The one Eagle that Glenn Frey was knocked out by: “My tongue fell right out on the table”
One would think there’s only one possible thing this headline can mean. However, it’s the Eagles we’re talking about. A lot more than one of them knocked out Glenn Frey. They were a band whose existence was as harmonious as The Young Ones but with precisely none of the laughs. An Eagle knocking out one of his bandmates was as commonplace as an Eagle taking a bump of cocaine, and, oftentimes, the two actions went hand in hand, if you can believe it. However, the truth is actually a lot deeper than that.
Because yes, the Eagles weren’t exactly best mates. In fact, I’m sure there were closer bonds between Celtic and Rangers fans in the 1980s than between the country-rock godheads at any point in their career. However, to loathe someone, they also have to mean a lot to you; it would be much easier if you didn’t care about them.
The Eagles, no matter how much bad blood was between them, always knew that they were in the presence of some of the best musicians possible. Even today, when you get them talking about the way the band met, they talk about each other with the sort of hushed, reverent tones people use when talking about seeing Hendrix at the Marquee or The Beatles at the Cavern.
The best example of this comes from when the band talked about meeting their bassist, Randy Meisner. Despite being the solitary Eagle happy to yield the spotlight to others, he was a key part of the group, and not only of their close harmony-inflected sound but also writing and singing lead on one of their signature songs, ‘Take It to the Limit’.
How did the Eagles react to meeting Randy Meiner?
The Eagles seemed to know just what a coup it was to secure his services for the band. Nowhere is this more apparent than in an interview Glenn Frey gave to Marc Shapiro for his book The Story of the Eagles: The Long Run. In it, Frey says that he first saw Meisner performing at the iconic rock club The Troubadour in Los Angeles, with the band Poco, and was instantly in awe.
He says, “When I saw Randy, my tongue fell right out on the table. I just couldn’t believe that anybody could look, sing, and play cool all at the same time. It was too much for me.” This was around the time when Frey and Don Henley were still playing in Linda Ronstadt’s backing band and tooling around with the idea of starting their own outfit.
As fate would have it, the duo would get to know Meisner personally when he filled in for Ronstadt’s regular bassist, who was sick and needed a night off. They only played one gig together backing up Linda, but that show, along with his easygoing nature, was all Henley and Frey needed to know. With that, they were confident that in Meisner, they’d found their full-time bassist and rock history was born.
It just goes to show that while the stories of the Eagles’ drug-fuelled barneys are fun to recap, there’s also a tragic side to them. These were people with all the respect in the world for each other’s abilities, but that level of fame, success and indulgence took it all away. At least we got some amazing music out of it.
