When I was 16 I was on fire for music, for rock’n’roll. I was in a band with Stephen Stills. I didn’t have a driving licence so my mother would drive us around little shows, little fraternity parties, that kind of thing. I loved the enthusiasm and energy of playing live for people. I had been playing guitar since I was 10 so I had developed some skills by the age of 16 and I had admiration for a lot of the musicians who were playing in that period.
We were very poor. My dad was a mechanic, my mother worked in a laundry. But my dad loved music. He would come home after 10 or 12 hours of work, take a shower, then go sit in his big chair and put on Tommy Dorsey or Glenn Miller. He was very supportive. He taught me to wire equipment, took me around, bought me my first electric guitar. I think his love of music inspired me to play music, because I wanted to please him. After years of therapy I figured that out.
My brother was a high achiever – he got a scholarship to college, a scholarship to law school. There was no way I could compete with that. So I fell in love with music and went down that road. And I did please my dad. Underneath I think he would have preferred me to be an academic scholar but that just wasn’t my calling. And I think he eventually recognised that, when I went on to have success in the Eagles and I went back to visit him in 1974, just before he passed. I think he caught a glimpse of what my life was like. He never got to see us play live. He got very sick, he retired at 65, and he passed away within a year. But I still hear his voice acknowledging my success. I think he’s following me around day-to-day to be honest.
The thing that really propelled me through those early years, growing up in poverty, living on a dirt road in north central Florida, starving on the streets of New York after I moved there with a suitcase in one hand and a guitar in the other, then moving to Boston to get paid $50 a week to work in a studio… it wasn’t about the money or the success or the stardom or the women. Well, maybe it was a little about the women. But really it was about the sheer love and joy and excitement of playing music. Even today I don’t need to make another dime by playing a show. But I love to do it. And that’s what’s been driving me since day one. When you grow up with absolutely nothing, no money, you have nothing to lose. So you might as well chase the biggest dream you have in your heart. So I was very contented, happy with the little I had. I still don’t feel the need to be surrounded by big houses or fancy cars. I have a very humble, low-key kind of life. I’ve had that other life, and it’s a hollow dream.
I think I lost my long-term vision in the Seventies, when I got involved with alcohol and drugs. It’s an easy downfall for people who come from humble beginnings and are overwhelmed by the tsunami of wealth and fame and admiration. I’ve seen it and seen it and seen it. I was fortunate though. There was a night –by then I was married, and I had four kids – I came home at one o’clock in the morning after a month away. I woke up hungover, and there was my little two-year-old daughter tapping on my arm, saying, daddy, daddy, wake up! And I felt horrible. That was a lifesaver for me. It wasn’t just a tap on my arm, it was a tap on my psychic shoulder saying, you can’t do this. So after that I really pulled in my consumption. I stood and watched the rest of the band go absolutely overboard with it all, and I’d just go to bed. I had something more valuable to me than getting high, and it was my family. I saw myself standing above the rabbit hole I’d seen so many people fall down, and if I hadn’t pulled it in I could still be down there now.
1963
