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Profile F*ge 3
Kabuki star Tamasaburo sheds his kimono. He's still playingawoman,
but there's a better twist waiting.
1; Movies ffia&* S
Are trrose cute dogs really having a good time being movie stars? Well,
since you asked, some aren't.
LOS ANGELES
TIMES
MAY 22,1994
THE
EAGTES ARE
BACK
Was it love, greed or
COYEB S
ORY
Don Henley, left, and Glenn Frey perform with the reunited Eagles in April for an MTV speciat to be shown tater this year. Says Hentey:
:?'";1ffiilg?ff:1".T''*
Grop . . .
9rehearsal wirf, enough'urgency to raise the blood pressure of anyone familiar v/ith the band's history. The Eagles didn't just break up 14 years ago. The quintet exploded from the tensions sumounding it-chiefly, the pressures they put on themselves to live up to huge artistic and commercial expectations. Despite the up to $300 million in potential $'orldwide album and
\shouts
but peaceful, easy feelings, the Eagles are together again,Don Henley and
Glenn Frey are writing songs-and they promise it's norjust a money thing
listens again to the music as an
engineer adjusts the controis. Satisfied, he rejoins the musicians on stage. At the end of the Nobody has to make any reparations.' " But the biggest surprise is the change Henley, who was knorvn in the '70s as the most
"But you know what? I don,t really give a damn," he says, smiling at the return of his old
combativeness. "I'm having fun."
in
tour
grosses looming
for
this
This peaceful, easy feeling is typical of the reunion, says Frey, who with Don Henley was a chief alchitect of the group's musica.l
vision.
intense Eagle-so fiercely protective of the Los Angeles band's legacy that he would dash off heated letters to critics whom he felt slighted the group. "This is fun," Henley, 46, says
gles talk about coming back together for friendship and for the love of music, lots of people are going to suspect that the real motivation is the big bucks in-
E
Fun.
associated over the Eagles.
foul-up shattering it. A 1990 reunion attempt disintegrated before it even got to rehearsals. But Frey's only concern this
afternoon is that he can't hear the piano in the sound mix Looking as trim as he did in the mid-'80s ads for a fitness center chain, Frey, 45, leayes the band and walks to the center of a massive soundstage in Burbank, where he
he
relaxes backstage after the rehearsal. "We are musicians. We are supposed to go out and play for people. Getting back together is nomal. The abnormal thing
hurt.
"But as years go by, all you remember is the gorid times. I said
when we got back together, 'I don't live in the past. As far as I am concerned, this is Day One.
was breaking up
in the first
one
time," he says sharply. "The press is cynical. The public is cynical. . . . The truth is they have been offering us buckets of money every year to get us back together and the truth is there's not enough money in rhe universe to get us to do this if we didn't want to do it."
begins its reunion tour on Friday at the lrvine Meadows Amphitheatre-certainly made itself a big target by charging $115 for top tickets in certain markets. Henley is a proud man, and the accusation stings. "We live in a very cynical
rehearsing
movie sound stage. This is a band, that has always been surrounded by drama. The name of the summer tour-"Hell Freezes Over',is itself a playful reminder of how for years this was the one gToup
"Life in the Fast Lane" were a more accurate description of the band's anxious pace, when it was known in the rock world as much for internal strife and its reported
r-i55
The Eagles'first hit single may have been the soothing ,'Take It Easy" in the summer of 1922, but
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Above, Eagles guitarists Don Felder, left, and Joe Walsh; at right, bassist Timothy B. Schmit. we are prepared that if it stops being tun, it'll stop-just as it stopped before," says Felder.
"lthink
doing this or Iiving uP to that," he said. Walsh described the atmosphere in the band at the time as "paranoid." He said the group "lost perspective. We just kinda
in a band, the harder it is. The first album was recorded in two,
Beach Arena lor then-Sen. AIan Cranston. When the rest of the Eagles
sat around in a
months."
daze...
for
Eyes") or bluesy workouts ("One of These Nights"), the Eagles were the most consistent makers
Frey also cites burnout and drugs as conlributing factom. "I hesitale to blame it on drugs because that's such an easY [excusel, but
three weeks. The second in four weeks and so forth. 'Hotel Caiifornia' took nine months. 'Long Run'took 114 years. "[By then] they were 32, 33. They've built houses. They've made tons of money, but they haven't had rime off to really
it is fair to
say that
saYs
whose original lineup consisted of FreY, Henley, guitarist Bernie Leadon and bassist Randy Meisner.
it. So there are lots of reasons to back off from all the pressufe." The end came in a phone call
enjoy
returned to Miami that year to complete lhe group's live album, Frey stayed in Los Angeles. The band had to fly tapes back and forth to get il completed in time for a holiday season release. Not even the iure of an extra $2 million advance from Asylum Records if the album contained
was
Speaking about the breakup period, Irving Azoff, who managed the band during its glory
With wounds still open two years later, Frey ridiculed the idea of ever playing with the
Eagles again. "There'll never be a
already
'Greed and Losr Yourh' [our,'he said flatly. He said he'd rather make music on his own.
All five
'Oh,'
uP.
said
to
myself, 'smart
the
1984's "BuiIding
the Perfeci
move."'
Leadon
Eagles
in
Beast" and 1989's "The End of the Innocence"-sold 2 miliion and 3 million copies, respectively. The
tively. It was the "Hotel California" album in i9?6 that was the band's crowning achievement-and, in
"Heart of the Matter" and "Boys of Summer," also reflected the craft and character associated
with the Eagles, It wasn't such smooth sailing for Frey. Despite such hit singles as "The
its albatross' The work, which spent nine weeks at No. 1, chronicled the attitudes of a generation trapped between the fading idealism of the '60s and the
rctrospcct,
encroaching greed of the'80s.
Heat
HENRY DILTZ
Is 0n"
Blues"
From left, Schmit, Frey, Walsh, Felder and Henley backstage during "The Long Run" tour in 1980.
mid-'80s, Frey's recording career stalied. None of his five solo albums made the
Pkase see Page 61
in the
and "Smuggler's
fi.!"c, L4NP4B
strDj?AI.
V$l
2lv\tp.4,.
7,;
T-r
traqes --
say,'whai's
important?' The answer to me was --q write songs in the moming' play' continued,frornPage| h"u" narionar rop 10. He made some Elf--T-..9"-{'::::.oX.."nd ';:.. .. dinner vrith my beautiful new wife sloesleps mlo acung, rncluorng lne who was just presrlant with our lead role in ths ggg-1y 5s;; :,il"ti-"r---Srr*t],- u"t it- iili first,child. The timins was bad for canceled last year after one epi- "'";- ,-.As late as Iast January, the sode. t:,"t"dvrong-and all Fetder, walsh and schmit also :ii"g',til . five -uasles were making separate Ialleo rc DeCOme Consrslenl sales prans ror rne summer. torces. work on so it y/as only narurat rha! rhe 5-Tl:I J-t',-^q:tiq,-* solo-album and reunion rumors wouro negin crcul ::.19:^1::-ht:,ltt overseeing his campaign to preiating. The swprise, in retrospect, is that it was Frey-rather than Henley-who tended to be the
holdout.
Pl,ease see Page 621
go,
'You know there is a bushel basket of $100 bills waiting for you if you guys could just do an album or do a tour,' " Frey says now. "But I'd go, 'Yes, but I have a nice life now,
"I
says, sitting in a trailer backstage after the rehearsal. "I think there
wele times when I thought, 'Never-if they begged me, I wouldn't do it.'And then there would be
times where
wouldn't be so bad.'
"Those thoughis kept going around like that for years, but I don't think I ever totally discounted the possibility of
it. As
our
friend J.D. Souther always used to say, 'Time passes, things change.' "
tgg0 for Henley and Frey to take a stab at writing together. The idea was to include two or three new songs in a greatest hits album that would be rel.eased in
conjunction with a U.S. tour.
Things
backed
away,
says now
of that period. "I hadjust remalried . . . had just had major surgery to
remove a section of my large intestine-a congenital thing since birth-that left me laying on my back in Cedars-Sinai with a bunch
of staples in my stomach.
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Eagles
Continued lrom Page 61 serve Walden Woods in Massachusetts. Frey was heading to Nash-
Azoff says he Put the album together to raise funds for l{enley's Walden Woods Preservation cam-
mote
paign and to kick off the country division of Azoff's Giant Recordsnot to lure the Eagles back into the nest. However, when sales topped
Felder was looking forward to spending time with his familY on a new boat. Schmit and Walsh were also thinking about separate album projects. . The first step in the change of plans was the success of "Common Threadr The Songs of the Eagles," an album that featured versions of Eagles hits bY sueh countrY stars as Clint Black and Travis Tritt.
went to No. 1 on Billboard's country charts and No. 3 on the PoP charts-the album's PoPuiaritY und.erscored the public's interest in a
reunion.
Easy" from "Common Thread." Schmit, 46, knew the importance of the day, but he tried to downplay it in his mind. "I went around for a Iong time after the breakup changing the station when Eagles songs came on because it was sad to think about
ililile
air
still do it."
"But this time it all felt right l could feel that things were different . . . tha! after all these Years,
the wounds were reallY healed." Agreed Lopez, "It was just one of those special moments when Glenn
lsoid-out lrvine Meadows concerts and one sold-out GIen Heien Blockbuster Paviiion show are just the start of what maY be a Yearlong
Eagles assault.
what had haPPened," says the singer and co-writer of "I Can't
Tell You WhY." "The [Tritt video shoot] was fun, but that's as lar as it went. i said I am not going to start thinking ohal if. I am just going ahead with mY
plans for the summer." The video shoot went so smoothly, however, that steps were soon under way to change those PIans. The Eagles reunion always depend.ed on the green light from
bond there
was
how much
be
in
SePtember-
finaUy right.
around the release of a Iive album will include irom the taping. studio versions of four new songstwo of lhem written bY HenleY and
It
'
"In
some waYs,
think a lot of
imaginarY,"
dozen
the Eagles, since his own recording career was on hold because of a Iawsuit with Geffen Records. FreY
Frey.
is
years. "We were apart, and rumors would get back to us about something the other guy might have said and it might send us off, but
both HenleY and FreY, so the matter was in their hands when
they got together for lunch with Azoff, who manages HenleY, and
Peter Lopez, who manages FreY, in Aspen, Colo., on Feb. 11. Azoff sensed an immediate rapport. "There had been times over the years in AsPen where Glenn and Don would get together and we
scheduled to end Oct. 8 at the Rose Bowl or the L.A. Coliseum, but the shows are likely to continue overseas until riext sPring. In all, the tour couid gross uP to $100 million in the United States and PossiblY
fine. Every time we would run into each other, there was no bitterness or animosity." The test came last Dec. 6, when they ali agreed to guest in a video being shot in Los Angeles to Pro- - would
try to Pretend it
was
old
house the other day and I just had the beginning of a song. I threw it at him and he Picked uP on the idea and we finished it that day It felt
label. The problem is that Henley and Frey have contracts with Geffen Records and MCA Records, respectively, and both labels have warned that they'll sue if the artists make an Eagles album-on
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The band could release the album anyway and deal with the lawsuits, or release it on MCAowned Geffen Records, perhaps as a way for Henley and Frey to gain their release from the labels. Geffen may be willing to take the live album in lieu.of two more Henley albums on the gf,ounds the
for the long seast!il' i:':' :l':l t i t ti "It real! felt good right away," says the upbeat Schmit, who lives
1976.
"I think
song v/e
did smelled like a rose," Henley says now. "There is some of the
stuJf that Glenn and I listen back to
Eagles album will outsell themand that could end what has been a bitter legal squabble. Not that all the $300 million will go to the Eagles. Azoff and Lopez decline to discuss a breakdown of the potential gross, but sources say bands on a stadium-arena tour should walk away after expenses
now and we cringe. But that's the way it alv/ays goes. "I think we were just trying to
figure out our place in the world. It's not so different now from all
these kids
in
and there
adds:
is
'n'roll
certain
he
with about
40Vo
lo
50Vo
of lhe
box-office take and about $2 per album sold. This could conceivably mean $75 million to $85 million for
best-case scenario. It is assumed that Henley and Frey-as founding members-
"Back when we were accused of being hopeless and cynical, I always lhought there was a lot of hope and idealism in what we were writing.
will
be
Woodland Hills viith his wife and their lwo children. "There is something about playing with a certain group of people that you can't replace. . a connection that works." The enthusiasm is tempered by the memories of how everything was torn apart beiore. "I think most of the time in the back of everybody's mind there was the kind of yearning for it to come back together, yet also kind of afraid of re-entering the whole thing," says Felder, 46, a father of four who lives tn Malibu with his wife. "We all remember what happened last time and we remember the good and the bad . . and we hope that we are a.ll older, more mature now and can learn from the mistakes. So far, it has been gxeat. But I think we are prepared that if
in
says
Henley, who is single and has a house in Los Angeles-and who tends to be the most philosophical of the band members. "We used to
I don't think anyone who bought the tickets complained about the price." Like Henley earlier on the same topic. Frey catches himself tensing
tou.r. Besides, and sighs.
worry about and try to control ineverything that went on stead of just worrying about the
music."
Looking
at the now
deserted
gotmurdered.'"
at Iruine
rehearsal stage, he is asked about his 1982 "Greed and Lost Youth" remark.
tr
Meadnws Arnphitheatre,
it
it'll stop-just
as
unspecificed amount-believed to
in the hiillions-for
Everyone
is counting on
that
'Jurassic rock' and I'm prepared for certain people to not want to believe it is sincere, ..that we are just in it for the moneY," FreY saYs of the reunion tour. "But we have turned down millions and millions
plny June
soll, out.
3 at
l. Ihe!
Tine!
pop
various
charities, including environmental and humanitarian groups. "Despite the figures involved, this isn't a case of Don and Glenn being desperate for money," says someone close to the band. "They have made so much money from Eagles publishing that they can Iive comfortably the rest of their Iives. This tour is something they
maturity. There was such an adult ring to the Eagles'material that it's surprising to rcalize that Henley and Frey were roughly the age of such troubled '90s youth spokesmen as i the late Kurt Cobain and Eddie i
in
in
uantedlo
do,"
Fl
quake damage at his Studio City house is being repaired, compared the six-day-a-week sessions to baseball's spring training, where everyone is trying to get in shape
many of the Eagles hits. Frey and I Henley were in their late 20s when I "Hotel California" was released in I
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