half on our publishing went to warner brothers. but he got them to return mine. jackson turned me onto the eagles. he had turned me onto a lot of artists. and i felt i owed him something. and that not surprisingly was not acceptable to the eagles. there was a certain amount of ire, like real like, you know, like [ bleep ]. i mean, whoa, we didn t get our publishing back. so it was the publishing issue and the fact that the business managers and lawyers were all shared common guys. did they have a conflict when an issue came up and which side to take? it makes you feel like meat. it started out as such a personal nurturing endeavor with mr. geffen saying, oh, i m going to protect you guys. that s why i m calling my new label asylum. it s going to be a sanctuary for real artists. he once said to irving azof, you know, this would be a great
we didn t know much about the business at that point. we were pretty naive. going down to the swamp river country some day we kicked around in the l.a. clubs for a while, played the whiskey, played some of the clubs in the south bay area. and nothing really happened for us. jd and i were looking for any place to play. we had heard about this guy jackson brown. he d been playing the same clubs we had but we had never seen him perform. california, mr. jackson brown. thank you. there were a bunch of gigs that they had and some gigs that i had that they would show up at my gigs and me at their gigs. we became really good friends. we started talking about where do you live and what s going on. and jackson said, you know, you should come down to echo park, rent s real cheap. glenn got the apartment next to my apartment. and this apartment cost like $125 or something a month, you know? and i needed to economize so i moved into the basement underneath glenn s place which i could get into for $35 a month. it really had one door.
Talking you re prisoners walking through this world all alone there have been articles and things that identify me with the l.a. sound. it s sort of like me and jackson brown and the eagles. all of us are reaching out for other musical influences all the time. the so-called southern california sound was developing. it was fresh, it was different it was unique. it was a melting pot. people moving here from all over the united states to pursue their dream. actors, musicians, managers, agents. want a bee like me. i picked up the phone and called david geffen who was just starting asylum records. long story short, i take a job as a manager for asylum. i was intrigued. i wanted to now about the eagles and meet the eagles, because i was a fan. i get a phone call. glenn frey is on the phone. we need money for christmas. can you book dates? i booked some dates. so i get on a plane and go out
It was really an illegal place, just a cubbyhole and that s where jackson lived with jd and i above. that was it. there was a stereo, a piano, a bed, a guitar, you know, a teapot. we slept late in those days except around 9:00 in the morning i d hear jackson browne s teapot going off, this whistle in the distance. then i d hear him playing piano. i didn t really know how to write songs. i knew i wanted to write songs, but i didn t know exactly you just wait around for inspiration, you know, what was the deal? well, i learned through the jackson s ceiling and my floor exactly how to write songs. because jackson would get up and he d play the first verse and first chorus and play it 20 times until he had it just the way he wanted. and then there would be silence. and then i d hear the teapot go off again.
Given jackson brown the book of gunfighters. it had all the big outlaw groups, frank and jessie, the dylan dalton gang. we were all just fascinated with those guys. and we thought it would make a great analogy. well, for example, we live outside the laws of normality. because records are bank robberies you usually heard about these guys before you ever saw them. they had posters that were wanted posters up for people. there just seemed to be some parallels. it wasn t really like we were outlaws. but i think they did have their nobler characteristics. the life upon on the road the life of an outlaw man we started talking about this. maybe we should do like an album all about the rebels.
Then it would be quiet for ten or 20 minutes. then i d hear him start to play again and there was the second verse. so then he d work on the second verse and he d play it 20 times. then he d go back to the top and play the first verse, the chorus and the second verse and play it 20 times until he was really comfortable with it and change a word here and there. i m up there going, so that s how you do it. elbow greease, you know. time, thought, persistence. doctor, my eyes have seen the years and the slow parade of tears without crying i wanted to kill him sometimes. jackson would play the same phrase, doctor, my eyes, for six weeks. same thing. i just wanted to murder him. doctor, my eyes
T it s a very artist oriented company. whatever we want to do, we support them. if we believe in them, we ll stick with them whether they make it or not. jackson was our conduit to david geffen. he was the first one to get signed by geffen s new asylum record label. we all walk in geffen s office, and we basically said, here we are. bernie leadon boldly says to geffen, well, do you want us or not? they were dieing to sign with me. i think they were very ambitious, particularly glenn. glenn wanted to have a hit band. i loved the way don sang. we all had hopes for it. all of a sudden we were signed to geffen s new label. they sent us back to the drawing board. they said, you need to rehearse some more. you need to write songs. you re not really ready to record yet. so they packed us off to aspen, colorado. could have been worse. there were people who were way higher than any of us had ever