1 Proudly brought to you by... Tonight on Sunday ` can you improve your mood with food? Can I just get some beets? I need about two cups. Are we feeding our brains right? While the brain is 2% of body weight, it does consume 20% of what we take in. We need to be eating more cabbages and kale and spinach. 18,000 of us are on medication for ADHD. Yeah, I'm just happy that I'm in the experiment and helping science. The groundbreaking Kiwi experiment that's looking for answers to our mental health in our food. As a scientist, we should be studying things that are controversial; that are challenging our current way of thinking. (CELL PHONE CHIMES) Our fatal distraction. She would've only been about five to ten minutes away from arriving at her destination. Keire didn't even brake. From this to this ` information overload. They absolutely love their technology in their phones. But you put that combination into a car ` it's a lethal combination, and it's having tragic consequences every single day. So 22 text messages, sent and received in 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, yeah. # On a dark desert highway, # cool wind in my hair. The Eagles' most enduring hit. It's about the American dream, and the dark underside of the American dream. The American dream can sometimes turn into the American nightmare. Don Henley on making it... breaking it and getting it back together. Those were funny moments. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017 Kia ora, I'm Miriama Kamo. Can ADHD and depression be treated, even cured, by eating the right food? Professor Julia Rucklidge has long suspected there may be a link between our modern diet and a rise in mental health problems. So in Christchurch she's carrying out a study that's turned up some groundbreaking results ` that many mental illnesses may be combated when we get the right nutrients. It's controversial, but now European scientists are taking her theory so seriously they're backing it with a giant multimillion dollar experiment. Here's Ian Sinclair. (UPBEAT MUSIC) Dylan Benzitoun from Rolleston just eight years old, and proud to be right on the frontier of medical science. I'm happy, and so` yeah, I'm just happy that I'm in the experiment and helping science. Dylan is one of 93 Kiwi kids chosen for an experiment that could change the way the world treats some mental health issues. A pioneering study that has him closely monitored by specialists here and overseas. I hear, you're very clever. My strong spot's maths. Is it? What do you like about maths? Um, I` I like, um, the, um, challenges. And by the way, Dylan is also fluent in French. (SPEAKS FRENCH) (SPEAKS FRENCH) But psychologists told Dylan's mum his talents come at a price. They found that he was borderline ADHD. ADHD ` that's Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Is that` There's never a quiet moment. Um, Dylan can't go and settle and play by himself. As Dylan puts it ` he's hyperactive. What does hyperactivity mean? Um, I think hyperactivity's being over-energised and over-excited, and just, um, you have more energy, and yeah. According to Pharmac, 18,000 New Zealanders are on medication for ADHD, almost half of them school-age children like Dylan and 50 infants. I really didn't want Dylan to be taking any drugs. That's the normal approach. That kind of scared me a bit. I wasn't too keen on` on putting him on anything too hard. So, could there be another way? One that doesn't involve drugs and side effects? Well, take food. For decades we've known that what we eat can affect our physical health. But what if what we eat could also affect our mental health? Um, can I just get some beets? I need about two cups of beets. Let's go shopping with Professor Julia Rucklidge of Canterbury University's Clinical Psychology department. She's gaining international recognition for her research into the impact of diet on mental health. While the brain is 2% of body weight, it does consume 20% of what we take in. And so it's the most metabolically active organ in our body. It's definitely the hungriest organ in terms of consuming the nutrients and requiring nutrients in order to function optimally. Trouble is, she says, we're not feeding our brains right. We need to be eating more cabbages and kale and choy and radishes and spinach and beets. We've given up on eating fruit and vegetables in the Western society. So when you eat processed foods, you won't be getting the essential nutrients that are required for all of the biochemical processes that are going on in your body. So your brain just won't have what it requires in order to function optimally. Julia Rucklidge has long suspected there may be a link between our modern diet, and a rise in mental health problems. We would say that about one in five New Zealanders currently suffers from a mental health condition like ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. So it's actually about 20% of the population are suffering from some kind of a psychiatric problem. This scientist, originally from Canada, is pushing a radical idea that nutrients in good food might be the answer to treating common mental health issues. I decided that I should study these nutrients. As a scientist we should be studying things that are controversial, that are, um, challenging our current way of thinking. And so I` That was part of why I decided to start studying the nutrients, and I haven't looked back, and that was over 10 years ago. So, could putting kids like Dylan on high doses of vitamins and minerals really help treat ADHD? It's the proof Julia will need to convince the medical establishment she's on to something. How hard is it to swallow those pills? They're big, aren't they? Piece of cake. Yeah? Or as` Or as other people say... walk in the park. The pills are called micronutrients. It's` There's vitamins inside it, and they want to see if it, um, gives a reaction. Could you explain exactly what are micronutrients? Sure. Micronutrients are simply these` the vitamins and minerals and amino acids. The same nutrients you'll get in good food, but in super concentrated form. The doses that we're giving are higher than what you would actually be able to get out of a daily diet. So you'd need to consume an awful lot of oranges and broccoli and asparagus and other fruits and vegetables in order to get the level of nutrients that we're giving. Are you playing with fire here if you're suggesting to people who may be watching, who are mentally ill, that what they should do is throw away their pills? I'm not here to tell people to stop their medication. And in fact, I would say that if anyone was thinking about re-evaluating whether or not they need to be on a medication, then they should definitely go and see and consult with their prescriber first. Last year, Dylan and 92 other kids were placed on a trial of micronutrients. When you take the pills, what effect do they have on your hyperactivity? Um, it drains- I think it drains my energy a little bit, and so I get less hyperactivity, and I'm allowed to be calmer. How does that feel? Um, it feels good, cos I can, like, actually relax on the couch. What was it like before when you couldn't` couldn't you relax before? Um, I could relax, um, but most of the time I was running around the house. Sandrine agrees Dylan seems more relaxed, but she still has concerns about his concentration in class. What I'd like to do is to stop the pills for a couple of weeks to see the impact that it has on Dylan. And to see if all the improvement that I noticed over the past 10 weeks are solely due to, um, him taking the essential nutrients. We'll get back to Dylan later. He was pretty uncontrollable. What that behaviour looked like isn't somebody I'd like to see back again. So, micronutrients ` thumbs up... It's really been a massive game changer. ...or thumbs down? No, I wouldn't prescribe it, cos there's no evidence to prove that it works. 1 (HIP HOP MUSIC) If you think this is hard and fast, it's nothing compared to the way Tim Webb used to skate. I've broken my ankles and my wrists and... fingers don't really count. Um... Why not? Oh, cos, you've got loads of them. Uh, you've got like 10 of them, haven't you? The problem... I've got ADHD ` Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Trouble is, ADHD took the brakes off Tim's behaviour and not just on the ramp. I just thought I'd just be as nutty as I like. I'd go up and I'd smack people on the bum ` used to be a wee trick I used to like doing. I thought, 'Well, this would be a good laugh.' Uh, they didn't think it was funny, and now in hindsight I think, yeah, that's not funny at all (LAUGHS), why would you do that? We've been cut off from` from people because they just haven't found that kind of behaviour very appropriate. And it tested Tim's 19-year marriage to Kalai. Was there a point at which you felt like leaving? There were many points, but it wasn't an option for me, and it wasn't an option because of my belief in marriage. I stayed with him through the thick and the thin. Uh, when times are hard you just` you don't leave your partner; you work on things. At that stage, nobody had identified Tim's problem. I had a head injury, and we went to the Burwood Brain Injury unit for that, and they did a series of tests, and they established that I had ADHD, and then` and then I was referred on to this study. Tim was one of 80 who were placed on another of Julia Rucklidge's micronutrient trials ` this time for adults. So, were you sceptical at first? Oh yeah. Yep. I mean, you know, it's just a bunch of vitamins, isn't it? (LAUGHS) By then he'd almost given up hope of ever changing. I never expected there to be a way out. I just thought this is who I am, and, so I'll just be who I am. Would you as a doctor prescribe it? No, I wouldn't prescribe it, cos there's no evidence to prove that it works. Professor Shaun Holt ` medical researcher. He's sceptical about Julia Rucklidge's trial of micronutrients. That's a small study, so that's not proof. I have to, you know, disagree with the researchers on that. And that means using more than the 80 people in Professor Rucklidge's trial. You know generally we need several hundred people in a trial, and we probably need several trials replicated just to make sure that the true result is that it works. So I wouldn't say it's proven at this stage. I'd say it's interesting, and we need more research. Yes, large trials are always really good. But in this particular instance, with our sample of 80 people, we were able to find a significant group difference between those who were taking placebo, and those who were taking the micronutrients, such that we knew we were onto something. 50% of those who received micronutrients in Julia's adult trial did well. You'll remember Dylan ` he was on the trial for children. So what were the main benefits of the micronutrients? Dylan was definitely calmer, better behaved and less irrational with the micronutrients. So it was definitely really helpful. But it didn't fix his concentration. So his mum decided to try the standard medication ` Ritalin. The Ritalin, on days he has taken it, has helped a lot, and he has really good days, up until about lunchtime. And he actually focuses a lot more on what he's asked, like his writing. Dylan agrees. Ritalin was more effective for him in managing school work. How are things going at school? Um, pretty big improvements. In what way? Um, I'm more focused on my work, and when there's other things happening in the background, like background sounds and stuff, um, I keep doing my work, not` and I don't turn my attention to something else. To Julia there's no denying Ritalin can be effective with ADHD. But she says there is the risk longer term of side effects. We've heard from a lot of families who have entered our trial that some of the reasons why they wanted to look at micronutrients was because, the children, they can often get quite irritable in the afternoon. They get mood swings. They also have difficulty with sleep, and they have appetite changes. In contrast, I can really confidently say that people are` who go through our trials are not reporting those types of side effects to us. Half of those who received micronutrients in Julia's adult trial reported significant benefits. Tim Webb was one of them. I'm 100% sure that these pills have, uh, changed my life. So how do you know he hasn't simply just grown out of it? (LAUGHS) Uh, it's a good question. I'm not sure that we will ever know, and I really don't want to be given an opportunity to know, because there was a time where he wasn't on the medication for a week, and he was pretty uncontrollable. What that behaviour looked like isn't somebody that I'd like to see back again, for myself, but for him. Today a calmer, more collected Tim works in management for the construction industry ` a job he never once dreamt of having. It's really, um, opened up a whole new world of things that I didn't think I would ever have any success at, um, being able to read for any length of time or sit still for any length of time, um... He's been able to hold down, um, a really good job, where as he said earlier, he was` felt he never was able to do that. When people get well on the micronutrients, they get well across the board. So they'll report to us that their sleep is better. They'll report to us that their mood is stable, that they're calmer. They're better able to deal with the complexities and` and stresses of life. Our reliance on medications... Julia's next step is global. She's been engaged as consultant on a multimillion dollar European study of the relationship between nutrition and mental health. I mean it's so exciting that people have paid attention to the work that we've published. Such that they're investing a huge amount of money to seeing whether or not they can run the type of study that can definitively tell us whether or not micronutrients is a viable way forward for the treatment of psychological symptoms in people. In the meantime, Tim believes he's already living proof that a simple combination of vitamins and minerals can change a life. These pills have definitely given me a real` a sense of calm and an ability to sit down and do things like paperwork, um, whereas I'd run a mile before. And, um` and I can just do things and remember` my memory's way better, um, so it's really been a massive game changer. It's` It's completely different. It's night and day. (UPLIFTING MUSIC) And Julia Rucklidge is expecting Europe to begin its research into her findings in September. 180 people will take part in a trial with micronutrients. It's all part of a major investigation into links between nutrition and mental health. Well, later ` the Eagles. Don Henley on what happened when the band got back together. But next ` we're being fatally distracted while driving like never before. Can new technology stop you looking at your phone while driving? Here's why Keire's crash was so tragically inevitable. And was she speeding? No. Had she been drinking? No. So 22 text messages sent and received in 10 minutes. 10 minutes, yeah. And so a 20-year-old woman is dead. Just like that. That's right. Absolutely, yep. What are you thinking, when you look at that phone? (SIGHS) Uh... 1 Welcome back. Admit it ` it's tempting. Sneaking a mobile call, the wee text while driving, even though we know we're risking fines, and more importantly, lives. And it's not just mobile phones driving us to distraction. Cars are now bristling with all manner of electronic gadgetry. But as Alex Cullen reports, there's help on the way, thanks to an ingenious invention. (OMINOUS MUSIC) The driver of this ute is distracted by his GPS. He hasn't seen the signs warning there's a junction up ahead. Four people in an approaching car have only seconds to live. MAN: What? (CRASH!) Do you wonder how` how you could have survived? It does` It makes me think about this all the time. How's it possible for someone to get out of this and... Yeah, it does. It makes me realise I'm very lucky. And I shouldn't probably be here, but... A miracle happened. Yeah. Brad Kelly was seriously injured. The only survivor of five people in that car. Killed instantly were his partner, Josh Doyle, along with Josh's sister, Jessica, grandmother, Bev and his mum, Michelle. Miraculously, the driver of the ute who caused the crash escaped unharmed. Innocently doing nothing wrong, and everything just gets ripped away just like that, because of someone else's... not doing the right thing. Motorists looking at GPS devices. Dashboard displays, texting and talking on their mobiles. 60% of us admit we do it. It's a factor in one in five car crashes. Distracted driving is utterly rampant in Australia. It is killing hundreds of Australians every single year and thousands are getting hurt. (CRASH!) (CAR HONKS, TYRES SQUEAL) The irony is, technology is meant to assist us in our lives, and in all sorts of areas in our lives, it does, except when it's in our cars, and the technology is killing us. (COUNTRY ROCK MUSIC) Not so long ago, a car dashboard looked like this. (ELECTRONIC MUSIC) Now, this. Information overload. And drivers are doing crazy things, like taking selfies and videos of themselves behind the wheel. Young people are always the most at risk on our roads, because they're least experienced. And what we know about young generation, is they absolutely love their technology and their phones. But you put that combination, a love of technology into a car, it's a lethal combination. And it's having tragic consequences every single day. Consequences that are taking precious young lives, like 20-year-old Kiere Nebe Rose, known to her family as Sissy. Kiere's beautiful, just funny, very very funny. She just loved life. She was my best friend. She was the person that I could talk to about anything. She could talk to me about anything. Quite a special bond, you had. Yes, definitely. Seems to me that Kiere is everywhere. Yeah. Photos... Yep. Everywhere. Every room. Yep. Every wall. Yep. There's something of Kiere. Yep. It's just so I can see her every morning, and my whole idea of my photos everywhere is so that they tell a story. Yeah. Kiere was Jennard's only daughter. She was independent. Learned to drive at an early age on the farm and thought nothing of driving long distances. And like lots of young women her age, she was always out and about. Always on her phone. All the time. It was definitely a part of her life. (OMINOUS MUSIC) An October morning, three years ago. Kiere was heading across Queensland's Darling Downs to meet her mum, Jennard, and brothers, Jacob and Kyle, in the town of Dalby. Kiere was driving along this road from home into Dalby for a doctor's appointment. It's a trip she'd done countless times before. Now, it's a 60km trip, and there is no mobile phone coverage until you get a bit closer to town. And it's about here where you do get reception, and Kiere would've finally been able to use her phone. (CELL PHONE CHIMES) The text messages would've just started popping up from, you know, when she was out of range. So, obviously the temptation to then look at what's gone on is obviously ` was obviously was bit too great. They would've started popping up for sure. She would've only been about five to 10 minutes away from arriving at her destination. On this straight stretch of highway, witnesses saw Kiere's ute drift on to the other side of the road. A small truck was approaching, trying to get out of the way, but it was too late. Kiere didn't even brake, and hit the truck at about 90km/h. The driver's side took the full impact, and her ute caught fire. The truck driver survived. Jennard was approaching on the same road, just a few minutes behind, unaware of what had happened up ahead. The road was cut off with detour signs, because of an accident. (TENSE MUSIC) I had this instinct that you get that something was wrong. Highway patrol officer Sergeant Brett Stevenson was nearby when the crash happened. He found a vital clue to what caused Kiere's death. I noticed that there was actually a mobile phone sitting in the grass, just near the, uh` the window of the, um` of the vehicle, totally intact. Nothing wrong with it. It hadn't been damaged ` just lying in the grass there. What did you find on that phone? We found that in the` the last, uh, 10 minutes of` of her life, that she'd basically sent and received, uh, 22 text messages, um, uh, right up to and including, uh, basically the` the time of the crash itself. So` So basically, yeah, the last few moments of her life were spent, uh, using the phone and` and not looking where she was going. So 22 text messages, sent and received in 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, yeah. Yep. That's a lot. Here's why Kiere's crash was so tragically inevitable. This research shows how dangerously distracted a driver can become. Each second of not paying attention increases the chances of a catastrophe. All the evidence suggest that in Kiere's final moments, she did not have her eyes on the road. And was she speeding? No. Had she been drinking? No. Had she been taking drugs? No. My firm, firm opinion is that she was distracted by her mobile phone at the time. And so a 20-year-old woman is dead. Just like that. That's right. Absolutely, yep. Just for that minor three or four seconds. That's all it takes, and all of a sudden, yeah. Someone's` Someone's killed. And in this case, it was Kiere. Jennard still has Kiere's mobile phone. Every night she leaves it fully charged where her daughter once kept it ` right by her bedside. The messages on there ` have you ever seen them? Do you want to? No. I think more it's... it's her privacy. Yeah. And you'll keep that? Yeah, I still actually don't know why. I think it's just holding on to anything that is her. It's pretty much what life has become. SOFTLY: Yep. What are you thinking when you look at that phone? (SIGHS) Uh... It's... If... If that is why my daughter doesn't come home or why I will never ever watch her have children or get married or... just never get to` to do the things that we'd always talked about. And if that is the reason why she's not here any more, (SNIFFS), I just... I don't under` Just think ` why? It's probably one of the worst ones I've ever had to investigate. At the time my daughter was just about to get her learners. And knowing that she couldn't keep a phone out of her hand, it really, um, brought it home to me that this could've been my daughter or one of my mates' daughters. I think with the` the generation that's coming through where they were born with one in their hand, I think it's harder and harder for them to put it down and` and not be distracted by it. Next ` if technology started this problem, can technology fix it and help prevent tragedies? All three vehicles were converging fast. MAN: What? (CRASH!) The car hit the truck, and the truck swung around, and there was nothing` nothing we could do. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) This technology knows that you're about to use your phone, almost before you do. (ELECTRONIC MUSIC) Inside most new cars, the technology can be overwhelming. Gadgets designed to improve our driving experience. But DVD players, touch screen radios and GPS systems are also potentially distracting. Potentially fatal. You get in a new car; you're actually getting multiple points of information thrown at you. What you've also got is an explosion of options and texts and phones and internet. And remember ` driving a car on its own is a complex task. So what we're seeing today ` it's very complex, it's very risky, and it's having tragic consequences. (TENSE MUSIC) Mobile phones are often the primary cause of accidents. But here, it's a GPS being used by a farmer heading towards an intersection in country South Australia. This is actual video from his dash camera. (TENSE MUSIC) At the intersection ahead, a truck is coming from the right. And from the left, a car with five people on board. As we're coming around the bend, um, there was an intersection, and I could see the truck in the distance. Brad Kelly was in the front passenger seat. His partner Josh Doyle was driving. Josh's sister, Jessica, his grandmother, Bev and his mum, Michelle, were in the back seat. We were coming from this way, this area, and as we were coming this way, in this direction, a truck was coming in the opposite direction. The farmer was on a side road in his ute, heading towards a give way sign at the intersection. All three vehicles were converging fast. MAN: What? (CRASH!) The car hit the truck, and the truck swung around, and there was nothing` nothing we could do. The truck was right there, and then we hit at a high impact. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) This is the first time Brad has been back to the scene. It felt like it was a lifetime, but in reality it was a split second. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) My legs couldn't move. So I've dragged myself around the back of the car to see if everyone was all right. And... no one was all right. I could tell from the impact that no one was gonna be alive. And what did the driver of the ute then do? He was in shock himself, and he ran off in another direction. Did he say anything? There's nothing he could say. He was screaming, 'What have I done? What have I done?' The truck driver was unhurt. So too the ute driver who'd caused the crash, 65-year-old Alexander Wooldridge. He pleaded guilty to four counts of causing death by dangerous driving and one of causing serious harm. Wooldridge had a clean driving record. Jailed for at least two years, he was freed on appeal after serving 82 days. This man took four lives. He admitted he'd taken his eyes off the road. He was looking at his GPS, and he's taken four lives. (SOMBRE MUSIC) Taken my family. (SOBS) (SNIFFS) And the penalty he got, like,... oh, I don't know. I just can't understand. Darren Doyle's wife, Michelle, their two children, 22-year-old Josh and 16-year-old Jessica and his mother-in-law Bev were killed in the crash. People say, 'Oh, I understand what you're going through.' But they don't. (BREATHES SHAKILY) No one does. (BREATHES SHAKILY) (SNIFFS) (SNIFFS) (BREATHES SHAKILY) I can't come home at night now and give me kids a kiss and me wife a kiss. Can't do any of that. The reality is, people are losing their lives on our roads everyday, and the problem is getting worse. And all of these distractions are causing immeasurable trauma. Technology actually started this problem, and the reality is technology will be called on to fix it. It's sampling over a hundred points on your face, from your eyeballs, your eyelids and your head. I'm test driving a brand new Australian invention called Fovio. It uses facial recognition technology to alert drivers if they're dangerously distracted. We know that glances off the road for more than two seconds are where your accident risk skyrockets. With the escalating use of phones in the car, it's` it's almost like a tsunami that we're facing, in terms of the way people use phones. People are looking away from the road for much longer than two seconds. The system has been developed by a camera company called Seeing Machines. It enables cars to watch what drivers are up to, even with phones tucked out of sight. So this camera ` it's looking at me right now. It can see me looking down into my lap. Absolutely. The technology measures where you're actually looking with your eyes. It measures your head position and the position of your eyelids. So, this technology knows that you're about to use your phone almost before you do. Within a year, Fovio will be installed in a new range of cars produced by a major US manufacturer. When this technology is in a car, if the driver is not looking at the road for two or three seconds, the car will alert the driver and eventually take over and bring the car to a stop. It's designed to prevent tragedies like the one that claimed Kiere, who'd sent and received 22 texts in the minutes before she'd died. A distraction from the road for any reason ` it shatters families. It... it has ruined my family. There's such a large piece of us that is not here any more, and it is getting through the days that are very, very hard. And this safety system is already being widely used in trucks. We should be able to start buying cars with it in the near future. Well, next ` the Eagles' Don Henley on the musician that he was closest to. You miss him terribly, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. I'm still processing. It's gonna be processed for a long time, yeah. It was so unexpected. It was. It happened rather suddenly. # And take it ALL: # to the limit # one more time. 1 Hello again. No record collection was completed without them ` the Eagles. The creation of two good mates who made unforgettable music ` Hotel California, Take It To The Limit, One Of These Nights. For 45 years, Don Henley and Glenn Frey's friendship survived bust-ups and reunions, until last year, when tragedy struck. Rahni Sadler catches up with Don Henley to reminisce about his great mate Glenn, and the magic that was the Eagles. ALL: # Can't hide # your lying eyes. # And your smile # is a thin disguise. What was that moment like, when you first realised the beautiful and extraordinary harmonies that you could achieve with the guys in the Eagles? Oh, it's thrilling. Just thrilling. There's something about it that` that speaks to your core, you know, singing, blending with other voices and finding harmony parts. On the eve of his 70th birthday... This is a glacial pond. It was formed by glaciers. ...Eagles singer, songwriter and drummer Don Henley is reflecting on one of America's most successful musical careers. When you were penning your words four decades ago, more, did you ever think that they would still be so prevalent today? Oh, my songs? Yeah. No. If you know beforehand wha` how slim the odds were, uh, that you would actually make it, y` you might not continue. So, it was good to be young and stupid. # I got a feeling called the blues. # Oh Lord, since my baby said goodbye. It was 1970 when drummer Don Henley and guitarist Glenn Frey met in Los Angeles. Both joined Linda Rondstadt's backing band. # ...lonesome. # Had the lovesick blues. # As a cost-cutting measure, band members had to share rooms in those days. So, Glenn and I were roommates. Sharing a room cemented their friendship. They decided to form a group of their own, and in its early days, the band took a drug-fuelled trip to the desert, where Glenn thought he saw an eagle. (EAGLE CAWS) Yeah, there wasn't an eagle. It was a hawk. (LAUGHS) So you could've been the Hawks. Yeah. We were very high. (BOTH LAUGH) Yeah, we could've been the Hawks. # Take it... ALL: #...easy. # Take it... # ...easy. The Eagles made it big fast. Their self-titled first album delivered three number one hits. # Lighten up while you still can. # Don't even try to understand. # Just find a place to play your hand. # Take it easy. # What was it like when you first made it big with the Eagles? Well, it was scary. (LAUGHS) Sometimes success can be just as frightening, if not more frightening, than failure, you know? Why is that? Because then there's a pressure on you to repeat it. To` To stay there, you know? Not` Not all that difficult to get fa` to get to the top of the mountain. It's just hard to stay there. # She's a restless spirit # on an endless flight. ALL: # Whoo-hoo. # Witchy woman. # We were tough, you know? We were tough kids, and` and we were motivated. We were young. And resilient. # One of these nights. # Your name, please? Tammy Farley. Tammy... do we have Tammy, Tammy, Tammy? We wanted it, you know? We just wanted to do well. You know, we wanted to see the world, and we wanted to play music for people. We wanted girls to like us. ALL: # Ooo. # Someone to be kind to # in between the dark and the light. # Through the 70s, the band was a hit making machine. But on and off stage, the Eagles were tearing themselves apart. Popularity, prosperity and pressure inspired what would become their most enduring hit. # On a dark desert highway, # cool wind in my hair. Once fame hit, and` and there can be good sides and bad sides. Mm-hm. I mean, that's essentially was Hotel California is about, isn't it? It's about the American dream and the dark underside of the American dream. The American dream can sometimes turn into the American nightmare, you know? There's a` There's a price to pay for success. There's a price to pay for fame. There's a price to pay, um, for wealth. # There were voices down the corridor. # I thought them say... ALL: # Welcome to the Hotel California. # Such a lovely place. # Such a lovely place. # Such a lovely face. We just used California as a metaphor for America. We were getting some` a lot of flack from the critics, you know? Um... Again it was that mindset that once` if you were successful, you must have sold out somehow, you know? Y-Y` You can't be that good. You've just` You've sold your soul to the devil. # And you can check out any time you like. # But you can never leave. # Nine years after the band began, the Eagles broke up spectacularly, vowing that hell would freeze over before its members would reunite. I mean, on the one hand, I knew the Eagles were gonna break up eventually, because we were always breaking up. You know, after every tour, we'd go, 'This is` That's it.' When it finally became a reality, I wasn't` I was a little` I went into shock, really. # This is the end # of the innocence. Yet as a solo artist, Don Henley found success again, earning two Grammys after a string of hits. Then 14 years after they called it quits, the Eagles put their differences aside and reunited for the cheekily-named Hell Freezes Over tour. Show time! Show time. Show time. (CROWD WHISTLES, CHEERS) # It's just another day in paradise # as you stumble to your bed. # There was a whole new generation of kids that'd never seen us perform, and wanted to see us perform. And how was good was that to get back together and perform? It was fantastic. What's the funniest Eagles moment you've had? (CHUCKLES) Some nights when we were particularly tired, you know, like somebody would forget songs we'd been playing for 30, 40 years. You'd just go blank. (LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE, CROWD CHEERS) Those were funny moments. We would` We would laugh. (SINGS SLOWLY) The band was in the early stages of planning its next tour, when Glenn Frey went into hospital for gastrointestinal tract surgery. He died unexpectedly from complications. Glenn was 67. You miss him terribly, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm still processing it. It's gonna be processed for a long time, yeah. You know. It was so unexpected. It was. It happened rather suddenly. I mean, they'd` they'd been some health problems for a while, but... We thought they were under control, and it just happened quickly. # So put me # on a highway. # And show me a sign. # And take it # to the limit. # one more time. Is there an Eagles song that you'd be happy if you never heard again? Oh, there are several. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Most of them. (LAUGHS) You get sick of hearing the Eagles? Yeah. Like, I'd go into a restaurant, and they'll recognise me. So they'll go back and and they'll put on, you know, one of my songs. And I'll call over the waitress, and I go, 'Could you please have them shut that off?' (LAUGHS) And they look at me... like I'm crazy. (CONTINUES LAUGHING) And I go, 'You know, I've` I've kind of heard that. Kind of heard it.' # You've gotta take it # to the limit # one more time. # (CROWD CHEERS, APPLAUSE) Thank you. Aw. Don Henley plays Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington later the month. Well, that's our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter, SundayTVNZ. And thanks for joining us this evening. I'll see you next week.