Frey Goes Indie with Mission Start-up
Author: Chris Morris
Publication: Billboard
Date: February 14, 1998
Abstract: Article discussing Glenn Frey starting his own independent record label called Mission Records.
For the Eagles, last month's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may have been the last hurrah.
Don Henley and Glenn Frey, the singer-songwriters who have been in the group since the beginning, acknowledged that the Eagles saga may be at an end.
Henley, 50, and Frey, 49, may not be willing to take the time from
their families and solo careers to devote the energy and emotion
required to make another Eagles album. It was during the grueling
sessions for the group's last studio collection, 1979's"The Long Run," that the band eventually broke apart, and some of those tensions remain.
Frey, who has children ages 3 and 6, hopes to release a solo album this fall on his own Mission Records label, and Henley, who has a 2-year-old daughter and another child due next month, expects his first Warner Bros. album to be ready this summer.
Q. What were your early rock dreams?
Henley: The real thing that any artist wants, I think, is to be
understood and accepted. Those are the primary motivations for anyone going into rock-and-roll... because where I come from Gilmer, Texas, the sports figures were always the popular people in high school. The musicians were always relegated to the back of the bus.
Q. When you look back at the Eagles history, are there some
particularly sweet memories? The first hit? The first show?
Henley: Sure... each of the things you mention were sweet, and the older I get the more I remember them. It makes me sad to realize those are probably gone forever. Because of the amount of water that has gone under the bridge and because of the inevitable growing apart, we can never... pause. We wrote a few prophetic lines and one of the most prophetic was in the song"I Can't Tell You Why,"and it's the line,"We make it harder than it has to be." And that has certainly been the case for the last 2
1/2 years. I wish it could be a joyous brotherhood of music, but I have come to realize that it's just not.
Q. What would you nominate as the best of the Eagles albums? And then your favorite, if that's a different one?
Frey: I think that the best album would be "Hotel California." That's where the songwriting, the musicianship, and the record
production all came together. But my personal favorite is probably "One of These Nights." I think part of it was the experience of making the record. There were a lot of wonderful new musical moments that we had... doing all the fuzz guitars on the intro of"One of These Nights." There were some good songs on that album, including"Lyin Eyes."
Q. How do you feel about being inducted into the Hall of Fame?
Frey: You try to be a bit blase about it, but when it actually hits
you, it's pretty nice. I'm especially happy all seven Eagles have been recognized because everybody contributed.
Q. What about the future of the Eagles?
Henley: It changes every week. I tell you this: I would be willing
to do it again in the future if it could be done with joy and enthusiasm and integrity... a tour and an album. I'd never tour again and play the same old songs without a new album. I think everybody agrees on that.
But if we can't do an album with those three things and can't do a tour with the same, I'm out.
Frey: It wouldn't be a bad time to tip our hats and ride off into
the sunset. There's a certain amount of closure in being inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
