Peaceful Easy Interview: Jack Tempchin OC Music Scene Interview by Alan Corcoran
Jack Tempchin
Posted On July 11, 2011
Q: You’re probably most famous for penning the monster hit Peaceful Easy Feeling but you also wrote Already Gone, one of the greatest breakup songs. Inspired by actual events?
Jack Tempchin: Yes, but it wasn’t a romantic event for me. I co-wrote it with Robb Strandlund. We were in the back room of this place called The Backdoor. We were drinking some hard cider. So he has got things in the song – there might have been a breakup on his side – you know what I mean? For me it was more just some human relationships that had become too entangled and I thought, “I will just trust people until they show me I can’t trust them and then I’ll move on. That’s how I’m going to deal with that kind of thing.”
Q: How did you meet Glenn?
Jack Tempchin: There was a place in San Diego in the early 70s called The Candy Company. It was what we called a coffee house back then ,with folk music, and they served hot cider. Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther were in a duo called Longbranch Pennywhistle and they came down there to play. I was the house guy down there and played random music. I invited them to stay at my house which was a big hippie pad with the candle factory in the garage. That’s how I met those two guys and that was maybe at least five years before The Eagles were born. I met Jackson Browne at this place too and so I kind of knew all those guys.
