Felder's "Heaven and Hell" Discussion Thread

[TimothyBFan]

As I was going through this thread, this caught my eye. According to Alice Cooper himself he never cheated on his wife even in his drunken days.

I have to think that there were a few that took the vows seriously and minded themselves.

[Topkat]

I have to think that there were a few that took the vows seriously and minded themselves.

If there were a few, I would say VERY few. I don't know at what age Alice Cooper got married, or if this is what he tells his wife & she buys it, but on the other hand Gene Simmons claims to have slept with like 10,000 women? So you can imagine what was going on here. He wasn't the only one.

You've read the bios of some of these rockers....there was some serious partying going on & probably it still goes on. Maybe not for these older guys, but the new young rockers out there, yeah, I would say they have woman all over the globe ready & willing to sleep with them.

[chaim]

If there were a few, I would say VERY few. I don't know at what age Alice Cooper got married, or if this is what he tells his wife & she buys it, but on the other hand Gene Simmons claims to have slept with like 10,000 women? So you can imagine what was going on here. He wasn't the only one.

You've read the bios of some of these rockers....there was some serious partying going on & probably it still goes on. Maybe not for these older guys, but the new young rockers out there, yeah, I would say they have woman all over the globe ready & willing to sleep with them.

I brought up the Alice Cooper example, because I thought that it's funny how a person who many people think is a real bad boy has never cheated on his woman. I believe Alice, or Vincent, has been with his wife since the early seventies. At some point Raquel Welch tried to get him, but he was so in love with this other woman that he didn't even notice this Welch. Cooper really loves his wife.

[sodascouts]

How sweet and admirable!

I always say, all these guys saying it's absolutely impossible to be faithful to your wife if a beautiful woman throws herself at you unless you are a "saint".... BS! It may be HARD, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE. It just takes a lot of strength.

(And you know these same guys would be outraged if their wives slept around.)

[Topkat]

How sweet and admirable!

I always say, all these guys saying it's absolutely impossible to be faithful to your wife if a beautiful woman throws herself at you unless you are a "saint".... BS! It may be HARD, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE. It just takes a lot of strength.

(And you know these same guys would be outraged if their wives slept around.)

Yes, I think they probably would be outraged if their wives slept around, but it wouldn't shock me if some of them did. Many of these rockers who got married at a young age, did end up divorced. I think if you marry a little later, you are less likely to cheat because you get all that fooling around out of your system & realize that it's not all it's cracked up to be!! ( I mean all that meaningless hot sex!)

[chaim]

How sweet and admirable!

I always say, all these guys saying it's absolutely impossible to be faithful to your wife if a beautiful woman throws herself at you unless you are a "saint".... BS! It may be HARD, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE. It just takes a lot of strength.

(And you know these same guys would be outraged if their wives slept around.)

Exactly. Saying that is basically the same as saying that it's ok to cheat on your wife. Really, what's the difference?

[AstraeaLunaAvani]

I am not sure if I want to buy this, so I just went into Barnes & Noble and sat down with it for a while. I only got through about 1/4 of it so far. I plan on going back to read more tomorrow. I looked at the pictures first and was surprised he had pictures of everyone except Randy! (not counting the group pics). I wish every band member would write a book, so we could get everyone's perpective on things. I just realized something too...I saw the new documentary, and I heard Don said it didn't show the whole truth, but he was in it, so he obviously had his say, so i'm a bit confused what parts he thought weren't true. I've also seen some of you say his book wasn't quite truth either. I realize there are some things we can never know the truth about, but is there anything I should keep in mind as I finish the book, that you all KNOW he lied about?

[Freypower]

I am not sure if I want to buy this, so I just went into Barnes & Noble and sat down with it for a while. I only got through about 1/4 of it so far. I plan on going back to read more tomorrow. I looked at the pictures first and was surprised he had pictures of everyone except Randy! (not counting the group pics). I wish every band member would write a book, so we could get everyone's perpective on things. I just realized something too...I saw the new documentary, and I heard Don said it didn't show the whole truth, but he was in it, so he obviously had his say, so i'm a bit confused what parts he thought weren't true. I've also seen some of you say his book wasn't quite truth either. I realize there are some things we can never know the truth about, but is there anything I should keep in mind as I finish the book, that you all KNOW he lied about?

I'll give you two incidents starting with the one that featured in the documentary.

In the book he claims that when they were recording Victim Of Love 'he was supposed to sing the lead vocal'. He says he sang it & then Henley sang it & it was obvious that Henley's voice was better suited to it. In the documentary, apparently Glenn & Don state that Irving took Felder out to lunch while Henley recorded the lead vocal. Henley said that 'Mr Felder' was given the chance to sing it but wasn't up to it. Felder says nothing about this in his book, just that Henley was better for the song.

The other is a baseless claim about the authorship of Silent Spring, the piece of music that was used before the performance of Tequila Sunrise after the interval at the HFO shows. This piece was written by Jay Oliver & Glenn Frey & appears on Frey's Strange Weather album. It is played before Frey's solo performances of Tequila Sunrise to this day (I saw it last month & this month).

Felder claims the track was written by the band's then keyboards player, Timothy Drury. He says it was to be included on the Selected Works box set & Drury was delighted to think he'd be getting royalties from it. Irving offered to 'buy him out' to avoid paying him royalites & when Drury refused it was not included.

It beggars belief for me that Felder would make such a claim & for me that undermined the credibility of the entire book.

[Ive always been a dreamer]

ALA - it's pretty difficult to answer your question without going through lots of threads. So the best response I can give you is that there are numerous contradictions, inconsistencies, and misstatements in Felder's book. Many of them are documented in this thread and the thread with links to interviews he gave to promote the book. Some of this can be found just by reading the book using your critical thinking skills. Just one example that comes to mind is Felder talks about the 80's when the band broke up as a time when he didn't want to do a lot of music because he wanted to focus on his family. But later in the book, he discusses some problems that his youngest son had (who was born in the early 80's), and says that part of the blame was because he did not spend enough time with him when he was growing up. Just seems like a contradiction to me.

Other examples can only be detected if you read the book and then listened to various things he said in the promotional interviews - there were numerous times where his accounts just weren't the same.

And then, last of all, there are examples like what Freypower pointed out where you would have to know a lot about the history of the band in order to figure out that things don't jive.

So, the bottom line is that a casual fan that reads his book won't necessarily be able to pick a lot of these problems out unless they also listen to all of his promotional interviews or have a very good knowledge of the band's history.

[GlennLover]

I know I have brought this up before, but one statement that Felder made in a video interview during the time he was promoting his book still bothers me. The interviewer asked him if the name of the band was "Eagles" or "The Eagles" and he replied with confidence that the name was "The Eagles". This puzzles me. Was this just a slip or was it done as an affront to Glenn, because Glenn has always been particular about pointing out that the name of the band is simply "Eagles"?