Q: When I was reading your book, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (John Wiley & Sons Canada), it surprised me—I’d forgotten that there was a time when the length of somebody’s hair could be such an issue.
A: Oh, it was huge. You know, my brother was just straight as an arrow, and got a scholarship to law school, and to this day you’d look at him and you know he’s a lawyer. So he was my predecessor, and then I had long hair, and was playing in bars, and my dad was really on my case.
Q: You grew up in Gainsville, Fla., and by the time you were out of high school you’d met not only Bernie Leadon, who was one of the founding members of the Eagles, but Tom Petty, Stephen Stills, the Allman Brothers. How’d that happen?
A: I don’t know if there was something in the water, or if it was something we all were smoking at the time, but an inordinate amount of people came out of that particular little area in north-central Florida, which was just a poor little town. We’d go play those fraternity parties Friday and Saturday, and sneak a beer out of the keg when nobody was looking, you know? During the summer we would go over and play the strip, either Daytona or Lauderdale or somewhere on the coast. That’s where I met the Allman Brothers.
Q: Who’s the best rock ’n’ roll guitarist you met? Would it be Duane Allman?
A: The best rock ’n’ roll guitarist I’ve ever met is Jeff Beck. He has the most brilliant dexterity and the ability to just play completely freely. Duane was a good guitar player but he was probably the most unique slide guitar player. Everybody else that played the old black blues music had played it on acoustic guitar, and Duane had taken that heritage and transferred it onto electric guitar, a Les Paul, and turned up this amp, and it was just smoking. But Jeff Beck, to me, is the most creative, innovative guitar player I’ve ever seen. He can play anything, literally.
Q: So you play in a few bands in Florida, and before long you’re in California where the rock music scene is taking off.
A: I’d always go see Bernie and we’d hang out in rehearsals and just jam. And so I got this call from Glenn Frey in the middle of the Eagles making the album On the Border, asking me if I’d come down and play slide guitar on this one song, ironically enough entitled Good Day in Hell, which turned out to be a very long good day in hell! I played that session and I got a call the next day from Glenn asking me to join the band.
Q: So you went from being a sideman to becoming a partner with the Eagles?
A: Correct, exactly. We formed this company called Eagles Ltd., which was a corporation owned by all five members, it was Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner and myself, we each owned 20 per cent of this company that owned the Eagles. It owned the T-shirts, the touring, everything, it was all divided equally. This band was going to be different, there were going to be no sidemen involved with this organization.
