The Eagles’ Bernie Leadon was interviewed by Rock History Music and discussed the beer-pouring incident that led to his departure and his 2013 return.
“I didn’t realize that pouring the beer on his head though was going to be this giant thing in social media essentially too.”
“But one time when after Wikipedia became established and I looked at my own entry in Wikipedia, it basically said, ‘Bernie Leadon left the band because he poured a beer on Glenn Frey’s head,’ which I thought, ‘Well, that’s kind of a funky legacy.’ They don’t talk about my guitar playing, they just talk about me pouring a beer on Glenn’s head,” he remembered.
Leadon got a call from Eagles manager, Irving Azoff. “I was asked the question, ‘What about pouring the beer on Glenn’s head?’ and I said, ‘Well I made an amends to him. I sent him a letter and I regret it. I said it wasn’t a cool thing to do and I regret it and I’ve apologized to him.’”
“So, shortly after that footage was seen by them in pre-production for the documentary, I got a call from the manager Irving saying, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about doing a history up tour and wonder if you’d be interested, and Glenn would like to talk to you,’” the rocker recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah, I would be interested. I don’t know what the parameters are but let’s talk about it. So then Glenn called me and in the course of that conversation he said, ‘I got your letter and appreciated it.’ The fact that he was calling me was evidence that he felt better about things.”
“So, the fact that I cleared that up with him and apologized was the reason that be became possible for them to consider having me and ironically they wouldn’t work with Felder because he’d sued them. So, they weren’t going to work with him and Meisner wasn’t really physically up to it so I became the only one that was available to come back to from the past.”
