How did the Eagles get their name? Here is one idea: The band spent a lot of time at the Troubadour in Hollywood. After the Troubadour closed one night, they drove to Joshua Tree in the Mohave Desert. They took along peyote buttons to experience the desert as fully as possible. Native Americans ate peyote buttons when they went on a spiritual quest or in an effort to communicate with their spirit animals.

The guys really just wanted to get high. They stopped at a campsite, built a fire and everyone was eating a button. It was very surreal. Bernie Leadon says he thinks they got higher that night than they had ever gotten before. Glenn Frey gets up during this time and needs to go pea in the bushes. So, he is doing his business and the guys start yelling, “Eagle” and above them in the air is an eagle with his wings a full span soaring over them. That image of the eagle is on the cover of their first album and the image on the cover is of that desert trip.

I can’t prove that is where the name came from, but I’d like to think so.