TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT
‘Tensions ran very deep in the Eagles,’ says former bass player Timothy B. Schmit
“It seems like people are just dropping off the earth,” says Timothy B. Schmit. “I suppose that happens when you get older. It’s part of life. No one’s getting out of it.”
The Eagles bassist is contemplating the death last year of Glenn Frey, the group’s founder and the man who co-wrote some of the most popular songs of the 20th century, including Hotel California and Take it Easy.
“None of us realized how sick he was.
“He had a lot of health issues, but we didn’t know it was so serious. He went into hospital and didn’t come back.”
Frey, who died from intestinal problems on Jan. 18, 2016, at 67, had toured with the group as recently as the summer of 2015.
“It’s just so f---ing weird, you know?” says Schmit.
“The two most mysterious things in our lives are birth and death. They are both miraculous events; one brings shiny, brand new life into the world, and the other snuffs it out like that.” He clicks his fingers. “That person isn’t there any more.”
Schmit maintains a philosophical demeanour, but there are moments when his composure cracks.
“It’s really still shocking and we are still processing it,” he admits.
“For a long time afterwards, I thought about his passing every day, quite a lot. That’s backed off a bit.”
Schmit was the last Eagle to join, recruited in 1977 when the country rock band ruled the world. Their Greatest Hits remains the second biggest selling album ever, its 42-million sales beaten only by Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Schmit played in a lineup of guitarist and vocalist Frey, drummer/ vocalist Don Henley and lead guitarist Joe Walsh, through breakups and reunions for over 30 years, until the death of their leader. So is that it for the Eagles? “It looks like it,” says Schmit. “The Eagles couldn’t be the Eagles without both Don and Glenn. That’s why I think this thing ’s over. You see a lot of oldies bands still going out and playing when there’s not one person left from the original lineup. I wouldn’t ever want to go there.”
Schmit has used this unexpected lull to make his sixth solo album, Leap of Faith.
It is really a treat, a beautifully crafted mélange of country, rock, reggae, R&B and blue-eyed soul, played with finesse and glistening with gorgeous harmonies.
If it was an Eagles album, it would be hailed as a quite spectacular return.
Schmit wrote it all himself and co-produced it with Eagles engineer Hank Linderman.
Yet the bassist with the high, sweet voice only ever had a handful of co-writing credits on Eagles albums, singing lead on their last Top 10 hit, I Can’t Tell You Why, in 1980.
“There was a pecking order. It was Glenn and Don’s band, no question.
“And they knew what they were doing. I learned a lot from them. A great song has to stand on its own, just singing and playing, and the rest is frosting.
“But you have to pay attention to the frosting.”
He was, he says, a late developer as a writer.
“I’m not very prolific. I really go through a lot of aches and pains. I’m not digging a ditch, but it is work, and I do contemplate pretty much every word and note. I don’t take any of it lightly.”
It is probably fair to say that Schmit did not know what he was letting himself in for when he joined The Eagles.
Frey once described the band’s career as: “Got crazy, got drunk, got high, had girls, played music and made money.”
The craziness included the arrest of Henley in November 1979 after a nude 16-year-old prostitute suffered a drug overdose during a party at his home in Los Angeles.
Cocaine, marijuana and the sex drug Quaaludes were seized.
Henley was charged for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, fined and put on probation. Walsh was well on his way to becoming one of rock’s biggest hellraisers, with a mammoth alcohol and drug problem (he has been sober since 1994).
Frey, too, led a life of excess and the partying, combined with Frey’s cockiness and single-minded pursuit of success (no matter how debauched the night before, he never missed work), led to huge arguments.
“I felt the tension, I saw the squabbling, but I didn’t know how deep it was,” admits Schmit, who was the only member of the group to keep his intake of drugs and booze in check.
“I was the new guy, I wanted to fit in.
“I saw it get heavier and weirder, but I missed the build up. I thought, ‘This will pass.’ ”
But just three years after he joined, the Eagles broke up in 1980, with band members threatening to administer beatings to each other onstage during a charity fundraising concert.
“I was in shock. I didn’t even really believe it, until I finally called Glenn, and said, ‘Is this thing really over?’ and he said, ‘Oh yeah, it’s over. See you.’ It made me very sad. But you move on, and do what you can do.”
Schmit made solo records and guest appearances with a number of great artists, including Toto (he sings backing vocals on their 1982 No. 1 single Africa), Steely Dan, Bob Seger, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Ringo Starr.
Asked in 1980 when the Eagles would get together again, Henley replied, “When hell freezes over.”
Fourteen years later, in 1994, The Eagles embarked on the Hell Freezes Over tour. So what changed?
“We said, ‘Screw all this. Why do we have to be all lovey dovey all the time? “Let’s just go to work.’ ” Leap of Faith is out now.