Flying High.

Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey on the pros and cons of drug use.

When it comes to drugs and alcohol, the Eagles' Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey know of what they speak, but they're not necessarily on the same page.

Walsh, who has been clean for 18 years, says, “There’s about 10 years that I wish I had back... That’s a real hazard of the occupation and it’s something most musicians have to deal with at some point. With any level of success you get some non-musical things that come along -- money, ego -- and it’s easy to lose your perspective and get off doing what you did to get there. My advice to musicians is: don’t lose your perspective, because you will waste time in terms of years.” And he also feels drugs and alcohol contributed to the Eagles breaking up in 1980.

For Frey, he thinks drugs helped the Eagles in the '70s. "I know that back in the 1970s when we were acting crazy, we weren’t doing anything that anyone else wasn’t doing. When you’re writing, it’s just important to get yourself in the flow. In our case, we started to sell a lot of records. That is going to change the way you feel about sitting down and writing songs, when you’ve just put out Hotel California and now you have to compare your work to that. I think it could be a little intimidating and stifling to your creativity, thinking about how much money’s at stake. That is how maybe the drugs did help.”

Frey just released an album of standards called After Hours, and Walsh is out with Analog Man, which he is touring behind. His next show is Saturday in Naperville, Illinois.