British interviews with the Eagles are always informative to read and listen to, because you can get a non-American perspective on the band. On this page are different interviews that took place in England and/or were published in British rock music publications. The pdf versions are best for viewing and reading. More interviews will be added later.
March 3, 1973:
Melody Maker was a British weekly music magazine, and it was one of the world’s earliest music weeklies. It was founded in 1926, and in 2000 it merged with its long-time rival New Musical Express (NME).
Mark Plummer interviewed the Eagles for the Mar. 3, 1973 issue. while they were in London recording the Desperado album at Island Studios. They were also touring during March and appeared on the London BBC “In Concert” TV show and at the Popgala Festival in Voorburg, which was a 2-day event held March 9 & 10, 1973. The full Popgala concert video from Holland is below. This performance includes “How Long” and “Tryin'”.
March 10, 1973:
Danny Holloway was a rock journalist for New Musical Express (NME), which is a British rock music publication, for a couple of years in the early seventies. He interviewed the Eagles for the Mar. 10, 1973 issue while they were in England. Note that Holloway mistakenly refers to Glenn Frey as a Texan.
April 12, 1975:
Chris Charlesworth interviewed Glenn at his home in Los Angeles for the April 12, 1975 issue of Melody Maker magazine. He later interviewed Glenn and Don Henley for the Dec. 11, 1976 issue.
June 28, 1975:
The New Musical Express (NME), which is a British rock music publication, contained an article about the Eagles in the June 28, 1975 issue. The journalist trying to interview the Eagles was Steve Clarke, and he was in Rotterdam while the Eagles were on tour there. The Eagles were not fond of this interviewer, especially Don Henley, so it doesn’t appear the interview went very well. Steve Clarke did get at least enough info to put together the article for NME. The Eagles had played at the Rotterdam Ahoy on June 18, 1975.
September 27, 1975:
This is an interview with Don Felder published in Sounds. Sounds was a weekly music newspaper published in London. Don and the Eagles were at Caribou Ranch in Colorado at the time of the interview.
December 11, 1976:
Chris Charlesworth interviewed Glenn Frey and Don Henley at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Frey and Henley had set themselves up in one of the bungalows on the hotel’s grounds to talk about Joe Walsh joining the Eagles and their soon-to-be released Hotel California album.
That interview appeared in the Dec. 11, 1976 Melody Maker issue. Due to the length of it, the interview is split into two parts below.
January 8, 1977:
Barbara Charone interviewed Don Henley and Glenn Frey in California at the Beverly Hills Hotel for the Jan. 8, 1977 issue of Sounds. Sounds was a weekly music newspaper published in London. Barbara Charone was also the writer of the article published in Crawdaddy in the April 1977 issue. Some content in the two articles overlap.
April 19, 1977:
A few months later on April 19, 1977 John Tobler interviewed the Eagles for BBC Radio 1 while they were in London on their European tour. John Tobler is a British rock journalist and one of the founders of Zigzag magazine. He is also the author of several rock music books. John Tobler has had a long and interesting career in rock music journalism.
It was a lengthy interview (approx. 1 1/2 hours) at the InterContinental Hotel in London with Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Don Felder, and Don Henley. Randy is the first to speak, and his segment lasts about six minutes. He talks about being the parts man at a John Deere dealership between bands. Each of the Eagles had interesting stories to tell about how they got started in the music business with their various bands. They also talked about other musicians they worked with and the origins of some of the Eagles’ songs. At about 55:16 Glenn explained how Winslow Arizona became a part of Take It Easy, and he told the real story of girls slowing down to take a look at him and then driving on while he was hitchhiking in California.
February 2022:
Uncut is a monthly magazine based in London that focuses on music. It began in May 1997.
This Uncut Magazine interview by Nick Hasted tells the story of the Eagles recording their first album in London 50 years ago in 1972 and also going out to Joshua Tree for their photo shoot. Bernie has most of the input, and it’s a very interesting account of what happened in the beginning of the Eagles.
British Interviews with the Eagles
March 3, 1973 – Melody Maker Magazine (History of Rock 1973)
Interview with Mark Plummer – pdf version
“Alice can do what he likes, says Randy, but don’t he step on baby chickens? Is that rock ‘n’ roll?”
Pg. 6
Pg. 7
Pg. 8
Eagles at 2-day Popgala Festival in Voorburg, Netherlands – Mar. 9-10, 1973
Gijsbert Hanekroot, Dutch photographer
Randy Meisner, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Bernie Leadon
Peter Mazel, Dutch photographer
Full Voorburg Popgala 1973 concert
This festival performance includes “How Long” and “Tryin'”.
Even though “Saturday Night” is on the setlist, it is actually omitted from the concert.
With the exception of a low-quality recording of the Eagles performing at the opening of Boyd Elder’s art show in Venice, California, on Apr. 2, 1972, this Popgala concert is the first known recorded footage of the Eagles on stage. That short clip of the Boyd Elder show from 1972 is on the “One Of These Nights” page.
Glenn and Randy started the tradition of looking at each other while singing the ‘standing on a corner’ verse in “Take It Easy” early on. In the John Tobler interview at bottom of page below Glenn talks about the girls that really did slow down to take a look at him while he was hitchhiking…and then they drove on.
Popgala Setlists
Cash Box – Feb. 17, 1973
Don Henley and Randy Meisner at the London studio with Jennie Halsall and Linda Penney, PR representatives for Asylum
March 10, 1973 – New Musical Express
Interview with Danny Holloway
“In fact, the first time I met the group was just over a year ago when they were over here recording at Olympic studio with Johns. They were staying in a couple of cramped flats in Maida Vale when we discussed how disoriented the group was to the English weather.”
Note that Holloway mistakenly refers to Glenn Frey as a Texan.
Bernie Leadon, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Randy Meisner
April 12, 1975 – Melody Maker Magazine (History of Rock 1975)
Interview with Chris Charlesworth – pdf version
“What I like about playing in England, said Frey as we drew to a close, is the attentiveness of the audience. In America we tend to play to very boisterous crowds, but in England they sit and listen and I just thrive on that.”
Pg. 76
Pg. 77
June 28, 1975 – New Musical Express
Interview with Steve Clarke – pdf version
“A couple of hours later Walsh calls the interview off, fearing a hatchet job. I’m just tired of the whole thing. I know they’re sensitive people, but this is pushing it a bit, says Steve Clarke.”
Cover of New Musical Express for June 28, 1975
Pg. 12
Pg. 13
Eagles at Rotterdam Ahoy – June 18, 1975
One of These Nights Tour
Gijsbert Hanekroot and Michael Kooren, Dutch photographers
Joe Walsh, Randy (behind Joe), Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Don Felder
Randy Meisner, Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey, and Bernie Leadon
Don Felder
Randy Meisner, Bernie Leadon, and Glenn Frey
Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Don Felder
Randy Meisner
Bernie Leadon
Glenn Frey
Dec. 11, 1976 – Melody Maker Magazine
Interview with Chris Charlesworth
pdf version – part 1
pdf version – part 2
“Randy gets a standing ovation whenever he hits the high notes, and sometimes the applause goes on for two or three minutes.”
Part 1 of Interview
“Randy has always been the ribbon on our package. He provides all the bottom and the top, but we have to find the right song for his high voice and that usually means it must be in the ballad category. He delivers on such high intensity, too…he even sounds a little like Gene Pitney.”
Part 2 of Interview
January 8, 1977 – Sounds
Interview with Barbara Charone – pdf version
“We are sitting in bungalow 16 of the Beverly Hills Hotel, the same hotel coincidentally pictured on the front of their new album.”
Pg. 11
“If you remember, the last time the Eagles played Britain was at Wembley back in the summer of ’75. Just before they went on Joe Walsh and Barnstorm played their set. Shortley afterwards Bernie Leadon quit the Eagles and Walsh quickly stepped in.”
Pg. 12-13
“I don’t care if they don’t think ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ and ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ can find happiness together. We knew a year before Bernie left the Eagles that Joe was gonna replace him. Bernie wasn’t happy touring. We knew he was gonna leave. We checked around. And there was only one guitar player for the Eagles. We did it and we knew it was right.”
Pg. 14
April 19, 1977 – John Tobler interview for BBC Radio
John Tobler in the 1970s
The entire interview is nearly 1 1/2 hours long, but Randy is the first to be interviewed, and his segment only lasts about six minutes. John starts out asking Randy about the Dynamics and Rick Nelson. At about the 1:08:36 mark Don Henley mentions that Randy always gets a standing ovation of about three minutes, which is the longest ovation in their set, for Take It To The Limit.
This is an informal interview with all the Eagles and John Tobler sitting around in a room at the InterContinental Hotel in London, and is very interesting and informative. It’s definitely worth listening to. Randy Meisner left the Eagles later in 1977 after the Hotel California tour.
Feb. 2022 – Uncut Magazine
Interview with Nick Hasted – pdf version
“We came back to LA and tried to write some songs, Henley remembers. Geffen, meanwhile, didn’t give up. ‘He phoned me and said I’d made a huge mistake,’ says Johns. The producer suggested the Eagles play for him again in a rehearsal room. ‘When they ran their set, I didn’t feel that differently about it. Not, that is, until the band huddled around an acoustic guitar to sing Meisner’s ‘Take the Devil’. It completely blew me away. Once I copped their four-part harmony mix, it opened my eyes to the possibilities’.” *
*In Glyn Johns’ book “Sound Man” on page 191 Glyn said that the song the Eagles sang for him was “Most Of Us Are Sad”.
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