Lone Eagle
At 54, famed vocalist/drummer is still as snippy and political as ever

Sandra Sperounes
Edmonton Journal

What Don Henley can't stand: "I'm sick of urban music. I'm tired of the anger, I'm tired of the misogyny, I'm tired of the self-aggrandizement," he says. "Just the absolute shallowness of a lot of modern music is offensive to me. And I blame the record companies in part for signing it and giving it a forum.

It's the anything-for-a-buck syndrome."

- - -

It might as well be called the Uncle Sam tour.

Contrary to popular belief, the Eagles won't be getting rich off their current North American tour, their first in seven years. According to Don Henley's accountant, every cent will go to taxes.

"I'm not making a dime this summer," says Henley, during a rare telephone interview. "Uncle Sam and our idiot president will get to spend it on missiles."

At 54, the famed vocalist/drummer is still as snippy and political as ever. He's active in environmental causes and recently founded the Recording Artists' Coalition, which fights for fair contracts and royalty payments. "Artists have been getting screwed by record labels since the very beginning of the record business and it's continuing today," Henley drawls in his light Texas twang.

Yet somehow, he also finds time to eat breakfast with his three kids, listen to Coldplay and Pete Yorn albums, and work on the first Eagles album of new songs since 1979's The Long Run.

What a long run it has been -- more than 20 years between studio records. Some might views a new album as a dangerous move, considering the Eagles have such an illustrious history -- four Grammys, sales of more than 120 million albums, unforgettable rock tunes such as Hotel California, and a spot in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. But Henley, bassist Timothy B. Schmit and guitarists Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey want another shot at glory.

"It's a risky proposition. We're competing with our own legacy, the music world has changed a great deal, radio has changed a great deal, so it'll be interesting to see if they'll still let us play," says Henley.

"But if we're going to keep touring, we don't want to become a nostalgia act. We don't want to become an oldies act. We want to be a band that's current and in order to do that we need to write new material. I'm sure the audience would be perfectly content if we keep recycling this stuff for another decade but the fact is, we as creative people, need to move forward. We need to write new songs."

Old songs are the theme on this tour, the quartet's first since the Hell Freezes Over circuit of 1995. Edmonton fans should expect almost three hours of the California band's greatest hits (Life In The Fast Lane, Heartache Tonight, Desperado) a few solo tunes (Henley's Boys of Summer and Dirty Laundry), and a "fabulous" horn section to add "texture and pizzazz." Henley says some of their country-hued rock classics will be retooled but the Eagles likely won't trot out a ska version of Hotel California, which he played on his last solo tour.

"It was pretty wacky," he says. "I think people were taken aback at first and then they liked it. That song is about 26 years old so I thought it was time to shake it up a bit."

Henley -- along with his Eagles pals -- also thought it was time to shake up the band's line-up with the addition of guitarist Stewart Smith. He worked on Henley's 2000 solo effort, Inside Job, and replaces Don Felder, who was turfed in 2001 after 27 years of service. He's now suing the band for wrongful dismissal.

In conversation, Henley doesn't even mention Felder by name, only talking about the "personnel changes" in the band, the fourth since the Eagles formed in 1970. (Henley and Frey are the only originals. Walsh joined in 1976, while Schmit came on board two years later.)

"Well, we're in the deposition process, so I really can't comment (on Felder). I will say this: Everyone in the band is a helluva lot happier," says Henley. "At our age, there's really no point in doing this if we don't enjoy it."

Henley is so fired up with the recording process these days he's also working on a solo album, which may be a full-out country extravaganza. He's not sure when his disc will be ready, but the Eagles are aiming for a 2003 release.

"It's going very well. It took us two or three months to get into a groove, to get accustomed to recording with one another again. And now, we're clicking right along," says Henley.

"We're starting one song after another and we haven't really finished anything so it's really impossible to say how far along we are. We're not really keeping score just yet. We're just trying to be creative and write and record.

"Going on tour will be a nice break from that. It's hard to be in the studio all the time. You don't get any feedback and it'll be good to get out and see people and actually play for live people. It'll help get our chops up too. When we go back into the studio (in late August) we'll be able to play better and sing better."

But no amount of touring will help the Eagles land a record deal. You'd think labels would be lining up to throw money at the band, but that isn't the case. In fact, Henley thinks the Eagles will likely follow in Prince's purple boots and release the album on their own. It makes sense, what with Henley's anti-corporate, pro-artist stance.

"None of the major labels have stepped up to the plate because they want to hear the album first. I can understand that. So when we get far enough in the process, we'll see," he says. "But we certainly are preparing to release it ourselves if necessary and from what I know today, it may very well be necessary because the big boys, as usual, are not playing ball.

"They're not playing fair, they don't appreciate what we've done for them, all the money they've made off us in the past and they're not willing to give us back a piece of the pie -- ownership of our catalogue. Ownership of our masters. They're not having it."

Henley's struggle to win back the Eagles' albums is only one of the litany of reasons behind his foray into artists' rights. The real impetus behind the Recording Artists Coalition, founded in 2000, was to fight a proposed copyright law preventing artists from owning their recordings. After testifying in front of U.S. politicians, the RAC eventually won the battle. The group, with more than 140 members, is now fighting a California law which binds artists to more than seven-year contracts. Henley thinks the RAC is about to win that too. "Things can change overnight but as I talk to you, things are looking pretty good," he says.

While Henley doesn't have a lot of kind words for the record industry, he understands how easy it is to get duped by the lure of a recording contract. Not only are the contracts complex and incomprehensible, young artists are desperate for fame and couldn't care less about what appears above the dotted line -- which is what makes the RAC so invaluable.

"When I was 23 or 24, I would've done anything, signed anything. It's only after you've been in the business a number of years that you begin to realize the ways in which artists are taken advantage of. Most young artists are naive. They don't have a head for business. They're right-brained people and they don't understand how the business works and they don't read their contracts and they rely on the advice of managers and attorneys and that doesn't always protect them. Artists are artists. They're notoriously self-involved, notoriously bad business people, bad with money, don't give a damn about politics," says Henley.

"I'm in a place in my career where I don't have to be afraid of punitive action from the record industry. That's another thing young artists have to worry about. A record company can damage your career even if it costs them. So sometimes it takes crusty old farts like me that have less to lose. I'm at the beginning of the end of my career and I'm not afraid of what they might do. I'll be just fine if I don't get to make another record. But that won't be the case."

Henley also doesn't plan on running for political office, though he's been asked. Nor does he want to turn the RAC into an artist-run record label, which would seem like the next logical step.

"Oh lord," he says. "There's only so much I can do in a day. I've got a wife and kids, a bunch of environmental charities and I can't do it all. Maybe someday when I'm older. When I grow up."

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

- Formed: The Eagles first came together in 1970, with Don Henley on drums and lead vocals, Glenn Frey on guitar, Randy Meisner on bass and Bernie Leadon on guitar. Don Felder (guitar) joined four years later. In 1976, Leadon was replaced by Joe Walsh. In 1978, Meisner was replaced by Timothy B. Schmit. Last year, Felder was fired and replaced by Stewart Smith.

"He's the only guy in America who could've filled this slot," Henley says of his new bandmate. "He's quite an asset to the band."

- Selected discography: Eagles (1972), Desperado (1973), Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 (1976), The Long Run (1979), Hell Freezes Over (1994), Selected Works (2000).

- Take me home: A longtime resident of California, Henley moved back to his home state of Texas in the early 1990s, after an earthquake gutted his southern California home. He now lives near Dallas with his wife Sharon and three children.

"I much prefer the climate in California but there are things about Texas I much prefer over California. Some of which are civility; people still say please and thank you and excuse me. People in southern California have become unbelievably rude and uncivil. That bothers me a great deal," Henley explains.

"Texas is a better place to raise my children. There's some great schools there, great hospitals, great doctors. My mother is still living. She's 85 years old and she's been battling breast cancer for 17 years now and she's still winning. She's on chemotherapy and she still functions -- she lives by herself, she drives a car and she cares for at least a dozen stray dogs she collects off the streets."

- What's on Henley's stereo?

"I'm listening to Coldplay but I think they need to get a new singer. This is the problem I have with most new bands -- the bands are great, the singers are lousy. That's true of just about every CD I buy," says Henley.

"I listen to Pete Yorn's album (musicforthemorningafter) sometimes although, on repeated listenings, I think it's only got two or three good songs on it. It gets old. I like the sounds on it, the guitar sounds, the production."

- Big on bluegrass: Henley has also rediscovered The Dillards, a '60s bluegrass band from the Ozarks.

"They were highly influential on me and a lot of other bands, including The Byrds, and they've got a compilation album that goes throughout their entire career from 1963 to 1970," he says.

"They were pot-smoking, long-haired guys playing this mountain music and they were funny. They had a great act and the quality of the vocals and the musicianship was a cut above anything I'd heard. They were just plain good. And the songs they wrote and recorded, they took bluegrass to a whole other level."

- Looking back: The band had a rancorous breakup in 1980 and went 14 years before reuniting in 1995 for the Hell Freezes Over tour, named for their 1994 album and one member's estimate of when the Eagles would work together again.

The group's four Grammys include record of the year for 1976's Hotel California.

Their Greatest Hits 1971-75 is the biggest selling album in the United States. Its 27 million copies puts it one million ahead of Michael Jackson's Thriller.