More Chapters Remain in This Band’s Long Book

It’s easy to predict when the Eagles will step onstage for the final time in the 20th century--right down to the minute. The band’s New Year’s Eve set at Staples Center is scheduled to begin at 10:15 p.m.

But the band members can’t predict even what year they’ll launch another tour. It is clear, however, from talks with primary songwriters Don Henley and Glenn Frey, that the chances of another album and tour are increasingly good.

Despite the enormous success of the Eagles’ 1994 “Hell Freezes Over” reunion tour, which was seen by more than 3.5 million people around the world, Henley and Frey were uncertain about the Eagles’ future as recently as the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1998.

This is a group that broke apart after the grueling sessions for its last studio album, 1979’s “The Long Run,” and there were reports of tension resurfacing during the reunion tour. In interviews at the Hall of Fame ceremonies, both Henley and Frey said the Eagles saga might be at an end.

So why the change in outlook?

“With us, it’s almost like the chapters keep ending, but the book isn’t finished,” singer-guitarist Frey says when asked about the Eagles’ future. “When the [reunion] tour ended, I thought, ‘That was fun. That was a nice way to wrap it up.’ Then at the Hall of Fame, I thought, ‘Well, if this is the last deal, it is pretty nice.’ But now I think there is more to do.”

Henley also looks forward to another chapter in the long history of the L.A.-based group, whose best songs in the ‘70s chronicled the attitudes of a generation caught between the lost idealism of the ‘60s and the coming greed of the ‘80s.

“The door is still open, . . . the possibilities are still there,” the singer and drummer says in a separate interview. “The main concern is whether we can make a good album and write songs that are up to a certain standard--and that gets harder as you go on because there are so many other demands on your time, including your families and solo projects.”

The Eagles have already begun taking tentative steps toward a new album. The group--which also includes guitarists Don Felder and Joe Walsh and bassist Timothy B. Schmit--spent almost six weeks in a Los Angeles studio this summer. They recorded two songs by other writers before taking a break so Henley could finish his first solo album since “The End of the Innocence” a decade ago.

That still-untitled collection is due in March from Warner Bros. Henley will then spend several months touring, which means the earliest that he and Frey could begin writing new material would be the fall.

If the Eagles do record another album, the group is certainly in a good bargaining position. The band’s Asylum Records contract expired years ago, which means it can sign with the highest bidder.

And the bidding is bound to be intense for the band, whose New Year’s Eve show is part of a mini-tour that also features stops Dec. 28 and 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

“Their Greatest Hits, 1971-1975,” which contains such songs as “Desperado” and “Best of My Love,” has just been declared the biggest-selling album ever in the U.S. by the Recording Industry Assn. of America. Its sales: an estimated 26.6 million, about 1 million more than Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The “Hits” package still sells at the rate of more than 500,000 a year, and the reunion tour album, “Hell Freezes Over,” has sold more than 10 million in the U.S. alone.

But the Eagles may sidestep the record industry machinery.

“I would love to see us go away from major labels, and the Internet may make that possible,” Frey says. “I’d love to put out a studio album with all new songs on ERC, the Eagles Recording Co.”

About another album, Henley says, “I think we are still capable of writing good, meaningful songs that speak to people’s lives, particularly baby boomers, and we’d do it right this time.”

Right this time?

“We were sort of committed to the tour and we hadn’t been around each other in 14 years, so things were a little awkward,” he says, referring to the three new songs that he and Frey wrote or co-wrote on the “Hell Freezes Over” album. “We did the best we could do at that time, given the situation. But I think conditions are much more ripe for good songwriting and good production because we are much more comfortable with one another. We still have our differences, but you go on. We just don’t take it personally. We’ve learned to look at the larger picture.”

*

Robert Hilburn, The Times’ pop music critic, can be reached by e-mail at robert.hilburn@latimes.com.