Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Living legend.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
John Felder on the phone. Can there how about that?
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Thanks for making time for us, sir. Where are you
at right now?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Thank you for taking the time to have me on board.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
We are. We're here to talk about your new album,
The Vault fifty Years of Music. Don it sounds like
you went into the vault and you looked around for
a while. Man, did you come out? Did you come
out of the vault?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Huh? Yeah, I did, you know? I walked back into
the storage in where I put my console, my tape
machines and everything. Back in two thousand when I moved
out of Malibu, and I discovered all these tapes and
boxes full of cassettes and CDs and aid ads and
stuff of ideas that I had written since the early seventies.
(00:42):
And I had no idea what was on those tapes.
So I brought them over to my new studio and
we transferred them from cassette machines and adapt machines to
digital in pro tools, And in the process of listening
to some of those tapes, I went, yah, gum, that
was a great idea. The first demo ever made for
the Eagles was a slide guitar track and it was
(01:04):
on there and I went, dah, come, that's a good
slide part. I should finish that song. No lyrics, no melody,
just basic track. I went and listened to a bunch
of these tapes and decided, I'm going to take some
of these and finish them and see how they turn out.
So that's what this album is about. It's from my
writing in history over fifty years.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So if somebody wants to go and listen to the
slide guitar that you tried out for the Eagles with,
what is the story behind that? First of all, did
you just bring a piece of a song in? No.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
First of all, Dwayne Aldman taught me how to play
slide in Gainesville, Gosh, when I was about seventeen eighteen
something like that, and I was hanging out with the
Eagles backstage because Bernie Ledon and I went to high
school together. He was in my band when we were teenagers.
And if they were playing in Boston and I was
in Boston, i'd go down and see them they were
(01:58):
opening for Yes, I'd go backstage and just pick up
a guitar and Bernie and I would play and I'd
play slide and I'd play regular guitar. We were just
jamming like we did when we were kids. Nice And finally,
when I moved to California, I got a call to
come down to the studio and play slide on a
song called good Day in Hell, which was a song
that was on the border. So I went down there
(02:20):
and played that, packed up and went home that night,
said goodbye to my friends, and the next day I
got a call from Glenn Fry asking me to join
the band. And it was the greatest blessing I think
it ever happened in my life, next to my kids,
but it certainly changed my life in many, many, many
many ways.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Don Felder, he's got
his fourth solo album coming out. But when you go back,
and it's great that you have all these positive memories,
because right, you know, when you talk about the split,
it's like you could it would be easy to be
sour at times, wouldn't it done.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, I mean, you have the choice to be happy
with life or to be sour with lives. And I
really wanted to understand how I had gotten.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
From a little dirt road in the poverty of north
central Florida all the way up to New York, Boston,
California into the Eagles of my life, exploding in the
music business, and then it ending. Yeah, so I really
took the first year of separation, got a lot of
self expiration about it and understanding so that I could
(03:21):
let it go.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I didn't want to drag any regrets or animosity or
any of that stuff forward or in my life. Life
is too short to be bitter. It's better to straighten
things up and move forward.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's beautiful, Don, he really is the Eagles, Don Felder,
you know you mentioned Glenn Fry was the phone call,
and then then at the very end, didn't you break
Glenn's guitar on stage or something like that? I was
right as Rasy were leaving.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No, Joe used to do that when he got really angry.
He would grab a guitar and smash it, you know, backstage,
And so I grabbed one of my guitars after that
on stage a bit her and smashed it and got
in the car and left. Yeah, we were just burned
to a crisp after being in the studio and on
the road NonStop for like a year and a half,
(04:11):
two years. We were just toast.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well, I mean I saw that documentary they worked you guys.
I mean that was a different kind of that was
a different kind of touring.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Calling the mail there, but I mean very successful. One
hundred and fifty million records later, it's kind of worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Huh. Absolutely, Yeah, So we're lucky enough.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Don Felder's coming to the Northeast is Sarah Hugh's Bridgeport, Guilford,
New Hampshire. So what show are you bringing our way
this summer?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Done well, we have a fantastic headline with Stick and
Kevin Cronin from Mario and myself. It's got to be
four hours, four hours of nothing but hit after hit
after hit after hit after hit. And it might be
some surprises in the set too. Who knows when somebody
might come out from backstage and sit in with somebody
(04:58):
or have a nice gramp with everybody on stage. You
don't know, that might be some surprises. Anyway. I have
known these guys and toured with these guys for decades
on and off, and it's just a big family. There's
no divas, there's no pompous hisss. He fits. We get
along really well and we have a lot of fun
on stage and off stage. It's more like a family
(05:20):
or brothers on tour.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
We talked to Kevin Cronin not long ago and he
said the same thing about just guys who are enjoying
playing music right now. He said the same thing as you.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That's great to hell A nice guy.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
He is knowing, Kevin, he heard me say that earlier.
He's copying out.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
How old were you? How old are you in Gainesville?
When's you and young Tom Patty sitting around playing guitar?
You're teaching guitar? How old were you guys then?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
At that point I was probably sixteen seventeen. Tom was
probably fourteen or fifteen. He's a couple of years younger
than me, I think. Think about it, it was a
crazy hotbed of people there between myself, Bernie and Steven Stills, Patty,
all my brothers from Daytona Beach and Leonard Skinner and Jacksonville.
That so many people that grew up in that north
(06:09):
central Florida area went on to become you know, platinum
selling artists and rock and roll hall of fame, and
none of us ever even expected any of that. We
were just learning to play music and rock and roll,
and I would talk Petty a little bit, and Dwayne
taught me how to play slide. You know, we were
just just kids hanging out in garage bands at that
(06:30):
point and playing high school proms and fraternity party all
the way to the Rock.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And Roll Hall of Fame. It is Don Felder. Look
for the new album The Vault fifty Years of Music,
which is coming out in May. Don will put up
a link on our page for people to pre order
your album. Wish you a ton of luck with the tour.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Thank you, Don.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Please come back to a show and let me take
it backstage and shake your hands and thank you guys
for taking the time to do this for me.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I appreciate it being honor man.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Thank you sir.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
It's Don Felder. Picks one of six
Living legend.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
John Felder on the phone. Can there how about that?
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Thanks for making time for us, sir. Where are you
at right now?
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Thank you for taking the time to have me on board.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
We are. We're here to talk about your new album,
The Vault fifty Years of Music. Don it sounds like
you went into the vault and you looked around for
a while. Man, did you come out? Did you come
out of the vault?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Huh? Yeah, I did, you know? I walked back into
the storage in where I put my console, my tape
machines and everything. Back in two thousand when I moved
out of Malibu, and I discovered all these tapes and
boxes full of cassettes and CDs and aid ads and
stuff of ideas that I had written since the early seventies.
(00:42):
And I had no idea what was on those tapes.
So I brought them over to my new studio and
we transferred them from cassette machines and adapt machines to
digital in pro tools, And in the process of listening
to some of those tapes, I went, yah, gum, that
was a great idea. The first demo ever made for
the Eagles was a slide guitar track and it was
(01:04):
on there and I went, dah, come, that's a good
slide part. I should finish that song. No lyrics, no melody,
just basic track. I went and listened to a bunch
of these tapes and decided, I'm going to take some
of these and finish them and see how they turn out.
So that's what this album is about. It's from my
writing in history over fifty years.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So if somebody wants to go and listen to the
slide guitar that you tried out for the Eagles with,
what is the story behind that? First of all, did
you just bring a piece of a song in? No.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
First of all, Dwayne Aldman taught me how to play
slide in Gainesville, Gosh, when I was about seventeen eighteen
something like that, and I was hanging out with the
Eagles backstage because Bernie Ledon and I went to high
school together. He was in my band when we were teenagers.
And if they were playing in Boston and I was
in Boston, i'd go down and see them they were
(01:58):
opening for Yes, I'd go backstage and just pick up
a guitar and Bernie and I would play and I'd
play slide and I'd play regular guitar. We were just
jamming like we did when we were kids. Nice And finally,
when I moved to California, I got a call to
come down to the studio and play slide on a
song called good Day in Hell, which was a song
that was on the border. So I went down there
(02:20):
and played that, packed up and went home that night,
said goodbye to my friends, and the next day I
got a call from Glenn Fry asking me to join
the band. And it was the greatest blessing I think
it ever happened in my life, next to my kids,
but it certainly changed my life in many, many, many
many ways.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Don Felder, he's got
his fourth solo album coming out. But when you go back,
and it's great that you have all these positive memories,
because right, you know, when you talk about the split,
it's like you could it would be easy to be
sour at times, wouldn't it done.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, I mean, you have the choice to be happy
with life or to be sour with lives. And I
really wanted to understand how I had gotten.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
From a little dirt road in the poverty of north
central Florida all the way up to New York, Boston,
California into the Eagles of my life, exploding in the
music business, and then it ending. Yeah, so I really
took the first year of separation, got a lot of
self expiration about it and understanding so that I could
(03:21):
let it go.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I didn't want to drag any regrets or animosity or
any of that stuff forward or in my life. Life
is too short to be bitter. It's better to straighten
things up and move forward.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's beautiful, Don, he really is the Eagles, Don Felder,
you know you mentioned Glenn Fry was the phone call,
and then then at the very end, didn't you break
Glenn's guitar on stage or something like that? I was
right as Rasy were leaving.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
No, Joe used to do that when he got really angry.
He would grab a guitar and smash it, you know, backstage,
And so I grabbed one of my guitars after that
on stage a bit her and smashed it and got
in the car and left. Yeah, we were just burned
to a crisp after being in the studio and on
the road NonStop for like a year and a half,
(04:11):
two years. We were just toast.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well, I mean I saw that documentary they worked you guys.
I mean that was a different kind of that was
a different kind of touring.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Calling the mail there, but I mean very successful. One
hundred and fifty million records later, it's kind of worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Huh. Absolutely, Yeah, So we're lucky enough.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Don Felder's coming to the Northeast is Sarah Hugh's Bridgeport, Guilford,
New Hampshire. So what show are you bringing our way
this summer?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Done well, we have a fantastic headline with Stick and
Kevin Cronin from Mario and myself. It's got to be
four hours, four hours of nothing but hit after hit
after hit after hit after hit. And it might be
some surprises in the set too. Who knows when somebody
might come out from backstage and sit in with somebody
(04:58):
or have a nice gramp with everybody on stage. You
don't know, that might be some surprises. Anyway. I have
known these guys and toured with these guys for decades
on and off, and it's just a big family. There's
no divas, there's no pompous hisss. He fits. We get
along really well and we have a lot of fun
on stage and off stage. It's more like a family
(05:20):
or brothers on tour.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
We talked to Kevin Cronin not long ago and he
said the same thing about just guys who are enjoying
playing music right now. He said the same thing as you.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That's great to hell A nice guy.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
He is knowing, Kevin, he heard me say that earlier.
He's copying out.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
How old were you? How old are you in Gainesville?
When's you and young Tom Patty sitting around playing guitar?
You're teaching guitar? How old were you guys then?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
At that point I was probably sixteen seventeen. Tom was
probably fourteen or fifteen. He's a couple of years younger
than me, I think. Think about it, it was a
crazy hotbed of people there between myself, Bernie and Steven Stills, Patty,
all my brothers from Daytona Beach and Leonard Skinner and Jacksonville.
That so many people that grew up in that north
(06:09):
central Florida area went on to become you know, platinum
selling artists and rock and roll hall of fame, and
none of us ever even expected any of that. We
were just learning to play music and rock and roll,
and I would talk Petty a little bit, and Dwayne
taught me how to play slide. You know, we were
just just kids hanging out in garage bands at that
(06:30):
point and playing high school proms and fraternity party all
the way to the Rock.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And Roll Hall of Fame. It is Don Felder. Look
for the new album The Vault fifty Years of Music,
which is coming out in May. Don will put up
a link on our page for people to pre order
your album. Wish you a ton of luck with the tour.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Thank you, Don.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Please come back to a show and let me take
it backstage and shake your hands and thank you guys
for taking the time to do this for me.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I appreciate it being honor man.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Thank you sir.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
It's Don Felder. Picks one of six
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