Flying Solo
Author: Eric Snider
Publication: St. Petersburg Times
Date: March 29, 1991
Abstract: Highly structured phone interview with Glenn that covers topics such as the fact that there will be no Eagles reunion, the Southwest Florida Golf and Music Festival, his fitness regimen, and how he measures success.
It's 7 a.m. California time, and Glenn Frey, who's already been up for a couple of hours, is talking on the phone, outlining how he'd like this interview to be conducted.
Past.
Present.
Future.
He'll fill the writer in on the basics in those three time frames, and then if the writer has any questions afterward, he'll gladly field them. The writer counters with a proviso: If specific questions come to mind during the "basics" segment, he'll break in and ask.
Cool.
Glenn Frey, 42, is nothing if not an organized man. After spending a turbulent tenure as one of the principal members of '70s supergroup the Eagles, he decided in the mid '80s to get healthy and diversify his interests. He did some acting (Miami Vice, Wiseguy). He hired personal trainers and started extensive pre-dawn workouts. He became, as he calls it jokingly, "a musical Marine."
"About '85, I had a problem with my intestine, and it was a first time I detected a little flaw in the machinery," he says. "I was going through a divorce. I decided it was time to change my lifestyle. Atter six months of struggling with (the workouts), it started to really pay off. The things that used to make me feel good started to make me feel bad, so I started looking for new stimulants, new ways to be high, if you will. Exercise was it."
But we're straying.
THE PAST (sort of): "Everyone of course wants to know about an Eagles reunion, and there's not going to be one. After exploring the possibilities and talking about it extensively, it proved a very difficult thing to pull together. I wanted to leave the Eagles untarnished.
"Don Henley and myself talked about it a lot, and it didn't come together creatively. In our case, we learned, you can't go back. We fed that beast for 10 years, and I know how much commitment it takes.
"I personally did not feel I had a year and a half to give to that cause. I want the Eagles to be just a chapter."
Frey passed up a lot of money by turning down the reunion.
"They were offering us a ton," he says. "They started throwing some figures around, and I sort of had to say to myself, "This would certainly set up my future,' but I'm pleased that it's gonna be this way."
Not that Frey is hurting.
"I have a life in the arts, and I make a lot of money," he says. "I have the incredible windfall, this annuity. The Eagles continue to sell and flourish. I make a very comfortable living that allows me to do other things."
Such financial security allows Frey to work on a pet project that dominates. . .
THE PRESENT: The Southwest Florida Golf and Music Festival will be held Monday in Fort Myers to benefit the American Diabetes Association and the Southwest Florida Center for Independent Living, which Frey describes as "sort of a day care center for Alzheimer's patients."
The ex-Eagle's friend Mark Lye, a 14-year PGA tour veteran, is handling the golf; Frey is doing the music. Jimmy Buffett and new country star Vince Gill are slated for guest appearances.
The robust R&B band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack will open n n the shows, and Frey will get to use the group's horn section to augment his large ensemble.
Frey, who has been rehearsing the group for about three weeks, sought some tune-up shows in Florida. Jannus Landing was one of the sites chosen.
Frey hasn't led a band on stage in about four years, but he says he's ready to go.
"It takes a couple of rehearsals to get the guitar chops back together and toughen up the throat," he says. "I didn't figure that working out would improve my singing and playing, but it actually has."
Frey admits that his high-profile exercise regimen he became a spokesman for the Health and Tennis Corp. of America, appearing in glossy brochures showing off his newly rippled body drew some sideward glances from his contemporaries in the rock community.
"Sure, so what," he says lightheartedly. "A lot of my peers started working out over the last few years or at least have made the attempt and are now accumulating fitness guilt, hoping to eventually get back into it, but I was never completely off the beam. I always played sports. Henley and I jogged in Miami during Hotel California.
"It wasn't like Keith Richards undertaking a fitness program. A few of us had a lot of fun joking about the Glenn Frey Rock 'n' Roll Fitness Video. The first day you buy the clothes, check 'em out, see how they feel. (He laughs.)
"The second day you get in there with the equipment and wear the clothes, do a couple of sit-ups and have a cigarette, make a couple of phone calls. Call the studio and tell 'em you're gonna be late, you're training."
THE FUTURE: Frey explains that he's in the process of finishing a home studio in Colorado. He's halfway done with his fourth solo album, Strange Weather. "Eric, it's 7:30," he says, meaning the alloted interview time has been filled.
Just one more QUESTION: Seeing as you've not yet produced a blockbuster album on your own, are you satisfied with the way your solo career has played out?
"My yardstick isn't measured in albums sales or Grammys or the number of TV appearances," he says. "My yardstick is more geared now toward being a complete man: husband, father (his first child was born little more than a week ago), songwriter.
"Sometimes success is pure coincidence. There's a larger overview. I consider myself a songwriter, and every two or three years I come up with a collection of songs and record them. I don't write songs because I want to have hit records.
"You make records, put them out and let the chips fall where they may. People either dig it or they don't.
"I don't feel as if I'm competing with anybody but myself."
