I especially enjoyed some of the old hairstyles, with my hair down to my shoulders and a beard. And Henley's nickname used to be 'Furry Basketball' because he had that fro. It was fun to just look at what was going on in that era and how we presented ourselves on stage.
When the band first formed, everybody had been sidemen. So they said, 'In this band there are no sidemen,' and when I joined the band, it was still the same. There were some power struggles emerging, because Henley and Frey had sung all the hits at that point.
I never challenged control of the band. Basically, all I did was start asking questions. There's an old adage in Hollywood amongst managers: 'Pay your acts enough money that they don't ask questions.' And I started asking questions.
Within a twelve or fourteen month period, I went through a divorce from my wife of 29 years, which is devastating emotionally and earthshaking as far as your whole world being turned upside-down. And within that same twelve month period, I left the Eagles.
Early on, one of my favorites was Ray Charles. I remember hearing 'I Can't Stop Loving You' in the early '60s and thinking, 'What an unbelievably soulful voice.' In those days, the Deep South was extremely segregated.
Shortly after I moved to Los Angeles, I was looking for work, and I happened to be invited to Ray's studio and sat in and played on a couple of his demos. I didn't charge him a dime for it. I was on cloud nine to be working in the same room as Ray Charles, one of my huge idols.
Being on the road has about 2 1/2 hours a day that are really great, and that's when you're onstage. The other 21 1/2 hours are very boring... It becomes like a void, and we chose to fill it with all the wrong things.
There was no call from anybody in the band to discuss any of the things that had been a problem or what I had done wrong.
I've known those guys for decades and done some charity fundraisers with them in L.A. The response was so great from the Boston/Doobies/Felder package.
I try to balance work and family. As long as I'm able physically and mentally to do it, I will.
When I first left the Eagles, I said, 'That's it. I'm going to play golf.' After 10 days, it was like... there has to be more to life! I can still swing a golf club, and don't forget, Les Paul played until he literally passed away.
I graduated from high school at 165 pounds, so twice a year, I get back to that number - I never let it get to 172-73. Then I go back to doubling the cardio. This week, I'm on a complete liquid diet, a juice fast. It keeps me lean and hungry.
I've always been drawn back to the South, whether it's Southern California or in Florida, where I grew up, and I wanted to write a song about that.
I try to write five or six songs each year and not just in one genre.
Once I got into driving those little Mercedes convertibles, I just absolutely loved it. They feel really - great crash safety ratings, mechanically they're unbelievably sound, and I've been driving them ever since.
If I put 3,000 miles a year on my car, that's a lot. If I buy them, it just doesn't make sense, so I lease them, and my company writes the whole car expense off.
As a kid, I had my head under the hood of a car, either an old Ford or a Chevrolet, just learning about it so if anything happened, I could repair it.
