. But you
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  Speaker 1: have to hand it to Donnie. He was a real
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: renaissance man. He was a drummer, he was a singer,
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  Speaker 1: He could compose. So although he rested control of the
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  Speaker 1: band away from fry can anybody really say it was
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: a wrong move, especially considering the sales levels of Hotel California.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, in retrospect, also look at what Henley did as
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: a solo artist compared to fright, right, I mean it
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  Speaker 2: speaks for itself.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they were both successful in the eighties
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  Speaker 1: after the Eagles split, but you can't help making that
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  Speaker 1: cruel comparison. The Henley up with one of the best
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: records of the eighties, the Boys of Summer, and you
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: have to say that when Glenn Fryer put out Sexy Girl,
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  Speaker 1: it was immediately recognizable as one of the worst records
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  Speaker 1: of the eighties. So yeah, that that it does seem,
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  Speaker 1: you know, wonderful a talent though Glenn Frye is, and
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  Speaker 1: he's he's an underrated piano player as well, which not
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: many people ever mention. It does seem that Henley really
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: ascended to a to a higher level. The funny thing is,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of course that on the first album he was very
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: hesitant that I think there's just one song by him
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a co write on the first Eagles album, and it
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: took him a while for him to get into his
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  Speaker 1: stride as a writer.
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  Speaker 2: I wonder if the guys of the band saw the
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: irony in the fact that the Eagles are making an
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: album warning about excess and life at the top, well
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: assuming cocaine and pursuing celebrity romances flying between concerts and
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: all night recording sessions. Did they recognize that irony, that
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: they're becoming characters inside their own contents?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean they didn't exclude themselves from the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: sort of observation stroke condemnation of decadence in American society.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: You can pick that out more from interviews rather than
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: from the album, because you're not exactly going to write
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: a song saying we're terrible people, We're very decadent, although
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Life in the Fast Lane comes pretty close to make
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: in that statement.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Sehn Egan, the author of Eagles and Hotel California fifty years.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: So let's get to the tracks. You call the title
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: track a true group creation. Don Felder supplied the music
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: when Fry envisioned the setting. Don Henley wrote most of
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the lyrics, and Felder and Walsh deliver that guitar solo
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: that you talk about. It's an amazing climax to the song.
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  Speaker 2: Does that challenge the idea that the Eagles were mainly
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: the Fry Henley Show.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they never were purely the Fry Henley Show,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: although you knows, as in all bands, there are a
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: couple of people who if they weren't in the band,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: people would say, well, that's not really the Eagles or
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the Beatles or the Stones or what have you. You know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: The Stones was never about Mick and Keith exclusively. But
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: if the Stones went on the road without one or
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: both of those two, then people would say, well, that's
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: a counterfeit rolling Stones. So, fairly or unfairly, Fry and
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Henley came to be perceived as the Eagles, but they were.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: They were always more than those two members. And the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: title track of Hotel California is a perfect example. Starts
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: out with with some noodling, some playing around with a
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: backing track that Don Felder was doing. It was a
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: nice sunny day, he was playing with his kids beside
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the swimming pool. He'd break off from that and lay
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: down some ideas. He had a melody. He added a
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: perfunctory char char rhythm with a with a primitive machine,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and he sent that as part of a cassette with
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a few other ideas to to Henley and Fry. And
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Fry interestingly enough, listen to this track and he said,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: this could be about the fantasy of California. I can
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: see this guy driving down the Desert Highway at night
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: in a convertible and seeing the lights of l a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: way off on the horizon. It's an interesting interesting that
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: he had that vision. A doubt of you or I
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: anyone else would would listen to this backing track and
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and take this flight of imagination like that. But so
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Fry had this idea, and Henley just ran with that
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and came out with this incredible, spooky, eerie lyric. It's
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: like a Edgar Allan Poe short story. It's like an
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: episode of the Twilight Zone. And he's got some genuinely
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: eerie lion and the most famous one of which, of
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: course is you can check out any time you like,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: but you can never leave.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: And then the coup de gras.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Of course, was was Felder and Walsh coming up with
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: this guitar solo, which was actually pretty much on the
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: cassette tape that Felder originally devised, and in fact, Henley,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: who was quite anal about this kind of thing, he
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: insisted that he replicated exactly so his wife, Felder's wife
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: had to play it to them down the telephone line
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: because Felder couldn't remember several months later what he played,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: but wonderful guitar solo, the absolute cherry on the cake
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: of that recording, and it's just an absolutely timeless classic.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: You know, it's one of those things like Won't Get
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Fulled Again by the Who, or Gimme Shell to Buy
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the Stones, or Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. As soon as
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: you hear it, you know this isn't one of the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: all time epic rock recordings.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I never thought about this. I've listened to
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: the song so many times, but you point out something interesting.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: The chorus appears only twice during a six and a
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: half minute song. How unusual was that for such a
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: massive hit, And talk about how that you feel it
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: gives that song and almost avant gardefield.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a very very unusual song. It's
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: over six minutes long. It's got a minimum repetition of
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the chorus and the guitar solo, the instrumental break that
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: is right at the end, it's not in the middle.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So that is in no way a conventional recording. And
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: of course the incredible thing is it was released as
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a single uncut and made it to number one in America.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: New Kid in Town that can be heard as a
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: story about romantic jealousy, the music industry's fear of being replaced,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: or an agent gunfighter facing a younger rival. Did the
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Eagles intentionally leave it open so listeners could connect it
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: to their own fears of being replaced?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they could see the ambiguity in the soul. So
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: new Kid in Town JD. Salvo, who was a friend
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: of theirs, he suggested the cowboy element, and then the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: new Kid in Town. Different verses can be interpreted in
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: different ways. Is it about a new sort of star
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: in the rock and roll firmin and all the critics
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: that guy in wild about them? And then other verses,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: It couldn't possibly be about that, and it sounds more
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: like about some lovely young beauty who everybody takes a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: shine to a on a social scene. So yeah, they
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: did deliberately leave it ambiguous and is something that can
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: be interpreted several different ways, and none of those interpretations
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: would necessarily be wrong, even though they might contradict each other.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Life in the Fast Lane is the next track, and
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: you describe it as a portrait of a doomed couple
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: in a moment of self recognition. For the Eagles, what
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: makes its arrangements such a great example of the band's
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: abilities and producer Bill Simsic's skill.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Well, it started out as a riff from Joe Walsh.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: He only got one songwriting credit on the album, which
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: was pretty Maids All in a Row, which he actually
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: co wrote with Joe Vitale. But new Kid in Town
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: he sorry, not new Kid in Town. Life in the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Vast Lane. He came up with that wonderful, grimy guitar
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: riff right that runs through it. It was Fry who
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: had the experience of that led to the title phrase
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: because he was in a car with a drug dealer
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: known as the Count, and he begged him to slow down,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and the Count responded, what do you mean? This is
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: life in the fast lane? And he and Henley came
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: up with a lyric it's not The lyric is not
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: actually about the Count or that car journey, but yeah,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: he is about this, this this dysfunctional relationship. And the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: interesting thing about the music is it sounds brutal. You
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: almost sound feel like you're standing on the side of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: a freeway with all the cars wushing past and grit.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Going in your eye.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: You know it's and it's surrounded by all this unlovely,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: brutal concrete and yeah, at the same time, it's a wonderful,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: compelling recording.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Wasted time. So you described the narrator as self pitying, presumptuous,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and condescending, yet you praise the music. So talk about
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: why you believe the song reaches its full potential in
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: the instrumental reprise that open side too.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean wasted time.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: It is sort of about Lourie Rodkin, who Henley was
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: romantically involved with for a while. She's a designer, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: they split up, and he wrote this song about the relationship,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: which is not unusual in popular music, cannot even necessarily unfair,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: but he described his time with her as wasted time. Well,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: we all know that there's no such thing. If you
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: have a relationship and it goes wrong, then you learn
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: from that relationship. You learn that maybe you weren't meant
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to be with such a person, and that the next
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: partner you try to find should have different qualities. You
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: might even learn that maybe your own behavior wasn't necessarily
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: that admirable. Although I'm not sure that Don at that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: stage in his life did have the ability to appreciate
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: something like that. I think he acquired a little bit
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: more self quiticism when he got older. But he writes
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: this song wasted time. It's an epic or chstral track.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: You know, it's absurd in a way because although relationships
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: are import to all of us, of course, he seems
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: to think that he's the only person who's ever been
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: through such an experience, and he elevates it almost to
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the level of a weld shattering event. And for those reasons,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't quite work.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: It doesn't have.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Pathos, and we end up, i think, really sympathizing with
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: his estrange lover rather than the narrator of the song.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: But that closes side one of the album. On side
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: two there's a reprise of the song, but it's got
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: no lyric. It's just an instrumental reprise with classical strings,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and that is actually quite a sweet piece of music.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So if you can divorce that from your knowledge of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the fact that it derives from this petty and silly
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: and at the same time sadly grandiose song preceding it,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: then you can enjoy it on that level.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we should give credit to to the orchestration that was.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Put together by Jim ed Norman.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, Jim ed Norman beautiful arrangement, and then it goes
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: into Victim of Love, which is interesting because it was
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: recorded live in the studio in one take, which makes
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: it an exception on such a carefully constructed album. Don
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Felder believed he should sing it because it began as
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: his song, but the band decided his vocals weren't strong enough.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Manager Irving Azof takes Felder to dinner to explain that
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Henley would sing it instead. Was replacing Felder with Don
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Henley The right musical decision or the way it was
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: handled revealed something about the band's power.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Structure, probably both, because Henley is a wonderful singer. I
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: think Felder did actually later admit that, you know, Henley
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: really delivered a beautiful vocal which he wouldn't have been
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: capable of according to According to Fry, Felder had dozens
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of attempts at coming up with a vocal that came
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: up to scratch. But the I think, you know Felder,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I think he was unhappy at the way that it
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: was broken to him. But then again it is there
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: is there a nice way to say, sorry, mate, you're
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: not up to scratch vocally, But again you've got to
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you got to judge it by the recording, and it's
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: difficult to imagine that recording being improved upon in that sense.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Like many listeners, I assumed pretty Meds on a Row
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: referred to the women waiting the stage at Eagles concerts groupies.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: But you explain it that it's really a reflection on
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Joe's life. Talk about that. How much was the song
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: informed by the tragic death of his young daughter as well?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't think it was directly informed by it,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: but you can hear a certain melancholy and sorrow and
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: hankering for days of innocence, so I think it must
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: have informed it, even if subliminally. But it's an interesting
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: song because you know, Joe Walsh is such a rock
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and roll head in this kind of figure that everybody
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: was expecting him to come up with some kind of
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: some kind of anthem, maybe even a song like Life's
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Been Good, which he later came out with, But no,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: he came out with this very wistful song. And it's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: very good that such a song we're you know, suffused
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: with such innocence should be on this album. And the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: same with Randy Meisner's Try and Love Again, because you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: just imagine that album without those two songs, it would
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: be a very cynical, loveless album. But because those two
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: songs are on there, there's a there's a it really
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: broadens the the album spiritually. There's a there's a vulnerability,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and there's an innocence, and there's a there's a sort
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: of good naturedness that you know, regardless of how wonderful
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the other songs can be, you wouldn't characterize them in
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: those terms.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really enjoy listening to these two tracks back
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: to back. You don't hear them on the radio at all,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: so it's always nice to listen to them. And misers
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Try and Love Again about his disintegrating marriage, and you
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: talk about Henley an Wash helping him to create it
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: without them taking credit. So, given the accusations that Frian
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Henley could quote unquote change a word and gain a third,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: what does this instance reveal about how songwriting, credit and
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: power actually operated within the Eagles.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Well, bands are complicated, aren't they. I mean you could
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: you could say, oh I think you could should change
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that chord there, and it changes the whole dynamic of
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: a song and the whole mood of a song, and
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: you can you can claim that you should get fifty
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: percent of the royalties for that. And sometimes, you know,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: because it is a band, it is a collective, sometimes
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: people will make a contribution and think nothing of it
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: and it wouldn't even occur to them to demand publishing
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: royalties or creditation. So, you know, it's so difficult in
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the environs of a studio and the hot house atmosphere
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: of making an album, especially an album that had to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: be ready for the Christmas market as this one did. Yeah,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: so it's very difficult to adjudicate on that and say, well,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: this person was ripped off or this person is just paranoid.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: But yeah, you hear.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Different stories about Fryon Henley, about their generosity and also
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: about their greed. So maybe all balances.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Out now that final track and you write the Eagles
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: they may have wanted to begin and end the album
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: with grand statements, much like The Stones did with Let
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: a Bleed and Bob Dylan with Highway sixty one revisited.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Many fans love the Last Resort, but you're critical of
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: parts of its lyrics. Why do you think it falls short?
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Well, I just.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Don't think it's I think it's a bit lazy. Actually,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: it's they were making a grand statement, and it was
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a grand statement about the dispoilment of the land and
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: which was all tied in with this westward Hoe mentality,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the manifest destiny and all that. But the trouble is,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: although Henley actually did a lot of research for the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: for the lyric, he really really worked hard on it.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you've got you've got couples like somebody laid
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the mountains low while the tie while the town got high.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's not exactly great poetry. And when you
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: think that Hotel California, the actual song is great poetry
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: without any shadow of a doubt. You just it seems
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: incredible that it came from from the same author, and
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that there's another terrible couple of I'm calling them couplets
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: even though they don't rhyme. But here's there's a couple
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: of lines put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Jesus people bought them. I mean, that's just that's just
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: teenage stuff, it seems to me.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we know what the album did as far
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: as chart success, album sales, I mean, just massive success.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: One Grammy I believe it was nominated for Album of
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: the Year. I think Rumors ended up winning, but they
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: got a Record of the Year with New Kid in Town,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: and it just obviously it was a It was just
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: a commercial juggernaut. But they were also plans to turn
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: it into a film, but it fell apart after a
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: meeting with producer Julia Phillips. Do you think the main
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: problem was the legal and the personal conflict, or was
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: done Henley unwilling to let someone else interpret the song.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: There's conflicting stories about that. The The thing is, if
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: you look at the early the original sleeves of the album,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a funny little caveat copyright in dispute.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Now that's a very weird thing to appear on an album,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: but that was down to the brinkmanship that I mentioned
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: earlier by Irving Azof. There was this unresolved legal action
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: against against the record company. It's been estimated at ten
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: million dollars. By the way, I think I said earlier
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: that they may have been responsible for eight or nine
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: percent of their income, but that that had balloon to
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: fifty seven percent of the record company's income. They were
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: massively important to their record label, and which is why
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: even though copyright was in dispute, even though there was
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: an unresolved ten million dollar legal action, they Electra Asylum
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: still decided to put out Hotel California. They wouldn't have
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: done that with any other act. They just wouldn't have
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: taken that chance. But they just assumed these people are
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: going to sell so many records that somehow or other
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: will still make money from it regardless of the outcome
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of this case, of this dispute. But apparently, or it's
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: been alleged that when Julia Phillips realize what that little
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: sleeve caveat meant, she got cold feet about it. But
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: then again, Don Henley was such a control freak that
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: people who knew him said it was absolutely unlikely or
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: inconceivable that he would seed the control in the concept
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: that you would have to seed to Hollywood in order
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: for a film to be made.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Now we're in a time when these biopics are big.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe it'll revisit that idea. It's never too late. It'd
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: be great to see. And so the movie was going
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: to be on the song itself, not the album, or
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: maybe a little of both.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure it reached a stage where they
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: knew precisely what it would constitute. The thing is that
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Hotel California. The song it does feel like a movie
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: start to finish, but it doesn't really have a three
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: arc structure or anything like that. It just has that
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: sort of movie on Beyonce. So although it felt like
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: something to Julia Phillips, and she knew what she was
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: talking about, she was a very successful producer. She'd just
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: done Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's one of
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: those things where I think would have had to have
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: been expanded and the concept more fully thought through in
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: order to turn it into a screenplay.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: What could have been? You described the firing of longtime
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: road manager Richie Fernandez as a turning point for the Eagles.
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Did their enormous success begin to pull the band apart?
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: Were they becoming prisoners of their own device?
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Just as a song orn enormous success but also enormous
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: cocaine usage. The thing about cocaine, and I've never taken it,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: so I'm just going by what other people say about it.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: It makes you extremely egotistical. Now, the Eagles, certainly Fry
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: and Henley were already shall we say not exactly modest people,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and maybe they had a good cause for their immodesty.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: They were hugely talented and hugely successful. But you got
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the combination of their lack of modesty, their cocaine usage,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: their rivalry for the dominance of the band. Well, that's uh,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: that's only going to end in tears. And this was
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: of course the most decadent time in the history of
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: rock music. They were they were out on tour, they
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: were making ridiculous amounts of money, and this was the
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: days when people paid for their tickets and their merchandise
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: in cash, and so the Rhadees had to put the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: cash every night into these huge plastic bins and then
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: literally stand on it to make it fit into these bins.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was It was that kind of scenario
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: that that really does sound like a scene from a movie,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: but it actually happened. But yeah, the and the Eagles
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: were not in good health. I mean that there were
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: ulcers that there were. They were all sorts of sort
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: of ailments that you associate with with old men, not
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: with young rockers in their twenties. Again, this was down
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: to the drug usage and burning the candle at both
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: ends and Richie Fernandez, who was their road manager. Right
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: back to the very first tour. There was some silly
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: argument about about the Eagles not being their Montreal hotel
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: rooms being double booked. The official story, or semi official,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: was that he'd been sacked because of he was unreliable
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: because of his large drug intake, which of course would
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: be you can either call it irony or you can
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: call it hypocrisy, take your choice. But that's the reason
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that was rumored for his dis missile. But that's the
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: point where all the Camaradi camaraderie and the Eagles camp
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: began to dissipate and band members started staying at separate hotels.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: To the crew and Fry and Henley weren't speaking to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: each other, and if you wanted to speak to them,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: you had to do it through their managers and then
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: their aids as it were, and then co ordinate their responses.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's the usual seventies egotistical, cocaine fueled rock
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and roll nightmare.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the Book Down Rock podcast.
• 40:41
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• 40:45
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• 40:47
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• 40:50
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• 40:54
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• 40:56
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• 40:59
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• 41:03
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• 41:06
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• 41:09
  Speaker 2: on the Bookdown Rock YouTube channel. Find it at Booked
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back to the
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: show fifty years later. Why do you think Hotel California
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: still connects with people who weren't even born when it
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: was released.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: It's basically the songs, which may sound like a banal
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: thing to say, but during their lifetime the Eagles were
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: beset by all these controversies which are which are unfathomable
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to people today. First of all, they were condemned for
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: jumping on the country rock bandwagon and sort of cheapening
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the music by giving it a high gloss, making it
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: more commercial. That was actually a big controversy at the time.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Nowadays it just seems absurd that people would care about
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: such things rather than is it a good record? But
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: you know, this was the overhang of the sixties where
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: idealism was everything, and they never got great review.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: It's not consistently.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: There are always people who were prepared to listen fairly,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: but a lot of people just did not like them.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: They they didn't like the country rock, they didn't like
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the shamelessly the way that they became a rock and
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: roll band. They didn't like, you know, Henry Henley could
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: be quite a cold character in interview and that rubbed
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: people some people up the wrong way. So there are
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: all these There are all these sort of controversies and
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: grievances that the music press had, you know, even the
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: sort of quasi reggae feel that Hotel California has irritated
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: some people. But if you talk to younger people today
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: that they've grown up listening to Hoaxel California and New
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Kid in Town and.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: All the early.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Eagles hits, and their whole attitude is, well, what's not
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: to love? These are great songs, and it just seems
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: nonsense to them that they should view the Eagles through
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: any other prism than is the quality of the music.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Good.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: The book Eagles in Hotel California fifty years out on
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: September eighth.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's in the Motor Books series of great albums,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: basically a square hardback book, lavishly illustrated, comes in a
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: slip case, and it's got lots of sidebars and panels
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: about people who were peripheral to their story but also
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: crucial to their story. So, for instance, they wrote a
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: song about James Dean, so we've got a page about
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: James Dean, just explaining who he was. And panels on
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Linda Ronstadt because they started out as a backing band
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: for her, And there's a section on Irving Azoff, who
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: was their manager, and Bill Simsic, who you mentioned earlier,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: who was this wonderful producer who took over from Glenn
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: John's who produced their first couple of albums. And Bill
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Simsic is one of these people. Nobody's got a bad
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: word to say about him, but he's just somebody without ego,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: but who was very crucial to them, to their success
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: because he knew how to get the best out of them.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: You know, he banned drugs in the studio, and he's
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: one of these behind the scenes people who nobody would
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: know him if you saw him walking down the street.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: But he's responsible for all the pleasure or much of
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: the pleasure that people have taken from that album.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of those side stories as you see
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: throughout the book beautifully packaged. It's not only a great read,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: but it's just a great gift for Eagles fans and
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: people can pre order it now. You can go to
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Amazon or Morto Book's website writing and pre order the book.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: And also get yourself a vinyl copy of Hotel California
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: as well, and maybe listen to the music while you're
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: reading the book. They're pretty much the same size as
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: a vinyl album, and the size of this particular book outstanding.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Sean, can people find you online?
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got quite a complicated website U are l
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: But if they just type in Shawn Eagan journalist that
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: the first thing they come to should be my website.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, And I can help to put a link in
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: these show notes people can click on and go right
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: to it. Thanks so much, Ron.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, nice to talk to you. Gate. That's it.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: It's in the boox