“Point blank”: Why Glenn Frey was convinced not to be a solo artist
Being a member of a band offers a sense of security and camaraderie that solo artists rarely experience. That is, of course, unless that band is the Eagles, in which case you are more likely to spend years embroiled in intense and occasionally violent arguments with your fellow musicians. During the course of their tenure, the conflict at the heart of the Eagles became almost as infamous as the band’s musical output, leading band leaders Don Henley and Glenn Frey to often wish they had never started the band in the first place.
By all accounts, the Eagles were never supposed to exist in the first place, much less achieve the unparalleled commercial success of timeless records like Hotel California. During the late 1960s, Glenn Frey relocated to Los Angeles, but quickly found himself without a band or much of a plan going forward. At the time, he was determined to become a solo artist after having played with various groups and duos for a number of years. As you can probably guess, though, this ambition to become a solo artist didn’t exactly go to plan.
After all, the American music scene of the late 1960s was awash with solo singer-songwriters; the scene was grossly oversaturated. Nevertheless, it took the stern advice of producer David Geffen for Frey to realise that fact. “I had just played a couple of songs for David Geffen, the guy who managed Joni and CSNY–the people I wanted to be with,” Frey told Rolling Stone in 1975. “Geffen told me point-blank that I shouldn’t make a record by myself and that maybe I should join a band.”
Geffen has had a major impact on the music industry over the years, playing a part in a litany of major moments, but the advice he gave to Frey might have been one of his most important. After all, it was this chat which eventually led to the formation of one of the most successful American rock bands of all time, the Eagles.
Shortly after Geffen crushed Frey’s solo dreams, the Detroit-born guitarist was hired by Linda Ronstadt, who was in need of a backing band for a tour. “Linda Ronstadt hired me,” the musician remembered. “It was two days before rehearsal was supposed to start, and they still hadn’t found a drummer.” Inevitably, this role was quickly filled by Grey’s future bandmate and collaborator, Don Henley.
“Here was Henley, just standing right up in the Troubadour,” he recalled. “So I struck up a conversation with him. I told him my whole trip was just stalled. I had all these songs and couldn’t make a record, and I wanted to put together a band, but I was going on the road with Linda.” That conversation quickly led to an idea sparking between the two, as they were both in the same boat. As Frey elegantly put it, “Henley said that he was fucked up too.”
So, that is the story of how the Eagles came to form, and how Frey avoided the lonesome life of a solo artist. Ultimately, though, the story didn’t end in harmony. Quickly, a wedge was driven between Frey and Henley, owing to the ever-relevant excuse of ‘artistic differences’, but the Eagles were achieving such a colossal level of success that throwing in the towel would have been disastrous.
It was only in 1980 that the Eagles officially broke up, marred by unsalvageable relationships and copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. This left Frey, once again, without a band. This time, however, he ignored the advice of David Geffen and embarked upon a solo career throughout the 1980s, earning himself a considerable degree of commercial success along the way. Perhaps trying to establish himself as a solo performer back in the 1960s wouldn’t have been so impossible, after all.
