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Wed 14 October 2026 21:30, UK
Don Henley didn’t build up the Eagles to be one of the biggest bands in the world just to ignore the touring lifestyle.
Spending most days out on the road isn’t always easy for people who have to worry about their families back home, but as long as he hears the same kind of magical harmonies every time they rehearse some of their tunes, that’s what makes any number of their albums so thrilling. But with time comes perspective, and while some of the band’s shows could get pretty rusty, Henley always knew that the band would be in good hands as long as they had the right people around him.
Which is part of the reason why Don Felder wasn’t the kind of person to join the band all over again. There was so much red tape tied up with what he was doing behind the scenes with the Eagles, and even though he was completely valid in wanting a bit more money than what he was making every single night, there was no way that the rest of the band were going to restructure their entire plan because he realised that he signed a bad deal.
Glenn Frey was the one most frustrated with Felder by the end of things, but it did help to give someone like Steuart Smith a call when they started to work on Long Road Out of Eden. He was already one of the legends of the session, and while he’s the first to say that he wasn’t a proper member of the band by any means, he definitely helped give the band a shot in the arm whenever they played along to tunes like ‘Hotel California’ live.
That song isn’t something that one guitarist can pull off by themselves most of the time, and hearing Smith and Walsh going back and forth was a treat for people who didn’t get to hear those magical songs live back in the day. Felder’s replacement seemed like the best kind of situation, but the band were going to need a miracle if they were going to replace someone like Frey after he passed in 2016.
Frey was the one at the front delivering that freewheeling spirit to the crowd, and anyone who was standing up there was going to have some big shoes to fill. And while Deacon Frey did a great job filling in for his old man, Henley felt that getting someone like Vince Gill in to fill out the guitar sound and some of Frey’s vocal parts was the reason that they were still standing tall whenever they went out onstage.
There could be a thousand things going wrong during their set, but even if Henley and Walsh had a rough time keeping things afloat, he knew that Gill was going to keep them on track, saying, “He’s one of the best singers on the planet, one of the absolute best singers there is and one of the best guitarists as well. So we knew that he was one of the only guys who could have stepped into that position and done that. I can’t think of anyone else.”
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Adding, “I was a little surprised, though, because I thought he was kind of a bluegrass guy. He brought these gigantic amplifiers with him, these huge electric amps, not one but two of them. So it’s really loud on that side of the stage. It’s as large as Walsh is on the other side. It balances things out.”
And for all of the bluegrass chops that he might have had, Gill may actually be a few shoulders above what Walsh could do. That’s not meant to be a diss towards Walsh’s playing style by any means, but whereas you can hear a lot of his personality come through in everything he plays, Gill is the kind of person that could play the most technically difficult riff anyone has ever played and make the whole thing look like a walk in the park.
So while Henley tried his best to keep his voice in shape and drum to his heart’s content whenever the band plays these days, the reason why they’re still standing is because of people like Gill being out with them. He knew he had a job to do as a band member, and while he can take the spotlight every once in a while, the greatest strength he has is being able to prop up everyone else that he’s working with.
