“We had it all planned”: The band Glenn Frey was determined to outdo
All music does have a certain competitive aspect to it. Any musician can have their friends that they talk to in between legs of the tour and even contribute to each other’s albums, but when it comes to who’s at the top of the charts and who’s signing major label deals, it can be a dog-eat-dog world trying to get past all of the other artists working on the same dream you have. Although Glenn Frey did have an extra boost of rocket fuel in the Eagles, he knew the last thing that he needed was to become a rock and roll casualty like so many he saw before him.
Granted, a lot of what Frey did was usually in service to the song more than anything else, which put him one notch above everybody. Most people can have wild dreams of stardom but not have the songs to back them up, but from the minute that Frey started working on ‘Take it Easy’, he was always laser-focused on putting the perfect harmonies together on songs and making sure that no note was out of place.
And let’s not forget that this was a prime time for the beginnings of country rock. Crosby, Stills, and Nash had already been making waves as one of the best rootsy rock and roll bands out at the time, and since Stephen Stills was already comparing Eagles to them, Frey was going to have to think outside of the box with Don Henley if he was going to last in the industry next to the other heavyhitters.
While there’s no rulebook to figure out how to manage a rock and roll outfit, Frey already figured that he learned a few mistakes along the way. He had been under the wing of Bob Seger for years, and when he finally struck out on his own trying to make his masterpieces, he got an education when he listened to the kind of woodshedding that Jackson Browne would do when he was his neighbour.
“We were determined not to make the same mistakes.”
Glenn Frey
Even though there were bands that were far more battle-tested, Frey couldn’t help but look at acts like Flyin’ Burrito Brothers and not feel a little pain in his heart. They had done everything they could to reach the big time, and while their breakup did give way to Bernie Leadon joining the Eagles, Gram Parsons never seemed to get the respect that he deserved as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation until after he passed.
So if Frey was going to make his way to the top, he was going to make sure that he had the proper tools to make it, saying, “We had it all planned. We’d watched bands like Poco and the Burrito Brothers lose their initial momentum. We were determined not to make the same mistakes. We all felt that this was going to be our best shot. Everybody had to look good, sing good, play good and write good. We wanted it all.”
And considering how the band have lasted throughout the years, it’s hard to argue that Frey got everything he needed. No matter how many times any of the band’s surviving members have an off-night, they can rest easy at night knowing that they have the best-selling album of the 20th century to their name.
It’s a shame that some of the greatest artists never got the proper recognition, but the band did at least feel it was right to acknowledge the mark that people like Parsons had on rock and roll. He might not be the kind of massive rock and roll star that Keith Richards was, but every time someone listens to tracks like ‘My Man’, the spirit of Parsons is alive and well.
