(Credits: Far Out / Don Henley)
Wed 24 December 2025 18:06, UK
There doesn’t seem to be much overlap between the sound of the Eagles and the hair metal genre. While both movements may have started in the sunny side of California, Don Henley was always looking to move his art in a serious direction instead of the sequinned buffoonery going on whenever the groups on the Sunset Strip strutted their stuff. Despite not being the greatest fit in modern times, Henley got to join one of the most in-demand acts right before returning to his California brethren.
By the time hair metal started out, Henley had departed from the Eagles. After making the album The Long Run, the internal band tension could no longer be denied, leading to a falling out happening onstage during a benefit concert for Senator Alan Cranston.
As the band went their separate ways, though, there was no doubt that Henley would become one of the band’s biggest solo stars. After a tepid start on his first album, I Can’t Stand Still, songs like ‘The Boys of Summer’ and ‘The End of the Innocence’ put Henley in the good graces of the easy-listening crowd, resonating with those preferring a more thoughtful approach to rock music.
Even outside of the Eagles, Henley carried himself as someone who took the craft seriously. His instincts leaned towards restraint and reflection, favouring mood and narrative over excess or spectacle. That outlook often put him at odds with the louder trends of the decade, but it also made him a dependable presence when steadiness was required rather than flash.
By contrast, the new wave of hard rock coming out of Los Angeles thrived on volatility. Image, attitude and danger were just as important as the songs themselves, creating an environment where unpredictability was part of the appeal. For an artist like Henley, who valued control and discipline, stepping into that world even briefly felt like crossing into entirely different musical territory.
Don Henley holding his Grammy. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
While Henley may have been living like a seasoned veteran of the rock world, the entire musical landscape had started to change since his heyday. Although acts like Poison were making waves by playing a pop-focused take on heavy metal, Guns N’ Roses were about to arrive on the scene to stomp anyone deemed too shallow for the big time.
Operating like a street gang, the band’s debut, Appetite for Destruction, lit up the charts in 1988, culminating in the band’s performance at the American Music Awards. While the band may have been riding high at that point, that self-destruction was starting to catch up with them, leading to drummer Steven Adler being fired due to excessive drug use.
Though every band member was nursing their fair share of demons, Adler’s was becoming too pronounced to ignore, leading to him sitting out their performance at the award show. As opposed to getting a session drummer, frontman Axl Rose thought the next best thing was to get Henley behind the drum kit.
Recalling the experience, Henley remembered being shocked by Rose’s offer, telling Modern Drummer, “I was in the studio and the phone rang. It was Axl. He says, ‘I got a proposition for you. We’ve got to play the American Music Awards, and our drummer’s sick. We want you to play the drums. I was a little taken aback by the proposition. So I told him I’d think about it and call him back. Fortunately, it was a ballad that we played, not a balls-to-the-wall number”.
Lending his skills to the band’s acoustic ballad ‘Patience’, Henley fits in surprisingly well behind the drumkit, playing the kind of understated rhythm that wouldn’t feel out of place on a song like ‘Tequila Sunrise’. However, it wouldn’t be long before Henley started to feel nostalgic for another band, reforming the Eagles in the early 1990s for the live album Hell Freezes Over. Henley may have proved everything he wanted to prove as a solo artist by the late 1980s, but filling in a slot in Guns N’ Roses for a day is one of the more profoundly strange accolades to add to his resume.
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