Don Felder: When the band first formed, everybody had been sidemen. So...

You've got this piece of wood and some wires, pickups and some strings. How somebody uses that configuration to make something memorable, that's what's interesting to me.

Don Felder

guitar music memorable

Take a ride on heavy metal, it's the only way that you can travel down that road.

Don Felder

heavy-metal rock-and-roll way

...every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great plops into your lap, that's how it was with "Hotel California".. a leased beach house in Malibu ... all the doors wide open on a spectacular July day probably in 1975 ... soaking wet ... thinking the world is a wonderful place to be... with an acoustic 12 string ... those chords just oozed out.

Don Felder

music beach thinking

Your nerve coatings are only so thick. When they get worn really thin and frayed, that's when people say things, do things, misbehave.

Don Felder

people-say your say people

I especially enjoyed some of the old hairstyles, with my hair down to my shoulders and a beard. And Henley's nickname used to be 'Furry Basketball' because he had that fro. It was fun to just look at what was going on in that era and how we presented ourselves on stage.

Don Felder

look beard hair fun

Shortly after I moved to Los Angeles, I was looking for work, and I happened to be invited to Ray's studio and sat in and played on a couple of his demos. I didn't charge him a dime for it. I was on cloud nine to be working in the same room as Ray Charles, one of my huge idols.

Don Felder

cloud looking idols work

I was constantly in the studio at my home writing ideas that would later become 'Hotel California' or 'Victim of Love.'

Don Felder

hotel home love ideas

Being in a band with three guitar players, one thing you need to do is learn to make each guitar voice sound separate and identifiable.

Don Felder

you guitar voice sound

When you got on the private plane, you had your own private lounge where you could close the door. So there wasn't a lot of friendly conversation; we were in incubators by ourselves. That just bred a void - avoid each other, and avoid the issues.

Don Felder

door your you conversation

That last record I did, I think I played every guitar on the entire record. I want to do something more fun and exciting.

Don Felder

think guitar want fun

If I had a pull on 'One of These Nights,' on the first high note on 'One of These Nights,' that was just a tiny hair flat or something, I could just feel Henley's eyes scouring into the back of my head. No mistakes were allowed, and it really kept the quality at a high level.

Don Felder

eyes feel quality hair

One of the songs we recorded for 'The Long Run' was called 'You're Really High, Aren't You?' Which never really made it onto a record, but later on, it became 'Heavy Metal.' I took that track that wasn't used, and when I was invited to write a song for that movie, I took that track and recorded that song for that movie.

Don Felder

never you song long

Don't forget, Stephen Stills and I had a band in Gainesville called the Continentals when we were 15. And, of course, you had Lynyrd Skynyrd in Jacksonville.

Don Felder

were you band forget

Tom Petty was one of my guitar students; I knew Duane, and Stephen and I had a band. When he left, Bernie Leadon moved to Gainesville. His father was a nuclear physicist who was sent to the University of Florida to start their nuclear research facility, so he and I became friends.

Don Felder

friends guitar research father

I never challenged control of the band. Basically, all I did was start asking questions. There's an old adage in Hollywood amongst managers: 'Pay your acts enough money that they don't ask questions.' And I started asking questions.

Don Felder

control never start money

For every album we worked on, I brought in reels of tape of somewhere between fourteen and eighteen songs - some of them completed, with lyrics and melodies, some of them basic tracks. Things came out of those products. Like, for 'Hotel California', I think I had a reel with sixteen songs on it.

Don Felder

things like think hotel

Within a twelve or fourteen month period, I went through a divorce from my wife of 29 years, which is devastating emotionally and earthshaking as far as your whole world being turned upside-down. And within that same twelve month period, I left the Eagles.

Don Felder

your divorce wife world

I think Don Henley is a brilliant contemporary rock writer. He would have been a fabulous poet if he weren't a musician. He was a literary major, and not only that - he's gifted with a brilliant voice. To me, Don could sing the New York City Yellow Pages and I'd buy it. I just love the sound of his voice.

Don Felder

city me yellow love

There were about 400 heads of state from countries all over the world. I walked out and played 'Hotel California,' and everybody in the place gave me a standing ovation, and half of those countries don't even speak English.

Don Felder

place me speak world

Early on, one of my favorites was Ray Charles. I remember hearing 'I Can't Stop Loving You' in the early '60s and thinking, 'What an unbelievably soulful voice.' In those days, the Deep South was extremely segregated.

Don Felder

deep you remember thinking

When the band first formed, everybody had been sidemen. So they said, 'In this band there are no sidemen,' and when I joined the band, it was still the same. There were some power struggles emerging, because Henley and Frey had sung all the hits at that point.