History of the Eagles Part One Page #8

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I said, "Absolutely. "

All right, let's do... I'm in heaven.

- Let's go another one.

- All right, do it right!

The banter that would go on in

between takes was hysterical,

and so I took to running a two-track

to pick up these silly things.

We were young men with raging

hormones and something to prove.

In the context of the

times and the profession,

the way we behaved wasn't

really all that remarkable.

The creative impulse comes from

the dark side of the personality,

so we worked it good, you know.

We did a lot of stupid things,

said a lot of stupid things.

It was the '70s. There

were drugs everywhere.

Cactus sunrise was in my

face Everyone was dying

Everyone was lying and trying

Well, rub your belly

in the linseed oil...

There you go.

Well, the heartbreak of psoriasis

has once again descended upon

the adolescent experience,

and we'll see you later.

See you at the show later on tonight.

The question was, you know, who could handle it?

Who could function?

Who could show up?

One of these nights

One of these crazy long nights

We're gonna find out, pretty mama

What turns on your lights

The full moon is calling

The fever is high

And the wicked wind whispers and more

You got your demons

And you got desires But

I got a few of my own

Ooooh, someone to be kind to

In between the dark and the light

Ooooh, comin' right behind you

Swear I'm gonna find

you One of these nights

One of these days

There were always girls.

There were a lot of opportunities

out on the road to entertain

ourselves with one thing or another.

So, we started to perfect

after-show partying,

and we invented a place

called the Third Encore.

We did two encores in our show, so

the third encore was the party.

Everybody in the band and everybody

in the crew was given a bunch

of buttons, and all we said was, "No

weirdos, no strange people, OK?

If you're going to give a button to

somebody, you know, make it count. "

Totally sick. There's some real warped

sh*t coming on now, ladies and gentlemen.

A member of Andy Warthog's pop-bowel

movement has just tried to crash our party.

- What the?

- Welcome to Pittsburgh Spread Eagle.

We want to just ask these girls why they

think they have to leave now that it's 2:00.

One thing, he smells like beer.

We'd fill the bathtubs up with Budweiser,

and we'd have a party after every show.

- Your name, please. - Tammy

Farley. - Tammy, Tammy, Tammy.

- Here we have Karen. Karen is 20 years old.

- Is that correct?

- Yeah. - What's your name, dear?

- F*** it, man. - Pardon? F*** it.

Her name's "F*** it, man. "

I want to talk about sex and drugs.

Who wants to go first?

I'm not lost for words on either subject.

Sex and drugs kind of came as

a big package in the '60s.

You know, it seemed like

everybody, the sexual revolution

and the drug thing, I guess,

probably started out together.

Didn't they?

Don and I both tried to have

relationships while we were members

of the Eagles, but it was always

like the Eagles trumped everything.

When the Eagles became successful,

we challenged all the rules.

Like when David Geffen left Asylum Records

and sold everything to Warner

Bros and started his new empire.

Let's be frank. When we signed

that contract, we were idiots.

We knew nothing about the business.

We had poor legal representation,

nobody looking out for us.

Remember, bands don't really get

record royalties usually ever.

So, they get money from touring,

but they get publishing money.

So, in the very beginning,

one thing that Geffen did

that I thought was great. He had

us form a band publishing company.

All the band's publishing went in that.

The problem was Geffen had the other half.

Half the Eagles' publishing,

half of my publishing,

half of all the artists that he

signed went to Warner Bros, but

he got them to return mine.

Jackson turned me on to the Eagles.

He had turned me on to a lot of artists,

and I felt I owed him something.

And that, not surprisingly, was not

acceptable rationale to the Eagles!

There's a certain amount of ire,

like, real, you know, like,

"What the f***?

"I mean, we didn't get

our publishing back!"

So, it was the publishing issue and

the fact that the business managers

and the lawyers were all

shared common guys,

and did they have a conflict when an

issue came up and which side to take?

Well, it just makes you

feel like meat, you know?

It started out as such a personal,

nurturing endeavour, you know,

with Mr Geffen saying, "Oh, I'm

going to protect you guys.

"That's why I'm calling

my new label 'Asylum'.

"It's going to be a sanctuary

for real artists. "

He once said to Irving Azoff,

"You know, Irving, this

would be a great business

"if there weren't artists. "

Irving was the one guy who

really believed in us,

that I thought could do

something to help us.

I basically hired a lawyer and went in

after I said, "The Eagles would

like their publishing back,

to which the obvious response was, "No".

He sort of drew a line in

the sand and declared war,

so I felt, for my survival,

as their manager,

I needed to prove to them that

I wasn't afraid of Geffen

and would stand up and, you know.

The lawsuit was filed as a last resort.

I don't think David liked reading

his name in the lawsuit.

I thought it was incredibly ungrateful

and they misrepresented

the facts, but so be it.

Ultimately, we settled out of court,

and I don't believe it took very long.

He just wanted to get rid of us.

This is our new record contract.

Just paper!

So, then we headed off, for parts unknown

with Irving Azoff at the helm.

This card game is called Eagle Poker.

It's a bastardization of Red Dog.

I invented it in Detroit,

Michigan, in 1947...

.. one year before I was born.

- We were big gamblers. We played poker all the time.

- Oh, boy.

They should have never given me money!

So, we decided we'd go to

the Bahamas to gamble.

Everybody but Don was holding.

I had like four joints in a baggie,

stuffed down my sock in my cowboy boot.

Durkin, the pilot, has a joint.

Irving had about 30

valiums in a sugar pack.

There was a couple of

customs officials there

that asked us to collect all

our luggage and come over,

and they wanted to search us

'cause we looked terrible.

We had really long hair

and patches on our jeans

and a beard and not slept.

Now, I'm freaking out.

Bernie's freaking out.

Irving's freaking out.

Henley's pissed off.

Don't touch me.

Well, the guy proceeds to put

us all in a room together,

and they start searching us one by one.

My greatest fear is that I'm going

to be locked in a jail cell

with Bernie Leadon.

So, at this point, Irving

steps in and takes

one of the Bahamian customs

guys over to the side

and has a chat with him.

I'm not sure, to this day,

what Irving said to him.

The next thing I knew, they

let us pass with no problem.

It was sort of miraculous, really, it was,

because I thought for sure we

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