Interview with Herman & Emilie Meisner, 1980

Shortly after the release of Randy Meisner’s second solo album, One More Song, his parents, Herman and Emilie, were interviewed by Michael Bradley of the Gering Courier. They talked about their son’s love of music from an early age, playing his records loud, “like a couple of teenagers,” and wishing they could spend more time with him. The article was published on December 25th, 1980.

Read the full text below:

“Meisners’ Tell Story Behind ‘One More Song’ by Michael Bradley,
Gering Courier, December 25th, 1980:

The silver-haired man and his wife sat in their living room, glued to the television image of the long-haired guitarist as he was introduced to the screaming audience. They sat spellbound as the musician and his band began pounding out their first number, ‘Hearts On Fire.‘ ¹

Observing this couple on a Gering street, one would not classify them as typical Randy Meisner rock fans. But they like Randy Meisner’s music. They’re his parents.

‘We play his records real loud,’ said Randy’s mom, Emilie, watching her husband Herman rewind the video-tape machine Randy gave them as an early Christmas present. ‘If somebody came around when we were playing them, they’d think a couple of teenagers lived here.’

The Meisners, who moved to Gering six years ago from the farm they sharecropped for 27 years, are obviously proud of their son. They talked about his early days, before he became famous as a founding member of the Eagles.

‘He started playing at Little Moon Lake with a group named the Dynamics when he was about 14,’ Herman recalled. ‘Since he was underage, we used to have to take him to play and take him home afterwards.’

Randy, whose second solo album, ‘One More Song,’ is climbing on the charts, has always had a musical bent, his mom said. ‘My father was a classical violinist, and I know when he was a little boy he loved music. He used to do imitations of Elvis Presley.’

After he got his first guitar, Randy took as many lessons as he needed to learn the basic chords and then taught himself. After several years playing bass guitar with the Dynamics, he was recruited by a Denver band, and at age 20, he left Scottsbluff to begin the long climb to the top.

The band, The Soul Survivors, soon left Denver dreaming of success in the music industry’s capital city, Los Angeles. But the group only ended up losing money and aptly changed their name to The Poor. Their road manager left them to work for a more successful rock-n-roll band, the Buffalo Springfield.

‘We worried about him a lot, but it was later that we found out we really had reason to worry,’ Emilie recalled. ‘He went through some hard times in Los Angeles, but he never asked us for a thing. When we talked to him on the phone, he always told us everything was going fine.‘

When Buffalo Springfield disbanded in 1968, two former members of the group were forming a new band named Poco. The road manager remembered Randy and got a call to come and audition. He was asked to join the band.

Randy played bass with Poco for about a year, during which they recorded their first album, ‘Pickin’ Up The Pieces.’ Then he moved on to join Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Rand.

It was while he was still with the Stone Canyon Band that he was asked to fill in for Linda Ronstadt’s sick bass player. The incident brought Randy together with two musicians who eventually went on with him to form the Eagles.

That was ten years ago, and the rest of the story is rock-n-roll history.

Reflecting on the past 10 years, Randy’s dad doesn’t think success in the rock-n-roll industry has changed Randy, although it has kept him away from Nebraska for long periods of time. ‘He’s been awful level-headed about things. He’s still the same Randy that left home.‘

But his success has sometimes changed the way people treat the Meisners. ‘We went to a couple of concerts, and they picked us up in a limousine,’ Herman said. ‘At the Red Rocks concert, (outdoor amphitheater outside of Denver) we drove past this long line of cars right to the gate.’

Once when Herman was in the hospital, he noticed his room was constantly filled with nurses. They were hoping to get Randy autograph for ‘their children’ when he arrived to visit his dad.

The Meisners have also been onstage during several Eagles performances and were once treated to one of those extravagant post show parties the rock-n-roll world is notorious for. ‘We aren’t used to anything like that around here,’ Herman commented, in what is probably one of the understatements of the century.

But Herman and Emilie take these things in stride and hope that when Randy is ready to settle down, he might come back to live on the farm he recently purchased north of Scottsbluff.

His three children live in Mitchell with their mother, whom Randy is divorcing. Dana, 17, is the eldest, and is currently a drummer with a local band. Twins Heather and Eric are now 10.

The Meisners are traveling to Palm Springs next week to visit Randy, who has a home there. They say they wish they could see him more often, but understand that Randy’s business requires him to be on the road often. As Randy Meisner’s earliest and most loyal fans, Herman and Emilie will expect great things from their son.

Said Emilie, ‘We believe in Randy.’

Notes

1. The Meisners were watching Randy’s performance of “Hearts On Fire” from the TV show The Midnight Special, which aired on December 5th, 1980. Watch it here. ↩︎
2. The photo of Randy was taken during an Eagles concert at Mile High Stadium in Denver, August 8th, 1976. ↩︎