The groupie incident that made Randy Meisner leave the Eagles: “Well fuck you then”
None of the Eagles could have claimed to be choirboys behind the scenes whenever they made music.
They were one of the single greatest vocal groups that the world had ever seen, but it was a lot wilder when they sang those final notes at the end of every single night when they played their encore. But when looking at the final days Randy Meisner spent with them, Don Henley remembered more than a few sleazy moments behind the scenes before the bassist had his final night singing with them.
Then again, Meisner’s dismissal was a long time coming from the minute that the band finished Hotel California. He was content to be the quiet one that happened to have one of the highest voices in the band, but when it came time to assert himself, he wasn’t exactly willing to confront the rest of his bandmates whenever he had an idea. But that didn’t mean that his bandmates didn’t still support him.
‘Take it to the Limit’ was written just for him, but when they started playing the song every single night, Meisner felt more and more uncomfortable trying to hit those high notes. He could still hit them at the top of his range, but the anxiety of being able to hit those notes every single night was what really got in the way of him wanting to play every gig. But if you look behind the scenes, Meisner did have more than a few times when he started having a little too much fun with his backstage company.
Eagles already had an event dubbed ‘the third encore’ every time they had a few “friends” with them backstage, but on Meisner’s final night with the band, his refusal to sing the high notes wasn’t just about him not wanting to sing the song. According to Henley, Meisner had already been partying a little too hard with some female fans for the last few days he was with the group when he started acting up.
The band had gone through their entire set with nothing going wrong, but Henley pointed to Meisner’s sleazy night before as the reason why he couldn’t perform, saying, “We were backstage and the crowd was going and our encore was ‘Take it to the Limit’. Randy didn’t want to do the song that night. He had been partying all night with a couple of girls and a bottle of vodka. Glenn [Frey] kept saying ‘You’ve got to do it’ and he kept saying no. And by the third or fourth time Randy refused, Glenn just took a few steps back and said, ‘Well fuck you then.’”
While the band didn’t necessarily have to get into a fist fight backstage by any stretch, the writing was on the wall that Meisner had to go. But it’s not like that environment was abnormal by the time that they had started working on their masterpiece. If you really want to see where everything started, you have to go back to what was happening while working on One of These Nights.
Bernie Leadon was already gearing up to leave, but their internal problems on tour had always come down to who could function by the time that they got onstage. Looking back on their partying, it was a miracle some of them could have stood up straight, let alone play guitar, by the time they were set to perform, but when looking at that final night, Meisner seemed to be one of the few people who realised that he didn’t have the same drive that he used to when playing the shows.
He had spent so many years trying his best to give everything he had to the group, but the years of being second fiddle to everyone else had become too much by this point. He was still a vital part of the band throughout every iteration of their career, but there was also a line that you weren’t supposed to cross in that band, and after one wild night, Meisner had done a disservice to the fans in everyone else’s eyes.
