“It wouldn’t get played”: Why Don Henley doesn’t care to release new music
“We’re going to play a new one, now,” has long since been the cue for gig attendees to head to the bar or toilets. Broadly, an artist’s early work is often their most popular, leading to lacklustre receptions for a lot of new material. Even for a songwriter as accomplished as the Eagles member Don Henley, his later efforts pale in comparison to the intense success and adoration garnered by earlier works like ‘Hotel California’.
Henley has always boasted colossal potential as a songwriter. From forming the Eagles back in 1971, Henley and Glenn Frey penned a plethora of classic rock’s most iconic anthems. Songs like ‘Best of My Love’, ‘Witchy Woman’, and, of course, ‘Hotel California’ came to typify the sound of American rock during the 1970s, skyrocketing the Eagles to become one of the most successful groups in musical history. Nevertheless, it is difficult to maintain such a huge reputation as a songwriter over an extended period of time.
Looking back, it is easy to see why Henley was becoming fatigued with writing for the Eagles. Never before had a band been so plagued by in-fighting and vicious conflict within its ranks in spite of all their success. Coupled with a heavy reliance on drugs and alcohol, it is not all that surprising that the initial run of the band only lasted until 1980. Of course, Henley continued to write and record music outside of the band, and they even recorded new material as a group in 2007 after reuniting during the 1990s.
This new material, however, paled in comparison to the work that Henley and the Eagles created back in their 1970s heyday. Perhaps the band needed that intense level of conflict to inspire each other, or perhaps Henley and Frey simply lost their knack for penning timeless rock classics. Either way, the disappointing reception to the group’s modern material meant that Henley, in particular, was not all that keen to keep writing for the band.
At one point, Henley had argued that the best material of the Eagles was still yet to come, but during a 2018 interview with Classic Rock, he went back on these claims. “I’m not sure I care any more,” he shared, relinquishing any desire to keep writing songs for the Eagles. Explaining this decision, Henley cited the changing landscape of the music industry, along with the rise of the internet.
“We could make the best album we’ve ever made in the history of this band,” Henley explained, “And it wouldn’t get played on the radio simply because it’s all about demographics now; it’s about marketing youth to youth.” While rock music has always targeted the youth market, it is true that the Eagles’ brand of mature soft rock has certainly fallen out of favour with mainstream audiences since the 1970s.
While if the Eagles were to release new material, it would most likely still sell well, owing to the band’s enduring popularity among the older generation, Henley and company seem to lack any motivation to write new songs. “One of the primary motivations of creating this stuff is that you know somebody’s going to hear it,” Henley said, adding: “The point is to reach people. But it’s just not there.”
Despite the Eagles’ audience being “not there”, the band continue to perform to sold-out audiences, most recently at the Las Vegas Sphere. With tickets for those shows starting at $300 and selling ridiculously well, Henley’s claims about the Eagles’ relevancy decline feel slightly less believable. Now, with Henley and Bernie Leadon the only surviving members from the band’s original line-up, the potential for new Eagles material seems to be very low, regardless of whether radio stations would be willing to play it.
