“He was so intimidating”: The one person Glenn Frey said held Eagles back too much
Eagles seemed to be on a track towards superstardom the minute Glenn Frey and Don Henley got together.
They had sought to put together the band that would be the best of everything that California had to offer, and even if their songs weren’t as heavy as a band like Led Zeppelin, it made more sense for them to follow their own muse than working on something that was outside of their comfort zone. Their music was supposed to be a celebration of all kinds of American music, but there were always going to be a few people who didn’t really understand what they were going for.
For one thing, David Geffen wasn’t quite ready to take on someone like Frey when he first saw him. Longbranch Pennywhistle was a fantastic duo with Frey and JD Souther writing the best songs that they could, but according to the record industry mogul, Frey was going to need a band behind him if ever wanted to get anywhere. And while he had a solid enough gig playing rhythm guitar for Linda Ronstadt, he and Henley had something magical together outside of Ronstadt’s booming voice.
So when he and Henley finally struck out on their own, they needed to make sure they had the best people beside them. Randy Meisner was already a great force in the band Poco, and since Bernie Leadon was already one of the biggest names in the country rock world, it was a no-brainer to have someone in the band who could play all the licks that they could never think of.
But when they played their showcase for Glyn Johns, the English producer wasn’t all that impressed. He had been working with everyone from The Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin, so he had a much better grasp of when a band’s songs weren’t cutting it as they should have. When the harmonies kicked in, though, Johns had a better idea of what he wanted them to be. They were soft-rock juggernauts, but after a few albums of getting everything to sound clean, Frey started to think that things were going in the wrong direction.
Johns had been burned out on rock music for a while, and while the band were making music that was a lot more mellow than he had done before, they weren’t supposed to be mellow for the rest of their lives. And since Johns had enacted a no-drugs policy in the studio every single time that they were playing, Frey felt that a lot of the creative side of the band was being held back when they began working on On the Border.
They were capable of doing a lot more, and Frey felt that the only way to get there was to cut Johns loose when making the song ‘Already Gone’, saying, “I had a very strained relationship with Glyn Johns. I think he got along better with all the other guys in the band. He was so intimidating, I was always afraid to tell him what I thought. But the great thing for me about this song and record is that I left England behind and had a much more positive energy in the recording studio. It was at this time that we changed producers and started working with Bill Szymczyk. I was much more comfortable in the studio with Bill, and he was more than willing to let everyone stretch a bit.”
And while Johns was more than happy to not face as much pushback from Frey anymore, letting the band go free was the best thing that could have happened to them. Since Johns wasn’t convinced that they could have been a true rock and roll outfit, having them not cower in fear of what he thought is why they could eventually make tunes like ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ with Joe Walsh.
There are many times where Johns did great things for the band in the studio, but even if the band eventually flamed out without him, it was better to be able to call their own shots in the studio than having someone rearranging the masterpiece that you had in your head into something completely different.
