Glenn Frey – Soaring with the Eagles
“Glenn Frey, founder member of The Eagles”
Photo courtesy of Steve Alexander, Flickr.
There has been news in the press that fans mourning the death of David Bowie have been mocking the death of Glenn Frey, founder member of The Eagles. I really cannot understand this mentality and don’t think I ever will. I know The Eagles are one of the most successful and most hated bands of all time but give the man a break. He was a very talented musician and song-writer and deserves some respect for the happiness his songs have brought to millions.
Photo courtesy of Steve Alexander, Flickr.
Glenn Frey was born in Detroit, thousands of miles from where I grew up in south and south east London. Theoretically, David Bowie you may have thought David Bowie would have had more of an impact on my life being the local lad. But, although I have always loved David Bowie’s music it was the founder member The Eagles who had the biggest impact on my life.
I didn’t know The Eagles sang that?
Back in the early 80s I played bass in a country rock band playing in clubs and pubs in south London and Surrey. As our influence was predominantly The Eagles nowadays we may have been referred to as an Eagles tribute band. We were even called ‘The Midnight Flyers’ after one of The Eagles songs. We were a five piece band and were very proud of our complex vocal harmonies and dual lead guitars, working so hard to emulate that great Eagles sound.
My role in the Midnight Flyers required me to sing the lead and backing vocals that Glenn Frey would have sung. He co-wrote some of my favourite Eagles songs including Lyin’ Eyes, Tequila Sunrise and Hotel California. Although he didn’t write Peaceful Easy Feeling, he did sing lead and that is still one of my favourite songs, whether I am with a band or solo with an acoustic guitar. The most common jibes I get when I am singing any song is. “Can you sing that in the style of The Eagles?” Or, “I didn’t know The Eagles sang that?” I hasten to add this is mainly from our MD Mr Hodges, although some of our friends at the IT Directors Forum issue similar feedback.
“When we got it right we knew it was worth all the effort. But, the slightest thing wrong and the sound resembled nails being drawn down a chalk board.”
Choosing to sing any of The Eagles songs back in the 80s was not an easy option. The band had only recently split up and their music was still fresh in people’s minds. We didn’t have YouTube to see how things were played, nor could we afford to buy the sheet music. Even if we could, the sheet music of the time rarely included a full breakdown and most of us couldn’t read the dots anyway. So we painstakingly listened to every track over and over again to learn our parts.
I originally joined the band as drummer but our need for a bassist was more pressing so I was moved up to the frontline. We generally had a week to learn a new song before getting together to rehearse it. So, this meant a lot of listening and learning and making notes and trial and error until it sounded right. Then in the rehearsal rooms to pull it altogether. We rehearsed everything to the nth degree, we had to. Getting five singers, each with their own influences and timing nuances together took a lot of work. When we got it right we knew it was worth all the effort. But, the slightest thing wrong and the sound resembled nails being drawn down a chalk board.
“Our desire to recreate The Eagles great sound constantly pushed us out of our comfort zone…”
We performed songs from many other artists at the time such as Dr Hook, Albert Lee, Dire Straits, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and others, but it was The Eagles songs that pushed us and gave us our edge. We knew of no other band on the same circuit attempting anywhere near five part harmonies. Our desire to recreate The Eagles great sound constantly pushed us out of our comfort zone and made us different to the other bands on the circuit – our audiences often showed their appreciation, especially after Lyin’ Eyes.
There is a strong connection between the discipline we had in the Midnight Flyers and the discipline required to do my day job. Physics and maths principles features high in telecommunications and music. In addition to this, being part of band is an amazing team experience. There are elements of competing with each other, not wanting to let the other band members down, not wanting to waste their time by not knowing the words or music. We want to help our other band members to deliver their best performance, and we want to share in celebrating in the success when everything comes together and we play our best gigs. And when we played our best gigs we delivered a great customer experience.
“For bands, rehearsals are to prevent disasters on stage. Engineers in our industry need to rehearse to ensure we mitigate any risks…”
There are so many similarities to my day job. If I undertake a project I put in a lot of effort up front to learn as much as I can to ensure when I face to face with my customers I don’t waste their time. I want to understand as much as I can about their business and their role so I can fit in harmoniously rather than causing a disruption.
If I am planning an upgrade I place a lot of emphasis on rehearsing all of the tasks. For bands, rehearsals are to prevent disasters on stage. Engineers in our industry need to rehearse to ensure we mitigate any risks to the best of our ability and prevent inflicting any disasters on our customers.
In music we have to pay absolute attention to detail when playing with a band. Synchronisation on many levels – especially when singing harmonies, any slight error will break the sound. In IT we owe it to our customers to pay absolute attention to detail when planning any work. Their business may be at stake and we must respect that and always have that in our minds. We must always ask ourselves. “What if?” What if an element of the project runs over time? What if something doesn’t quite go to plan? What if the upgrade fails? We must always have a fallback plan.
“Every band member secretly wants to be the blues harp player!”
Every performance is a project. We have to get people, and equipment into the location. The sound and lights have to be set up and tested. Individual instruments have to be tuned and the band has to warm up. There may be less than an hour to do this. At the end of the night, often dripping in sweat after a four hour gig the band will have to break it all down again and load up the cars and drive home. Every band member secretly wants to be the blues harp player!
Bands have no formal project plan, everybody knows their role, regardless of the size of the stage (which they may see for the first time an hour before the gig) or where the power supply is. When we were really unlucky the power supply had a audio level monitor to kill the power in the event the music was too loud. Sometimes these switches were so sensitive our power was killed when we were tuning up. Bands just have to deal with this and be ready to start at the booked time.
“…I learned and refined a discipline of listening to the detail and being able to pick out what is important and acting on it.”
There are a lot of similarities to my day job. When IT projects go well it is generally because everyone knows their role. Everyone knows what they need to do to complete their element of the work, on time and on budget. They know what need to do to support other people involved in the project to enable them to perform at their best. Furthermore, experienced project managers and engineers have the capacity to deal with unexpected problems. Everyone working together in concert!
Glenn Frey and The Eagles have been a positive influence on my life both musically and in my work. Glenn Frey co-founded The Eagles and wrote and sang some amazing songs that I wanted to do justice to when performing them with my band. By doing so I learned and refined a discipline of listening to the detail and being able to pick out what is important and acting on it. A quality I have used over and again in my time with Astro.