Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (24 page)
Read Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles Online
Authors: Don Felder,Wendy Holden
Tags: #Arts & Photography, #Music, #Musical Genres, #Popular, #Rock, #Biographies & Memoirs, #Arts & Literature, #Composers & Musicians, #Entertainers, #Memoirs, #Humor & Entertainment, #Theory; Composition & Performance, #Pop Culture
BOOK: Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles
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Touring was so much fun, especially when we did gigs that also featured the Rolling Stones or Tina Turner. The best part of the whole gig was when she came onstage. She’d light the place up, especially when she and Jagger sang “Proud Mary.” The audience and even the band members seemed to crank it up a notch or two just because of her presence. We all knew she’d have a great solo career ahead of her if she wanted it.
The Stones were pretty wild boys, especially Keith Richards, who played real dirty, Neanderthal guitar and was a walking human chemistry set. I remember arriving at our first hotel, in Kansas City, a Holiday Inn or a Marriott, and being taken to “meet the boys.” My tour guide was our ever-smiling, supremely likeable, and unflinchingly dedicated road manager, who’d been with the Eagles from the very beginning and who was good friends with many of the other road managers. The Stones kept to themselves usually, and we weren’t allowed on the top two floors they occupied, which could only be reached by elevator and were patrolled by private security guards.
Richie got the OK on the telephone for us to go up, then escorted us. When the elevator doors opened, a wall of pot smoke hit us. We wandered into a room, and on the dressing table was a large mound of what looked like dirty cocaine. I didn’t know what it was.
Someone in the room, asked, “Hey, do you want some H?” and I realized that I was looking at heroin for the first time. I passed. I’d seen what heroin did to young guys living rough in New York, and for me, that was a step too far. I drank a beer instead, and we sat chatting for a while until Richie said to the tour manager, “So, where are the guys? Don would sure like to meet Keith Richards.”
“OK,” the road manager said. “Come with me.”
He led us down a corridor and into a large suite, its doors thrown open. From a distance it sounded like there was some enormous party going on, the music was so loud, but when we walked in, the room was empty except for a giant stereo system, about three feet tall and six feet wide, on casters. It could be wheeled into a room, opened up like a road case, and plugged in. There was a guitar amp built in, with two huge speakers, and it was cranking out some really heavy rock-and-roll track.
“Maybe he’s in the bedroom,” someone said, and we wandered into his bedroom and stared at the detritus of what had obviously already been a good night—Jack Daniel’s bottles, beer bottles, clothes, and the residue of drugs.
“Nope, not here,” Richie said, and we started to walk out.
Just then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man’s foot sticking out of the open bathroom door. “Jesus!” I said. I ran around to find what nobody wants to discover—Keith Richards doing a very good impersonation of a corpse. His skin was gray, and he was completely motionless, facedown on the bathroom floor. I thought he was dead.
Barely batting an eye, the road manager grabbed the phone and called the tour doctors. Richie and I were unceremoniously ushered from the room and into the elevator. “I’m sure he’s a goner, man,” I told him, as we returned to our floor. “I’ve only ever seen one person look like that before, and he was in his coffin.”
To my astonishment, there was no bulletin on the news that night, and the following evening, at the Kansas City Stadium, a very much alive Keith Richards, looking none the worse for his brush with death, pranced around the stage cranking out his raunchy rock-and-roll guitar for all he was worth. Now that’s what I call stamina.
ELEVEN
There was considerable rivalry
among the various rock-and-roll bands at that time over which of us were having the most fun on the road. Led Zeppelin were considered to be the world masters, with bands like the Rolling Stones and the Who a close second. Hotel rooms would be ceremonially trashed, industrial quantities of drugs and alcohol consumed, and excesses logged in folklore. By comparison, we were Little League, but the one area we did excel at was in attracting women. We were young, famous, good-looking, and rich. We’d made it to the big time and were right up there on the list of rock-star scalps the eager groupies wanted to add to their belts.
among the various rock-and-roll bands at that time over which of us were having the most fun on the road. Led Zeppelin were considered to be the world masters, with bands like the Rolling Stones and the Who a close second. Hotel rooms would be ceremonially trashed, industrial quantities of drugs and alcohol consumed, and excesses logged in folklore. By comparison, we were Little League, but the one area we did excel at was in attracting women. We were young, famous, good-looking, and rich. We’d made it to the big time and were right up there on the list of rock-star scalps the eager groupies wanted to add to their belts.
Glenn once publicly described our life on the road as “got crazy, got drunk, got high, had girls, played music, and made money.” He challenged Led Zeppelin to the claim of supreme party animals, maintaining, “We threw the greatest traveling party of the seventies.” He was right.
It wasn’t just the regular groupies who were on offer. Adoring female fans of all ages, sizes, shapes, and colors threw themselves at us. Songs like “The Best of My Love,” “Desperado,” and “Witchy Woman” were heart-warming numbers that appealed predominantly to a female audience. They were, I soon realized, highly effective lures. Night after night, during
On the Border
and now on this tour, I witnessed the barrage of pussy that was offered up. It was a sleet storm of women; they were literally everywhere—in hotels, at shows, and on planes.
On the Border
and now on this tour, I witnessed the barrage of pussy that was offered up. It was a sleet storm of women; they were literally everywhere—in hotels, at shows, and on planes.
Before
One of These Nights,
the system of pairing up those who wanted to get laid and the women who were more than happy to oblige had been a bit haphazard. As a band, we had a policy of only ever doing two two-song encores, and that was now used to our advantage. While we were onstage, wooing the fans, trusted road crew would be asked to scout the audience for willing participants and offer them backstage passes for what became known as the Third Encore—the party after the show. Each was handed a laminated pass with the words 3E THE EAGLES printed on it in Gothic lettering. These passes became popular souvenirs. While the stadium was being cleared and the traffic was dying away, the band, crew, managers, promoters, local radio DJs, and just about anyone else associated with the business would remain backstage to meet the forty or so attractive young women who’d been handpicked. Some of the record company promoters would even bring Playboy girls or “special groupies” for the occasion, along with copious amounts of cocaine and champagne.
One of These Nights,
the system of pairing up those who wanted to get laid and the women who were more than happy to oblige had been a bit haphazard. As a band, we had a policy of only ever doing two two-song encores, and that was now used to our advantage. While we were onstage, wooing the fans, trusted road crew would be asked to scout the audience for willing participants and offer them backstage passes for what became known as the Third Encore—the party after the show. Each was handed a laminated pass with the words 3E THE EAGLES printed on it in Gothic lettering. These passes became popular souvenirs. While the stadium was being cleared and the traffic was dying away, the band, crew, managers, promoters, local radio DJs, and just about anyone else associated with the business would remain backstage to meet the forty or so attractive young women who’d been handpicked. Some of the record company promoters would even bring Playboy girls or “special groupies” for the occasion, along with copious amounts of cocaine and champagne.
For the latest tour, however, Don and Glenn took the system to a higher level of sophistication. The laminated passes were dispensed with for being too indiscreet; in their place were specially made little buttons, small, round, beveled, like a campaign button, with a pin on the back, and “3E” written on them in yellow English Gothic on a black background. Very discreet. They were passed out to the road crew by the handful. They would hand them to the loveliest girls in the audience. Some crew members would even loiter by the ladies’ bathrooms, eyeing the girls as they walked in and out. The message was that the Eagles were having a party and would like to invite these women back to their hotel suite. No boyfriends were ever invited.
When the show was over, no matter how much the crowd hollered for a third encore, threw beer cans, or lit all the lighters and matches they possessed, we were out of there. The house lights would be kept dimmed as we ran from the stage and bolted out the back door and into waiting limos before the audience even knew we’d left the building. Only after we were well ahead of all the traffic would the lights come up, and everyone would wander home clutching their T-shirts, programs, and memories. Back at our hotel, a suite would have been specially reserved for that night’s Third Encore party, stocked with ice buckets full of beer, wine, and champagne, platters of hors d’oeuvres, and bowls of chips. By the time we’d all showered and changed in our rooms, the first of the fifty or so invitees would be arriving, desperate to meet us, their little buttons pinned proudly to their chests.
I can remember walking down the corridor toward the suite one night and bumping into a man we called the Party Doctor. He was carrying a huge prescription bottle, the size of a large mayonnaise jar, full of Quaaludes—then the recreational drug of choice—to distribute among our guests at the party if they wanted them. If one of the guys in the room wanted to select a girl to be taken back to a bedroom and laid, then it fulfilled the objectives of both parties. Seldom was a girl allowed to spend more than a couple of hours with the featured participant. Almost never could she stay overnight. A limo driver downstairs was entrusted to ferry them all home. On certain occasions in certain towns, specific women known to be group-sex girls would have a suite of their own. I never experienced any of that, but I heard a lot about it from others on the road. Little Rock Connie was a legend. Allegedly a schoolteacher by day, at night she transformed herself into a sexual animal par excellence, asking people to take Polaroids of her while they stood in line for a blowjob. To this day if you mention her name to anyone in this business from the seventies, it’ll produce a smile.
To begin with, I watched in amazement all that was going on but tried to keep my hands clean. I felt totally out of my league. You could count on one hand the girls I’d had sex with. However, by the time the
One of These Nights
tour really got going, the 3E parties were organized to perfection and so entirely accepted as normal that I completely lost sight of who I was. I’d like to tell you I was a saint, and that’s exactly what I’d have had to have been to resist the temptations thrust at me on a daily basis. Some of these women were goddesses, I mean really beautiful, sexy women. I had no interest in breaking up my marriage or spoiling what I had at home, but life on the road—especially in a band short on camaraderie—was extremely lonely.
One of These Nights
tour really got going, the 3E parties were organized to perfection and so entirely accepted as normal that I completely lost sight of who I was. I’d like to tell you I was a saint, and that’s exactly what I’d have had to have been to resist the temptations thrust at me on a daily basis. Some of these women were goddesses, I mean really beautiful, sexy women. I had no interest in breaking up my marriage or spoiling what I had at home, but life on the road—especially in a band short on camaraderie—was extremely lonely.
I’d go from a real adrenaline rush onstage with all these women screaming and yelling and throwing themselves at me, reaching out to me with their hands while I stood in the spotlight, back to an empty hotel room, where I’d face about twenty-one hours of the day in which life was incredibly boring. I was left with an overwhelming sense of isolation, which really began to erode my sense of self. No matter how long I spent on the phone with Susan, I was still utterly alone. I don’t think she really understood that, because she was at home, surrounded by children, friends, and neighbors, going out to dinner or to the movies or being involved with the family.
A big part of me wanted to be home with her and Jesse. By the summer of that year, she was pregnant again, expecting our second child, and I longed to share in every day of our baby’s growth and be with her to help her through the morning sickness, the cramps, and the exhaustion. There wasn’t an hour that passed when I didn’t think of her. I’d imagine her sitting in her rocking chair knitting baby clothes and wonder what I’d missed of Jesse’s development. Would he even recognize me when I got home?
Instead, I was thrown in with four crazy bachelors (Randy overlooked his marriage vows) who were doing drugs, drinking, and screwing everything that walked. Half the time I was so high I didn’t know what I was doing anyway. It was such an extreme situation. I defy any man to resist temptation in such circumstances. After every single sexual transgression, I was wracked with guilt. I’d lie awake at night, wishing for some easy way out of this heaven-and-hell situation I found myself in—an angel waiting for me at home and demons taunting me when I was away.
The answer usually was to take a couple of Quaaludes, which acted as a rubber hammer to bring me down from the drink-and-drugs high and let me get some sleep before the early morning call. It was truly the rock-star life, and for better or worse, I was living it.
I make no excuses for my behavior. I was led along by the crowd in the circus of life on the road. The others would have been very suspicious of me if I hadn’t joined in, but for what it’s worth, I can say that all the women got what they wanted, and none of them meant a thing to me. I was being used and abused as much as I was using and abusing. I felt like two different people: the guy on the road being tempted by the carnal beast, and the loving homeboy who’d have gladly laid down his life for his wife and kid. When I was back in Malibu, I didn’t drink, take illegal drugs, or fool around. I’d even given up smoking for a while when my son was born, so as not to be a bad example. I was a husband and a father, and I loved Susan and Jesse with all my heart. I just didn’t know how to handle the perpetual struggle raging within me.
Despite the relief on offer,
the tensions within the band continued to deepen. Everything from facial expressions to talking too much became an issue, and nerves were frayed. Don and Glenn became of the mindset that they were going to take control of every aspect of the Eagles, and a lot of emotion was vented in between drug-taking interludes. Bernie, who’d all but turned his back on the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll aspect of the business and was now into surfing, fresh air, and healthy eating, was more often than not the one to vent it.
the tensions within the band continued to deepen. Everything from facial expressions to talking too much became an issue, and nerves were frayed. Don and Glenn became of the mindset that they were going to take control of every aspect of the Eagles, and a lot of emotion was vented in between drug-taking interludes. Bernie, who’d all but turned his back on the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll aspect of the business and was now into surfing, fresh air, and healthy eating, was more often than not the one to vent it.
I tried my best to arbitrate and persuade him to chill, but I was frequently left straddling the fence. “If Don and Glenn want to control the situation, then let them,” I’d tell Bernie. “It’s gotta be easier than fighting all the time like this.” My policy was to walk away, pretending not to care, rather than have a confrontation. I knew how fame and fortune could corrupt, and I didn’t want to be a part of that. But Bernie was as stubborn as a mule. He’d disappear for days to go surfing and feel the sunshine on his face. He was the first of us to adopt a healthier lifestyle and turn his back on the drugs and late nights, which were making a difficult emotional situation worse. All of us but him had major stomach problems—ulcers, acid indigestion, and diverticulitis—and lived on a diet of Mylanta or Tums. Bernie’s “Marty Martian” nickname no longer related so much to how curly his hair was but to how bright and clear his eyes were compared to ours.
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