“Confused”: The band Don Henley thought was an absolute mess
Not every band dynamic is supposed to be neat and tidy. Any creative tension has to be dealt with at some point, and rock and roll has never been known to be a genre filled with trained diplomats known for settling their differences eloquently. While Don Henley had already seen his fair share of harsh arguments within the confines of the Eagles, he felt that one of the next generation of bands made them look like one big happy family by comparison.
First things first, it’s not like the Eagles were meant to be the best of friends offstage. Every time they performed together, it was always about creating a laid-back vibe that the rest of the crowd could enjoy, but when they decided to draw attention to each other, their disagreements weren’t far from erupting into fistfights.
Although Glenn Frey and Henley could keep things cordial as group leaders, they did expect a lot from their bandmates, which wasn’t what people like Bernie Leadon or Don Felder wanted to hear. Aside from Leadon leaving after pouring a beer over Frey and bassist Randy Meisner leaving after an argument over one note that he didn’t want to hit when singing ‘Take It To the Limit’, Felder’s onstage blowups with Frey is still one of the candid looks at people who would rather be doing anything else but playing music together.
While Henley didn’t like the idea of going solo, he seemed to be pretty good at it, all things considered. The Eagles may have split up right at the beginning of the 1980s, but the decade would belong to Henley when he started releasing tunes like ‘Boys of Summer’ or the more thoughtful tracks on The End of the Innocence. On the street, though, Guns N’ Roses were making rock and roll all the more dangerous.
Despite the slow burn of their debut, Appetite for Destruction, Axl Rose and Slash seemed to be the next rockstars that everyone idolised, living the kind of life that The Rolling Stones only suggested back in the day. While Henley was far from a superfan, his run-in with them at the American Music Awards made him think that he wanted no part of what they were doing.
Since drummer Steven Adler was having trouble with drugs, Henley sat in with the group during the show for a few songs. While the former Eagle could have done it as a nice gesture, it wasn’t a lineup that he wanted to spend more time with, either, telling Louder, “I played with them on the American Music Awards, just for a laugh. It confused a lot of people. Those guys were a mess. It didn’t seem like they wanted any words of advice.”
Then again, anyone telling Guns N’ Roses what to do at that juncture would have probably been given a stiff middle finger. They were still the epitome of a gang before becoming the Axl Rose and Friends show throughout the back half of the 1990s, and even if they didn’t have Adler with them, they still possessed all the swagger that good rock and roll feeds off of.
Although seeing them alongside Henley is still one of the most surreal images in rock history, don’t expect them to be playing ‘New York Minute’ any time soon, either. For all of the poignant material Henley could dish out, Guns N’ Roses would go for the throat and make absolutely no apologies for it.
