Original subtitles

A funny thing happened right when we broke up.

1980 is when the format "classic rock" hit American radio.

So even though the band broke up,

they kept playing our songs all the time.

It was like we never went away. We were still on the radio.

Somebody once told me

people didn't just listen to the Eagles.

They did things to the Eagles.

They went on fandangos and drove across the country

with three of their high-school buddies.

People broke up with their girlfriends.

People quit their jobs or changed their lives.

They did things to the Eagles.

Songs from that album have even been played in outer space.

And they used to pipe the music up to the space shuttle

to wake the astronauts up in the morning.

Shortly after having their breakfast of steak and eggs and toast,

he then put on his space suit and helmet.

That song has really gotten around.

There's been a lot of conjecture

about how and why we got back together.

We began to realize that we'd been away for 14 years.

Maybe we could have that rarest of things in American life,

which is a second act.

You know, a second chance.

Thank you.

When we stopped, I was really sad.

Like, "What are we gonna do?"

No!

I was pretty devastated.

I had only been part of it for barely three years,

and I'd loved it.

We created this monster,

and it took its toll on all of our lives.

Somebody was quoted as saying

the Eagles would get back together when hell freezes over.

So, hell froze over.

We're all ready.

The gentleman in blue over there.

After the acrimony and the bitterness

that marked the demise of the band,

it must have been a long road to reunion.

Can you just take us through the steps that you went through

on the road to reunification?

No.

Anybody want that one?

No, really, it's a fair question.

From the time that we disbanded in 1980,

there were always offers on the table

for us to get back together.

It started with the first US festival,

and Steve Wozniak wanted to pay us a million dollars.

I said no.

I needed to do something else.

I called my first solo album "No Fun Aloud"

because I was having so much fun.

It was so liberating to know that whatever I did

was gonna be more fun than what I just did

for the last three years on "The Long Run" album.

I knew I wanted to have a songwriting partner,

so I asked my friend Jack Tempchin

if he wanted to write some songs together.

And Jack's a very bright guy lyrically,

and so I started working with him.

He had become a disciplined co-writer with Don Henley,

and when the Eagles broke up,

he just wanted to let go and have some fun with music, you know?

So we were fiddling around with some grooves,

and one of us said, "You belong to the city."

And then we're going, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That's it."

You just show up and good things happen.

Henley's solo career was really, really successful.

Going solo was the scariest part of my life.

The whole MTV thing was a difficult transition for me to make.

You know, the Eagles, at one point,

had been accused by some critic of loitering onstage.

So it was difficult for us loiterers

to make the transition to the world of choreography

and costume and acting.

Did I benefit from MTV? Yes, I did.

You know, I made a couple of videos that won some MTV awards.

Nevertheless, I would just as soon have skipped the whole thing

because I considered myself, first and foremost,

a songwriter and a recording artist.

I didn't really want to be an actor, too.

Nice, huh?

The guy who sold it to me said it was a lemon.

But I'm telling you, it may look like a cow,

but she runs like a stallion.

I always like to take a good-bye look at America.

Just in case it's my last.

I acted in television, in movies.

I wasn't really thinking about getting back together with the Eagles.

The guy's got an attitude problem.

Yeah, well, he listens to me. I can help you with that.

Cameron would call me up and say, "Glenn, I got to find somebody

that's not gonna take any shit off Tom Cruise,

and I think you're the guy."

We have history, Dennis.

Oh, yeah. We got history all right, Jerry.

No,no,no. No,no,no.

Dennis! Dennis! Dennis! Don't! Don't!

I signed Don Henley to Geffen Records.

Now, you might say,

since the Eagles sued me at Asylum Records...

DAVID GEFFEN FOUNDER, ASYLUM RECORDS

...why he did come with me at Geffen Records?

Well, David uses the same pickup lines

every time he comes a-courtin'.

"You know how much I care about you as an artist.

You know what a big fan I am of yours."

And so I bought it a second time and I signed with him.

And then things started to fall apart.

I produced several hits,

but I could feel the support somehow waning.

Don got into arguments with them

over things like budget, videos, artwork, things like that.

I recall Don starting to write letters to them

referring to them as Nickel and Dime Records.

When you feel like your label is not supporting you,

it's completely deflating.

I used to call him "Golden throat."

I thought he was an incredible singer.

But, by nature, he's a malcontent.

He's always been a malcontent.

And, you know, that's just life.

So I just said one day, "I'm not gonna record for you anymore.

I'm leaving."

And so he sued me for $30 million.

My wife has M.S., and they deposed her,

dragged her all the way from Texas to Los Angeles

to sit her down in front of his attorneys

and ask her a bunch of pointless questions,

because she didn't know anything.

I thought that was really low.

I said to Irving over the Henley contract,

"I'd sooner die than let you fuck me.

You'd better win this case."

It was settled, you know,

and that was the end of that relationship.

I've realized now that we have adult rock stars.

You don't have to give this up when you turn 30 or 35 or 40.

I'll always make records and write songs.

I got to do them. Otherwise, I'd go nuts.

This is a tune that was written with my new friend Mike Campbell

and my old friend John David Souther.

When the band broke up,

Glenn started writing songs with Jack Tempchin.

I guess the rift between Henley and Frey

probably spread to between Frey and me.

Glenn and I had had some outrageously fun times together.

And then Don and I did for a decade or so.

How have you changed as musicians over the years,

both as a group and individually?

Well, your whole mandate is just to improve.

You know, life is about improvement,

whether it's as a musician or as a singer or as a songwriter

or just, you know, all the other different hats we all wear.

So, hopefully, we're just getting better.

We've been doing this quite a long time now on and off,

and we feel like we've got it down pretty good.

And, in fact, we've had five days off,

and we're ready to go now.

When the Eagles first broke up,

I wasn't quite sure what I was gonna do with myself.

So I just hustled.

I went just as a singer with Toto,

I played bass for Jimmy Buffett,

I went out with Warren Zevon and Dan Fogelberg,

and stuff I wouldn't have necessarily done.

I sang on Poison records and Twisted Sister,

although you'll never see my name.

They never gave me credit.

That was more like yelling.

It's not all gonna be the greatest thing in the world.

But if you can work and support yourself and your family,

it's good.

Okay, next question.

Gentleman in the front here, Richard.

What position do you think rock 'n' roll takes now about drugs?

We came from a generation

that experimented with all kinds of substances, of course.

I think our message is that

you can be a damn good rock band without all that stuff.

I'd like to propose a toast

to dedicate this song to you, to us.

The drinking man's musician, Joe Walsh!

I ended up an alcoholic.

And very fond of cocaine.

If I was awake, I was doing that stuff.

Good morning, rock fans.

In the very early years, it had briefly worked.

Wow.

And then you chase it when it doesn't work anymore.

And I chased it for years and years.

"Could Hemingway have written like that if he was sober,

or could Hendrix have played like that

if he didn't experiment with hallucinogenics?

Well, probably not."

I used that one for years and years,

and it never occurred to me that all those people are dead.

They got further and further away from reality.

Should I look at you or the camera?

Look at me.

I ended up in bad shape.

I had hit bottom.

And I knew that I was done

and that...

...I would probably die if I kept going.

Joe was a mess.

He was around a bunch of people that were really just enablers.

Nobody wanted to intervene.

Nobody wanted to tell him he had a drug problem

or a drinking problem.

Everybody was just going along with Joe.

I remember what we all did when it was an art form, you know?

And I'd like to fight to get it back to that.

And I was very, very happy in the Eagles.

I was just gonna say I'm sorry we broke up,

but we didn't break up.

We just stopped, I think.

We just said, you know, "The heck with the '80s."

Song 3, take 6.

In 1990, we tried to get together to refuel it.

Everybody was in on that, but Glenn wasn't involved yet.

Irving got us together --

Timothy, Joe, myself, and Don Henley.

Glenn was supposed to join us in the studio,

and he was gonna bring some songs in,

and we were gonna start making another record.

So, we started rehearsing, the four of us,

then we got a call,

I think, about the third or fourth day in the studio

saying that Glenn had refused to come be part of it,

to join the party.

So we just stopped.

He was still, "I'm not doing this."

Well, you know, to tell you the truth,

I was having a fine time doing what I was doing.

I mean, there's more to life than being in the Eagles.

The moment was always gonna be

kind of when Glenn was ready to do it again.

I think Henley would have been more willing than Glenn.

For me, personally,

I think that I had proved pretty much everything

that I needed to prove in my solo career.

I had won a couple of Grammys

and had a few hits and some successful tours.

And I had founded the Walden Woods Project.

When you're a solo artist,

you have to take responsibility for everything --

every mistake, every bad record, every sour note.

But when you're in a band,

you get to share the praise and the blame with your bandmates.

So, I was okay with the notion

of maybe going back and being in a band again.

The thing that sort of turned my head

was the release of the "Common Thread" album.

Irving and Don went to Nashville

and they talked a bunch of people into recording some Eagles songs

with the royalties going to the Walden Woods Project.

I don't know who asked me, but they said,

"Travis Tritt's gonna do a video of 'Take It Easy'

and he wants to know if you guys will be in the video."

I said, "Well, okay."

Never really talked to Travis about whose idea it was.

I think Irving probably had a hand in that whole thing.

Was I trying to put the band back together

by doing "Common Thread"? No.

Was I waiting for the moment? Yeah.

In the Travis Tritt video, there was a little bandstand scene

and we all picked up our instruments and started playing.

I was thinking, "Guys, come on." You know?

You know, it's interesting. After years pass, you know,

you really sort of remember that you were friends first.

You have a lot of common history together

and a lot of shared experiences.

I remembered mostly the good stuff.

I didn't really think about the bad stuff.

I just remembered how much we genuinely had liked each other

and how much fun we'd had.

We realized, after the success of the "Common Thread" album

that there were still a lot of people out there --

a whole lot of people -- who wanted to see us play again.

You know, sometimes there's a little bit of serendipity involved in this,

and I think what happened

is everybody's life started to line up in a way

that now it made sense for all of us.

And we discussed it.

Joe and Don came up and sat in at a benefit that I did in Aspen.

We had a meeting in Aspen.

I was one of the first guys that they wanted to try it out on.

You know, Joe was buzzed. It was 1:00 in the afternoon.

You know, and he would say, "Hey, I'm there, man.

I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

But Don and I could both tell that he wasn't fine,

and we were worried.

They said what they wanted to do.

They wanted to try it, get back together again.

They didn't know what I would say,

but I said, "I understand, and, yeah, I can get sober."

We had to get Joe into some sort of rehab,

and we couldn't be sure it was gonna work.

So we better have Felder.

The Eagles reunion had better have at least one of the two of them,

and hopefully both.

Irving called me up and said

that Don and Glenn and Joe had gotten together,

and they were talking about doing something,

and would I be interested in doing it?

I said, "Absolutely."

One thing led to another,

and finally Irving and Don Felder picked him up

and drove him to rehab.

I made a commitment to them that I would clean up...

...and that I would be in the band

if that's what they wanted to do.

I'm really, really grateful to those three guys...

...because I had...

...a really good reason to get sober.

And as soon as I got sober, we started rehearsal.

From that first phone call from Irving to showing up on a rehearsal stage

to start putting together a show for MTV

was only a matter of weeks, if not a month.

It was a little scary rehearsing for the MTV thing.

Normally, I think people would have their act down

a few weeks, at least,

before entering into something like that,

but we just dove in headfirst.

Well, even though we had rehearsed really well,

for the first time to walk out on stage

and actually play as a band in public

and kind of put the key back into the ignition

and turn it over for the first time,

it was really a lot of nerves.

Are we going the right way?

Glenn.

Not having played as a group in 14 years,

the first night, there was a lot of terror.

Gentlemen, good to be with ya.

Hope I'm with ya all night.

- Have a good one, okay? -Okay.

- Showtime! -Showtime! Showtime!

The audience was very kind, and they were with us.

And that was good, but it was rough.

Even when we went onstage, we were definitely a little tight.

Until, I think, Henley forgot the words

to one of the new songs...

You want to start again? I'll tell you what.

This is television, so we get to do this till we're happy.

Now, I thought you didn't remember the third verse.

That was only the second verse!

I know. I know the third verse.

That was sort of the icebreaker, though.

That was a good thing, ultimately.

I feel like Tommy Smothers. All right.

We didn't think getting back together was quite as legitimate

unless we had some new material,

so we're gonna put forth several new songs for you this evening.

This first one Timothy B. Schmit is gonna sing for you.

This is called "Love Will Keep Us Alive."

After selling 100 million records worldwide,

was it real pressure on you to write the new material

for the "Hell Freezes Over" album?

We didn't really look at it as a body of new work.

It was more of a retrospective piece of material.

And we look forward to writing some new material,

perhaps in the future.

We can't keep recycling this material,

although it seems to be working just fine.

Don and I were trying to figure out how to write another song,

and, I mean, really, if we could.

We hadn't written anything together since, like, '78.

So it was a little awkward at first, just getting back into the groove.

Yeah.

So, we go, 1...

Okay, here we are starting out at 1, 2...

During "The Long Run" album,

there were a lot of sessions with Don and I

where nothing got done.

We were both a little bit reticent to introduce our ideas

for fear that they weren't good enough.

So when we sat down to do it again in '94,

my first worry was, "Is it gonna be as hard as it was in 1978?"

We were sitting around, "What are we gonna write about?" and stuff.

And he said, "Well, I've got this one title, 'Get Over it."'

And he sort of proceeded to tell me

what it was that was pissing him off --

all these people going on television

and everything that's wrong with them is somebody else's fault.

"I'm just sick of all this whining,

and so I'm gonna write a song called 'Get Over it."'

The intro, straight Chuck Berry.

Never play a 7, right?

So, then I said, "I think maybe a Chuck Berry riff

would be a good way to tell that story."

Time out.

Do you want to play the...?

You want to do it on slide?

And then Felder and I will just play power chords low and high.

And those guys will play Chuck Berry low and high.

And we can do "Get Over it".

A couple little of them slide answer licks is cool.

My favorite thing is when Don and Glenn co-write stuff.

I like to play guitar to that.

You want me to sing it, or do you want to wait?

It's 10 to 6.

You can sing it at 10 to 6 or 5 to 6.

- Do it again? -Yeah, we'll do it twice.

Yeah, you could write it in with the mike.

Captioned for hard of hearing.

It was really liberating.

We both walked out of the session and went,

"God, we can still do it. I can't believe it.

We just wrote a song together. Maybe we can write some more."

That was a really good feeling.

It was a great sort of artistic reconciliation

for us to have been able to sit down and write that song together.

Get over it!

We did "Hell Freezes Over," and then we went out on the road.

That was the question on everyone's mind --

what if we got back together, and no one showed up?

We set it up to be a three-month reunion.

I went back to my wife, and I had two young kids at the time.

I said, "I don't know if you're gonna recognize me.

I don't know what this is gonna do to me.

But I hope I don't change too much.

Hang in there with me."

I was on the side of the stage once at one of their shows

when they first got back together,

and Jack Nicholson was euphoric

listening to this band play again, you know.

And he said...

"Repertoire."

What do you want to hear?

We didn't know how many people are gonna show up for us to reunite,

but people came out in droves.

We were sold out everywhere.

Audiences were having a fabulous time.

We were having a good time, too.

Heartache, baby!

I listened to the guys, and Joe Walsh, for example,

is playing better and singing better

than I've ever heard him play in his life since I've known him.

I didn't have time to really sit around and miss alcohol

or cold turkey from more cocaine or anything.

And I had to go in front of people and play and sing sober,

which I hated, at first.

Ooh, that was scary.

When Joe first got out of rehab and we started rehearsing,

he was still pretty dark.

But over the course of that first year getting sober,

I think he found happiness again.

He found a way to be happy.

You look very pretty.

It's okay. Once more.

Oh, now, are you ready?

Father, daughter, take one.

We got that family thing to ground us all now.

It's really sort of our common thread.

We've all got kids.

It changes your life

and your perspective on your work, as well.

So, the tour was so enormously successful

that we sort of didn't want to give that up, you know?

It's like, "Okay, this is good. I could do this for a while."

Doing a concert is a strange combination

of conscious and subconscious acts.

You're not really thinking about what you're doing

because you know it so well, you're just doing it.

On the other hand, you have to put some emotion into it.

When you've got a crowd that's cheering you on,

it doesn't matter how many times you've sung the song.

You just do it.

We've played all over the world,

and probably, if we could write the script,

it was probably a genius move.

'Cause when we come back, it's bigger than ever.

How much money do you expect to gross with this European tour?

Irving?

I actually haven't added it up, but I will tell you that --

Good answer.

One thing,

the cost of being a touring rock-'n'-roll band in Europe

are beyond our wildest imaginations,

but this band is here in Europe

because there was demand for us to be here.

And it's not nearly as lucrative as anything we've done before.

It isn't?

Offers started coming in for us to do more shows,

and I just sort of said,

"Well, book some more. It doesn't have to end now.

Book some more. Where else can we play?"

"Well, you haven't been in Europe."

"Well, let's go there."

How's it go?

We had drawn a line in the sand

and said, "No drugs or alcohol during any band activities."

And as a result,

we're playing and singing pretty damn good.

I think the thing that brings them together is the harmony.

When they start hearing that and how seamless and how perfect,

they get as thrilled as the audiences do,

that "We can still do this."

We can't really understand it.

It's just the chemistry that works.

And we gave up trying to understand it.

It just works.

We're just gonna do one verse the "New Kid."

- One verse the "New Kid." -Okay.

- Joe's singing "Smuggler's Blues." -Okay.

I'll just do the beginning of "Funk 49."

And then I'm gonna go pee.

- Yeah. -Then I'll go pee.

1,2,3.

All right, boys!

We ended up going all around the world

in about two years and nine months.

Thank you, Dublin!

We've learned not to make career decisions

at the end of long tours.

If we break up again, though, you won't hear about it.

We'll just go quietly.

And we'll say we're still together.

Yeah.

They've laughed, cried, fought,

but most of all, they have beaten the odds

and are as popular today

as they were in that incredible summer back in 1972.

It is an honor and a pleasure to introduce the Eagles.

A lot has been talked about and speculated about

over the last 27 years about whether or not we got along.

We got along fine. We just disagreed a lot.

I was not in the trenches with this particular band,

so I'd like to thank my predecessor, Randy Meisner,

for being there.

I'm glad that Randy and Bernie got recognized.

I think that's appropriate.

Hey, how you doin'?

It's a good feeling.

Looks good on my résumé.

I'd really like to thank Don and Glenn for writing those songs.

Thank you, GUYS-

It makes my job real easy.

Thank you!

Charming outfit, Joe.

I'd like to, again, thank Don Henley and Glenn Frey

for writing an incredible body of work

that's propelled this band through 20-some-odd years' worth of life.

Thank you, GUYS-

When a kid first picks up a guitar or a drumstick,

it's not really to be famous.

It's because that kid wants to fit in somewhere

and he wants to be accepted,

and he wants to be understood, even.

And so, I like to think of this award

as something that is acknowledging us

not for being famous, but for doing the work.

And I appreciate all the work

that all these guys behind me have done.

I want to thank Irving Azoff,

without whom we wouldn't be here today.

As I've said before, he may be Satan, but he's our Satan.

We're in a dog-eat-dog business.

Show me anybody that's gonna be responsible

for guiding or managing an artist's career

that's made too many friends,

and I'm gonna show you somebody that's sold out their artist

and done a crappy job.

So, I was quite proud of Henley's reference of what he said.

It was more or less, for me, a validation of a job well done.

A lot of my job was trying to keep the band from breaking up.

In the '70s,

we formed a corporation called Eagles, Limited.

And that was all-for-one and one-for-all.

Well, it wasn't the three musketeers.

As our friend J.D. Souther used to say,

"Time passes, things change."

In talking with Irving

about putting the Eagles back together in 1994,

I said, "Irving, I'm not gonna do it

unless Don and I make more money than the other guys."

"We're the only guys who have done anything career-wise

in the last 14 years.

We're the guys that have kept the Eagles' name alive on radio,

television, and in concert halls."

So we came up with a deal

that I was happy with, and Don was happy with,

Timothy was happy with, Joe was happy with,

and Don Felder was not happy with.

And I called Felder's representative.

And I said, "Hello, Barry. This is Glenn Frey.

I'm sorry you happen to represent the only asshole in the band,

but let me tell you something.

You either sign this agreement before the sun goes down today,

or we're replacing Don Felder.

That's the final deal.

He signs by sunset, or he's out of the fucking band."

Hung UP-

So, he signed the deal, and we started out on the tour.

I didn't sense a great deal of camaraderie.

You hardly saw anybody

if it wasn't walking on the plane or walking onto the stage.

Everyone thought, "Well, if we don't get together,

we won't have problems."

And I think instead of being able to sit down and have a beer

and talk about stuff and renew a relationship with everyone,

that independent isolation

really didn't add the comfort necessary to make it work.

Don Felder was never, ever satisfied,

never, ever happy.

A rock band is not a perfect democracy.

It's more like a sports team.

No one can do anything without the other guys,

but everybody doesn't get to touch the ball all the time.

Time went on, and time went on,

and Fewer became more and more unhappy.

Couldn't appreciate the amount of money he was making,

more concerned about how much money I was making.

If Don Felder really thought about it,

it really was he wanted it to be a"band"band

in the purest sense of the words,

you know, we're all gonna get equal songwriting,

singing, expression stuff,

and this was not a hippie commune.

You know, and everything for them

really goes back to those two words -- song power.

We finally made the decision

that we won't be working with him anymore.

It just broke my heart.

It's not just playing with Joe.

I missed these guys.

But I really missed the friendship and the music.

Okay.

Strong.

Good. Good, good, good. Good shot.

Glenn and I, when it comes time to make band decisions,

usually stick together.

It's difficult for four or five people to have an equal say.

Here we are 40 years later, and we're doing okay.

We're one of the few bands that can say that.

The novelty of the Eagles being back together

and those few new songs that we had

on the "Hell Freezes Over" album is one thing.

But we needed to make a record.

Considering that we haven't made a record in so long,

we spent a good two and a half years making "Long Road Out of Eden."

We finally figured out that we just needed to do what we do.

This really goes back to the essence of what we do best,

which is singing and songwriting.

A lot of harmony singing on this album.

Big tragedies like that make you think, as a parent,

what kind of world is coming up?

What's gonna happen next?

What's the world gonna be like when my kids are grown?

After September 11th, our immediate visceral reaction,

our gut reaction, resulted in "Hole in the World."

The Eagles have written and sung

plenty of love songs over the years,

but we've also written and sung

songs that have to do with what's going on in the wider world.

We've never shied away from social commentary.

We think it's part of a rich tradition

that dates all the way back to medieval times.

And so we still engage in it.

The writings and the ideas

of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson

had a huge impact on me.

They got me through some very difficult times in my life,

one being when my father was stricken with heart disease,

and provided a lot of spiritual support for me.

When I found out in 1980

that part of Walden was going to be destroyed

by commercial development,

I decided that was something I needed to help fight.

So I ended up founding the Walden Woods Project.

And we are in our 27th year now, and we've accomplished a great deal.

It's been one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done.

The lyrics to that song were originally a poem

written by a great American poet named John Hollander.

Don had this title, "Long Road Out of Eden."

Timothy goes over, and he picks up an acoustic guitar.

And I go over to the keyboards

and Joe grabs a guitar and Don goes on the drums.

And we start making up this sort of musical story

called "Long Road Out of Eden,"

a story of, really, the war in Iraq.

And it was, like, the last resort.

It was another opus, another David Lean movie.

We finally got through,

and we finally made "Long Road Out of Eden."

And we didn't give it to a record company.

We made a deal with Walmart.

This was the first major artist to do a direct-to-retail release

and bypass the major record companies.

It was phenomenally successful.

The album entered at number one.

It gave, I think, the whole industry hope

that it could find a new and different way to reach its fans.

They're becoming a much greener company,

and that was important to me.

And the other good thing was that our fans got 20 songs for 12 bucks.

It was basically a double album,

and they weren't charged double for it.

Don said, "I got a title for a song --

'Busy Being Fabulous."'

And I thought, "What a great title."

And then Don wrote,

"'Don't wait up for me tonight,' that was all she wrote."

And then we were off on the story.

"Busy Being Fabulous,"

Don and Glenn had gotten it to a certain state,

and I came up with some stuff for the bridge

and tweaked what already existed.

I was very involved in the "Long Road" record.

I've always been a lot happier getting into the entire project,

arranging stuff, producing the stuff, co-writing the stuff.

Like, "Waiting in the Weeds" and "Business As Usual"

were co-writes with Don.

Getting Steuart Smith in the band was a real shot in the arm.

He's such a terrific musician.

It's a great solo.

It's like stepping into a space suit.

It is strange to be playing that song.

The reaction is terrific, and you bask in that excitement.

But I didn't write it.

I'm one part hired gun, but also one part collaborator.

I'm one of the guitar players.

But I'm not an Eagle.

I don't know what it's like to be one of those guys.

...3, 4.

My kids were looking on the Internet,

and they found this show that the Eagles had done in 1974.

I was in my office watching TV,

and my kids come in and say, "Hey, Dad, come here.

You got to take a look at your hair."

And one of the songs was "How Long."

"How Long" was from my first solo album.

They found that, 'cause Cindy saw it on YouTube

and said, "Glenn, what's this?"

And he said, "Oh, it's a song of J.D.'s."

She said, "Well, you didn't cut it, did you?"

J.D. wanted it on his solo album, so we never recorded it.

My wife said, "Hey, that sounds like a hit Eagles song."

They are the American band.

Yeah, they pretty much encompassed the '70s, didn't they?

And took it all in.

That's a long time to still have a musical impact,

and it's due to this incredibly crisp, tight,

extraordinarily good record-making band

and the presence of good songs.

But it's also now taken on this other thing, too,

where it's everybody through the band wants to remember a '70s

that they may or may not have had.

This band could go play stadiums all over the country,

and people know these songs so intimately.

They last.

The songs last.

I have one small plaque on my wall.

It says, "Presented to the Eagles

to commemorate the best-selling album of the 20th century

with sales in excess of 26 million units."

That century's gone, so nobody's gonna top that.

What's it like to be an Eagle now?

It's just part of my life.

I do normal things.

I go to the market,

and once in a while, somebody comes up to me.

I don't walk around being an Eagle.

I'm an Eagle when it's time for me to be.

I made sure the dishes were done before you guys came today.

You know?

I love everybody in the band like a brother.

To be part of a real band,

a real band,

is something that not all musicians get to do in their life.

And I'm real lucky to have that chapter in my book.

Rock 'n' roll saved my life.

It changed my life tremendously.

And as Mick Jagger so famously and eloquently said,

"it's only rock 'n' roll, but I like it."

I think that one of the reasons

that Glenn and I wanted to write songs

is because rock 'n' roll music got us through junior high

and through high school

and those difficult times

when you're searching for your identity

and wondering who the heck you are, trying to get girls to notice you,

and wondering why the football players

are doing so much better than you are.

At the end of the day,

it was and still is about the music.

I regret that I didn't handle some of the adversity

that the Eagles faced in the late '70s better.

Fortunately, for me,

I've had another chance to be the leader of the Eagles,

another chance to be Don's partner

and do this work again and play this music.

And in this second run, I think I've done a pretty good job

of keeping the peace and keep the band together,

keep everybody happy.

So here we are, still doing it.

Thank you.

That's it! That's it!

'Bye-bye. 'Bye-bye.

We wanted longevity.

It wasn't a hobby for us. It wasn't a game.

It wasn't a pleasant diversion.

It was a life.

It was a calling. It was a career.

It was worth it.

We went to China last year.

We're still breaking new ground 40 years later.

Back in the late '70s,

Neil Young sang a song about the emerging punk ethic.

And the pivotal line in that song was:

"it's better to burn out than it is to rust."

And I'm not sure that even Neil, himself,

subscribed to that sentiment,

but I don't see rust as a bad thing.

I have an old 1962 John Deere tractor

that's covered with rust, but it runs like a top.

You know, the inner workings are just fine.

To me, that rust symbolizes all the miles driven

and all the good work done and all the experiences gained.

From where I sit, the rust looks pretty good.

When somebody is around 40 years,

it means they've got something, something that people want.

And the Eagles have that.

To me, the Eagles really expressed a mood.

California was the place of dreams.

It was a time of limitless possibilities.

I think they were a defining moment

in the rock-'n'-roll world thatllove.

You couldn't really love the Eagles music

and be an Eagles fan and actually know them

and not aspire to greatness yourself.

I'm not really into legacies.

People talk to me, "What's your legacy?"

I'm here now.

I'm doing what I want to do,

and I'm trying to make stuff happen.

I see the Eagles in the same way.

They're not in the '70s.

They're in 2012 and 2013.

And whatever they're doing now artistically, that's what's important.