Failed Eagles Reunion Pushes Frey Into Flying Solo
Author: Gary Graff
Publication: Toronto Star
Date: July 17, 1992
Abstract: Interview which largely discusses why the Eagles didn't reunite as hoped in 1990, and his new outlook on life as demonstrated in Strange Weather.
A decade later, Glenn Frey figures he's put "the Eagles thing" to rest. Now he's happily getting on with his own life and solo career without being dogged by questions about whether his old group will ever reunite.
Frey tried it, and it didn't work. During 1989 and 1990 he got together with his former Eagles mate Don Henley to try to write some songs. Ostensibly they were for a boxed-set retrospective that would lead to an Eagles reunion tour and what industry moguls hoped would be a lasting reformation.
"I started the year 1990 by saying, 'Anything is possible,' " says the 43-year-old Frey, who co-founded the Eagles in 1971 and was part of the group's acrimonious breakup during the early '80s. "(Former manager) Irving Azoff took that to mean the Eagles could get back together. I wanted to look into it, too.
"My thinking was it had been 10 years, people have done a lot of different things. Maybe there was a chance of us doing something together."
But after a few writing sessions with Henley, Frey found the chance was nil.
"It's more what didn't happen than what did," Frey says. "Don and I didn't come together creatively or personally the way we needed to in order to make the magic happen. We still like each other, but. . . .
"It's like having a former girlfriend. If you were to run into this person on the street, you would be cordial, but you wouldn't be intimate.
"To be in a band with somebody for a year or so, you've got to be intimate. I just didn't feel like I could get intimate with the other guys in the Eagles again. Not just Henley, either; I don't even want to get into the case of Joe Walsh.
"So it didn't work out, but I have no axe to grind. I wish all the guys in the band success in business and success in life. I would never say I wouldn't get together with the guys to play a show, but I'm not going to give my life to it again."
In fact, Frey says, he's spent the past few years deliberately "directing my life away from rock 'n' roll." He's remarried and has a 1-year-old daughter. He moved from Los Angeles to Aspen, where he built a recording studio next to his house.
"I've been trying to move here since 1975," says Frey, who was laid low by intestinal surgery in 1990. "My life has a lot better balance here. It's kind of cleared my head and let me look at the world around me with a different perspective."
That outlook is obvious on Strange Weather, Frey's just- released fourth solo album. Musically it's a meticulously crafted set that harkens back to the smooth pop sound of his Eagles days. The record's best number, "River Of Dreams", conveys the same kind of soulful yearning as the Eagles' hit "Desperado".