Drawing on scores of interviews with, people including band members, their friends, ex-wives and-lovers, handlers, roadies, and hangers-on, Marc Eliot reveals for the first time what life was really like inside this hugely popular but deeply troubled group. The book follows the Eagles from their early, idealistic days as Linda Ronstadt's backup band to their self-immolation amid million-dollar lawsuits, Lear-jet courtships, and debilitating cocaine habits -- with a coda on their "Hell Freezes Over" tour, the astounding comeback that made them the top-grossing live act of 1995 and 1996. This is a story about a band that embodied the excesses of the 1970s -- and that gave us, in their masterpiece Hotel California, the decade's unmistakable sound track.