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No Rules
for Glenn Frey
By the time most people get to their ‘40s, they start getting comfy. Their fires of ambition start to die, and by this stage they’ve started to define what their life is about. They know their partner, their goals, their achievements, their weaknesses and their strengths and they start to work around them. Glenn Frey’s post-Eagles music has generally been aimed at a yuppie CD generation, even if he might disagree with that. But his life is far from stable, he says. He lives out in the wilds of Colorado in a 4000 square feet solar log cabin. Inside are not just the hallmarks of a successful rock star—gold records, \sophisticated video and recording equipment, trophies—but one of the best collections of American contemporary art. He’s been collecting for ten years and talks most proudly of it. But emotionally, things are far from routine. “I've just got divorced. We were married for three years. Before that, I was not married and I don’t have any children. “There are still no definite rules about my life. I know I’ve got an album (Soul Searchin’_ out in the States in three weeks and I know I’m going to be doing some more dates in Australia with Little River Band. “But after that, I don’t know what will happen, and that keeps things pretty much stimulating and exciting for me. I mean, who knows where I’ll be in November? In the States or somewhere in South East Asia? “I have a number of options open to me with this LP. I’m extremely conservative when it comes to going out on the road in America, so I’m going to wait and see the reaction to the LP before I even start thinking about putting a new band together. Right now I’m talking to people like yourself, and doing a bit of TV as well, to get across the fact I’ve got some new music out, and see what happens from there.” Considering The Eagles had a very strict policy of doing virtually no interviews during their mega-platinum days, does he find talking to the media uncomfortable these days? “No, I’ve got no problems with interviews” he says, conveniently forgetting The Eagles no-speak policy. “My attitude is, when you’ve got a new record out, then you’ve got something interesting to say. If you’ve got nothing to say, why say it? OK, let’s talk American politics. Was he upset that Jesse Jackson got shafted and didn’t make it to the Democrats finals? “Huh? (Pause) Nooooo. I have very little interest in American politics, and I tend to stay away. I mean, I’ve got my opinions but I think those should be kept personal. It’s not so strange that Little River Band and Glenn Frey should be gigging together with Frey calling them the best harmony band in the world, and declaring that no other band had done his songs better. This could be just showbiz crapola, of course. But eyebrows would be raised that Frey might consider that The Eagles didn’t do that great a job on his songs. For wile the current MTV generation might know Frey best from “The Heat is On” from Eddie Murphey’s Beverly Hills Cop, back in the ‘70s. The Eagles were considered the most magical, romantic and mythical band to emerge from the US since the Band. They’d all been in Linda Ronstadt’s backing band, hung other together as urban cowboy rock stars and eventually formed into a country rock band that sang lovely harmonies on sad songs like “Desperado” “Take it Easy” and “Lyin’ Eyes”, which were snapped up by a new generation of rock fans which found Top 40 pop too facile, AOR radio and the CD generation were just around the corner. 1976 was probably their most turbulent year. They’d become America’s most popular band, and shrouded themselves behind their smokescreen. They gave out very little news about themselves. Founder member Bernie Leadon said he was tired of being on the road and quit, and replaced without fuss by gonzo guitarist Joe Walsh who kicked them into being a tougher rock and roll band. That was the year they released their masterwork Hotel California with its elusive sociopolitical observations about the decay of America. People had guessed that the band’s members were living on the fast lane but a rare interview that they did, with a Dutch magazine called Muziekkrant Oor revealed how alarmingly fried they’d become. They’d become so pressurized, they revealed they’d all quit at some time or other and had made the LP under grueling conditions. Such was the high demand for them, that they told the Dutch journalist that they’d finished the LP off a US tour, playing three different shows in three different cities, hiring a Lear jet to fly back to Miami to record all night until six in the morning, and they fly off to another town for a show that night. Hotel California was their crowning glory, their best collection of songs. After that, they declined, taking three years to finish off The Long Run (They took so long that their record company boss sarcastically sent them a rhyming book to help them finish their songs!) LRB had formed in Melbourne getting recognized for their tight harmonies and good playing. They were less country and more British pop inspired, but they were constantly battling being called Australia’s answer to The Eagles. Like them, LRB too suffered exhaustion from endless touring, but unlike them, LRB got worse with line-up changes. When it came time for them to come up with their masterstroke, their own Hotel California, they blew it. Also lyrically they weren’t clever or deep enough to create are to myths about themselves. What had Frey thought of LRB when they first came to America? “I first saw them in concert at the Yale Bowl and thought the two bands were pretty similar, but I’d heard of them a long time before that. See, John Bayland who produced their first few albums was a very close friend of Don Henley and I, and he’d been instrumental in getting the Eagles together. “Anyway we knew he was going off to Australia to produce this band he kept raving about. Obviously we were similar: we were both good bands with strong harmonies, and they way they had that dedication to detail, arrangements that were intricate, the way they made each moving part mesh beautifully to create something whole.” Stepping onstage with LRB earlier this year at the Brisbane Expo, he says, “Was an exhilarating moment. It had been three years since I’d done a concert, but having them there was a great buzz.” Frey gets upset when he’s accused of selling out the soul of his song for the cooperate dollar, how rock classics are so slickly turned into soundtracks to sell shoes, knickers, cars, soft drinks. Neil Young lampoons him on his current video for selling out. “Well
let me tell you something,” his voice starts to raise, scarcely hiding
his annoyance “having a social conscience doesn’t make you a better
songwriter. Just because you stood on the stage at Live Aid doesn’t
make you a good person. You don’t make it good musician just because
you get onto the Amnesty tour and ply your "I
appreciate rock and roll has this image of being rebellious and going
against the flow. There's been a lot of hot air about sponsorship from
people like Neil Young and Little Steven and to me, that doesn't mean
shit because Neil Young hasn't had a decent record since Harvest and
Little Steven hasn't made a decent record, period. “Sure, I did an ad
for Pepsi, they’re a corporation, but no-one talks about the $20
million, $40 million that these corporations injected into inner city
projects. I’m a songwriter, I’ve got 21 people directly dependent on
my turning over at least $1 million a year and these are they way I make
my songs work for me. “I
love rock music and I love beer; a lot of Australians do, so do
Americans, so why not listen to a beer ad with a nice song. It just
makes it more fun to watch TV.” The
problem, I explain is that these great songs were written from a sense
of honesty, with a bond of communication and truth with their audience.
You cannot transfer that truth to an ad; it’s betrayal of trust to
people who believed in a song like “Hotel California”. “Well
everybody has their opinion. I haven’t used “Hotel California” for
anything. I mean (laughs) unless there’s a hotel chain in Australia
that’s offering!” What’s
the biggest misconception people have the song? “They think it’s evil or demonic or that it’s about California. It’s just a state of mind. What was our state of mind when we recorded it. Let’s
say we were experimenting a lot, ha haah, we were in this lab, you
see…"
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