An Eagle Has Landed

Twenty years ago, Randy Meisner was living life in the fast lane. A member of the high-flying Eagles, he was working hard and partying hard in a band that in many ways embodied the excesses and hedonism of ‘70s rock ‘n’ roll.

“It was a crazy life,” he recalls. “There were a lot of drugs and a lot of booze and just a lot of what you did [if you were in a successful rock band] at the time.”

Today, Meisner is part of a much lower profile group called Meisner, Rich and Swan, which appears at the Coach House on Saturday. And the singer-bassist says his life couldn’t be more different than it was two decades ago.

His current country-accented rock band, which began about five years ago, is strictly a part-time affair and operates only when its three members can find the time away from their individual projects and lives. The trio first met in the early ‘90s while briefly performing together in the group Black Tie.

Vocalist-guitarist Billy Swan, who struck gold in 1974 with his hit single “I Can Help,” continues to make solo albums. Singer-keyboardist Allan Rich, the son of the late country singer Charlie Rich, is a member of Freddy Fender’s band. Last year, Meisner cut several songs with pop-country singer Juice Newton. About the same time, the ex-Eagle also produced an album by Electric Range, whose guitar player is a longtime friend.

But for the most part, Meisner’s day-to-day existence is remarkably uncomplicated and domestic. He spends most of his time at his Studio City home with his girlfriend of 12 years. He hasn’t lost his love for refurbishing old cars, though he has sold all but one of the roughly 25 vehicles he once owned.

Meisner says his demanding tour schedule while a member of the Eagles between 1971 and 1977 cost him a marriage. Now he hardly goes anywhere, he insists.

“I just work around the yard. There’s always something to do around the house. You fix one end of it and the other end breaks. It’s very normal. I love it.”

Apparently, Meisner, 50, was never cut out for a life in the limelight. His fondest recollections of his tenure with the Eagles center on the years before the group became a superstar attraction in the mid-’70s.

He had just migrated to Los Angeles from his native Nebraska when he briefly joined the nascent Poco in 1968. This was followed by a stint in Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band. Around 1970, Meisner met eventual Eagle co-leaders Don Henley and Glenn Frey.

“Glenn was playing with Linda Ronstadt at the time, and I think Henley too,” he says. “They used to watch me at the Troubadour, and they asked me if I would play a gig with them. So we played in San Jose. I remember that night because I told Glenn, ‘Man, we should start a group.’ I think they already had that in mind. Then Bernie Leadon left the Flying Burrito Brothers [and joined the group]. That’s how the Eagles started.”

*

But the once tight camaraderie within the Eagles began to wither, Meisner says, as the band’s popularity began to fly through the roof in the mid-’70s.

“When we first started, we were best pals and we all got along great,” he says wistfully. “As we got older, when the money started coming in, everyone changed in different ways. Money changes people. It all seemed too big and arrogant to me. . . . I didn’t feel like a member of the group. Everybody was fighting. There comes a point where [you ask] is it worth it or not.”

Meisner, who sang and wrote the 1976 hit “Take It to the Limit” plus a handful of other Eagle songs, says he wasn’t credited for a number of his songwriting ideas while with the group.

“It would have been nice if they said, ‘Do you mind if I borrow this part you played?’ I was never told that, and after a while it started eating at me.”

According to Meisner, during the recording of the group’s 1976 masterwork, “Hotel California,” he and guitarists Don Felder and Joe Walsh (who had replaced Leadon) shook hands on a deal that involved them leaving Henley and Frey to start their own group.

But only Meisner ended up quitting. He left in 1977 after the “Hotel California” tour. The Eagles recorded one more album, 1979’s “The Long Run,” before disbanding.

When the group reunited in 1994, it was Meisner’s replacement, Timothy B. Schmit, who got the call to be part of the lucrative concert tour, which kicked off at Irvine Meadows. Meisner says Henley and Frey never forgave him for leaving the band.

“I think they were upset because there was a lot of money to be made, and I just dropped out.”

Neither Henley nor Frey was available for comment.

Meisner admits he was initially upset and depressed about not being asked to be a part of the reunion tour. He says the band even rejected his suggestion that he join them on stage for several songs at the group’s Rose Bowl concert in Pasadena. But he says he’s now fully content with his part-time role in Meisner, Rich and Swan.

A sporadic songwriter, he’s reluctant to take on the responsibility of being a solo artist again. (In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, he recorded three albums under his name.)

In concert, the trio perform original material as well as Swan’s “I Can Help,” Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors” and a number of Meisner’s songs from his days with the Eagles, including “Take It to the Limit” and “Try and Love Again.” Meisner boasts that the group’s vocal work is particularly noteworthy.

“My only hope is that we can land a record deal with this little group,” he says. “If we can get a record deal and take our time and make a good record, that would be the thing I’d like to do. A lot of groups go out, and they make big bucks in a couple of years and they’re gone. I would like a band . . . that’s sustaining.”

* POP LISTINGS, FXX

* Who: Meisner, Rich and Swan.

* When: Saturday at 8 p.m. With Jay Nixon and Voice Parachute.

* Where: The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano.

* Whereabouts: Take Interstate 5 to the Camino Capistrano exit and turn left onto Camino Capistrano. The Coach House is in the Esplanade Plaza, on the right.

* Wherewithal: $13.50-$15.50.

* Where to call: (714) 496-8930.