my first guest tonight was a founding member of one of the most popular american bands ever the
eagles he now has a quite a successful solo career and this is his second album i have
a copy of it right here entitled the all-nighter congratulations on this album is doing very well
for you isn't it yes it is yeah things are going great you mentioned uh uh don henley
before you saying that do you still see him uh we talk a couple times uh on the phone every now and
then now that the eagles aren't together it's uh when did they finally when did you guys finally
uh unplug it well we i think we unplugged it in 1980 but we didn't tell anybody until 1981. we
wanted to get a start on our solo albums you know was it a uh uh a pleasant uh experience
the breakup was it nasty yeah it was ugly david it was ugly yeah that's brutal how long had you guys
been together nine years yeah you know and with i think with five you know five guys for nine years
i kind of look at bands like uh it's like when doctors get out of college or lawyers get out
of college they always join a law firm or a doctor you know and bans are the same way i
think for men in their 20s you know you kind of band together you're not so sure yourself and
you know now that we're a little older it seems like a logical progression to sort of set up my
own practice yeah but you guys you did some damage when you were together didn't you you mean like i
mean well no i mean like that the hotel california 11 million copies i think that was in the u.s i
actually think it probably sold more closer to 18 million yeah now that so that's worldwide
but after 10 million who's counting right the convention of record store owners in the audience
tonight um so now all right well let's talk about when you guys were together and traveling around
and stuff did you do uh the the legendary kind of damage that uh you know speaking of damage well we
you know the eagles had sort of on the surface i think we looked uh you know classical kind of
like we were sort of you know normal sort of guys but uh you're staying not when you have joe walsha
in your band it's uh yeah it's a little different we uh we used to wreck hotel rooms you know in the
early days but uh nothing like the english bands can do nothing like the who and led zeppelin they
were really the best at uh room trash is what we used to call the art of room trash now what
would you guys do and and uh then let's find out i mean how did you escape did you get arrested
for it or what happens well pick a city let's let's just do this pick a city atlanta all right
now you're in a hotel yeah a nice hotel yeah all right what happens things happen like we
never really wanted to wreck a hotel room or anything it was like days and days of this
building up one day you get a cold breakfast the next day room service is not there about
14 days on the road all of a sudden it's like one hotel is gonna get all the grief yeah
and uh and when we when we were first starting out we used to do things like you know we just we'd
check in and then i'd look in the swimming pool to see how many television sets were in it but uh
then of course the thing is then you have to pay your then you have to go down to the manager and
bribe your way out and you know tell them you pay for everything please let us go so then we start
we kind of got into more subtle forms of room trash things that were a little more you know you
couldn't get caught well like instead of throwing the tv in the in the pool we used to get back from
the gig about 11 30 you know and flip on the tv if carson was on we'd say geez johnny looks thirsty
you know and you could just just by taking a minute johnny looks through johnny looks best
all right yeah okay and uh this one this way you could just sort of pour a glass of water
into the television and sort of watch the tube would i mean it really does a quite a good thing
it's a cool looking thing yeah but then instead of having to bribe your weight all that happens is
the next person who takes your room calls up and says hey my television you know my television's
not working so that became you know the methods of revenge got more subtle yeah johnny looks thirsty
um that's uh how many uh how many hotels did you think uh you damaged in your career oh not that
many yeah not that many no we'd save it up for a good one you know for something we'd wait until
it built up you know we'd always start out on the beginning of the tour and say okay no gotta
be here that's right we gotta behave yeah did joe walsh one time have a chainsaw with him on
tour yeah he had he carried his own chainsaw in an anvil case so in case he couldn't fit
his ping-pong table into his room or something he could you know that's a real trouble that's
a real problem i mean if the elevator couldn't work he could go down to henley's room you know
the eagles an american band all right now
did you guys have arguments toward the end or even in the beginning oh yeah yeah yeah i think you
always do uh you know we always had disagreements you can't uh work closely with you know four other
people now how would you how would you settle them um i'm not sure we settled now were they
artistic disagreements that kind of thing or whose turn is it to drive was it more like that or
well one of the funny things that used to happen was there's usually four good sweets in a hotel
out out in the you know not new york or los angeles but there were five guys in the band
and always four good sweets so somebody you know always wanted to take their tape measure out and
come down to your room and see if you got a bigger room who got the most square footage
i used to just you know open the door and i'd yell down the hall i got a sauna and a stereo bye
close the door yeah but those days are over now yeah yeah and you're living in aspen
you like that yeah i do very beautiful place beautiful place yeah it's a lot of night skiing
night skiing all right uh and the album is doing quite well it's called uh
uh the all-nighter glenn nice to meet you thank you very much for being here
it's a pleasure sir thank you uh we have to pause here for station identification
we'll be right back and take a look at the lifestyles of the plain and simple
you