Bernie Leadon‘s frustration with life in the Eagles reached a dramatic breaking point around the time of 1975’s One of These Nights, after a discussion over the band’s creative direction led to him pouring a beer over Glenn Frey‘s head.

According to his bandmates, the founding Eagles guitarist and multi-instrumentalist had grown increasingly displeased with the band’s shift away from country and toward rock music.

“We were getting more and more rocked out, and I think Bernie was less and less happy about that,” One of These Nights producer Bill Szymczykk explained in the History of the Eagles documentary.

“Glenn and I always wanted the band to be a hybrid, to encompass bluegrass and country and rock and roll,” Don Henley agreed. “There was a part of Bernie that really resisted that. After a while it became a real problem, particularly between Bernie and Glenn.”

Henley also suggested the band’s growing commercial success was an issue for Leadon.

“To Bernie, success on any scale was synonymous with selling out. He wanted us to remain sort of an underground band.”

Read More: Top 20 Eagles Songs Not Sung by Don Henley or Glenn Frey

For his part, Leadon admitted to being overwhelmed by the band’s skyrocketing career.

“You’d have to remember how young we were, the fact that nobody had anything when we started, and you got all this stuff coming at you, meanwhile you’re touring all the time. It’s a lot.”

According to Frey, things came to a head at a concert at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

“We were backstage and we were talking about what our next move was gonna be. I was animated and adamant about what we needed to do next, here there and everywhere, and Bernie comes over and pours a beer on my head and says, ‘You need to chill out, man.'”

Leadon’s account differs slightly. In a 2025 interview with Rock History Music, he says the beer pouring happened during a 1975 band meeting.

“I said, ‘I’m gonna leave the band.’ It was about four months till the end of the year. I said, ‘Let’s do good shows, to prove how good we can do them, and then I’ll be gone.'”

His departure became official in December 1975, and he was replaced by Joe Walsh the following month.

(In the History of the Eagles documentary, Frey doesn’t specify the date of the show, just the city and venue. There is no record of Eagles playing the Orange Bowl on the 1975-76 One of these Nights tour, although they did play there on July 7, 1974.)

Leadon says the beer attack wasn’t premeditated.

“I have no idea, it was a spontaneous thing. I take that incident now quite seriously,” he declares in History of the Eagles. “That was a very disrespectful thing to do. Obviously it was intended to be humiliating to him, I would say, and is something I’m not really proud of. It did illustrate a breaking point.”

He also insists the issues weren’t just related to the Eagles’ evolving sound.

“That’s an oversimplification,” he told Rolling Stone in 2008. “It implies that I had no interest in rock or blues or anything but country-rock. That’s just not the case. I didn’t just play Fender Telecaster. I played a Gibson Les Paul and I enjoyed rock & roll. That’s evident from the early albums. …I just wanted some time to regroup. I suggested we take some time off. They weren’t excited about that idea.”

How an Apology Letter Helped Bernie Leadon Reconnect with the Eagles

Although all seven current and former members of the Eagles, including Leadon, performed together at the group’s 1998 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it took much longer for him to make peace with Frey.

In the mid-2000s, after being unable to connect with him directly, Leadon sent a certified letter to Frey’s office, apologizing for his actions.

“I became a recovering alcoholic and when you do recovery work, one of the things you do is you realize who you harmed and then you become willing to make amends to them,” he told Rock History Music.

“I didn’t hear anything back for like five, six years,” he recalled. “And then the request came to do the [History of the Eagles] documentary.”

He was asked about the incident while being interviewed for the documentary, resulting in the “that was a very disrespectful thing to do” quote above.

Soon after recording that interview Leadon was approached by Eagles manager Irving Azoff, who asked if he’d be interested in being a guest star on the band’s career-spanning 2013-2014 History of the Eagles tour.

“So then Glenn called me, and in the course of that conversation he said, ‘I got your letter and appreciated it.’ And the fact that called me was evidence that he felt better about things. The fact that I cleared that up with him and apologized was the reason that it became possible to consider having me [join the tour.]”

In a 2013 Rolling Stone interview, Leadon said he had no regrets about leaving the Eagles, while pointing out that he may have been right about the band needing a break.

“It was a great time in my life, but everything since then has been great, too. What’s funny is that a year after I left, they did wind up taking a long break.”

He did admit to Rock History Music that he would prefer if the incident didn’t define his legacy.

“After Wikipedia became established and I looked at my own entry [on the site], 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.”