Episode Transcript
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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, Thank you for
taking the time to have me on board. 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 2 (00:17):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, I did, you know. I walked back into the
storage 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. And I
had no idea what was on those tape So I
(00:42):
brought them over to my new studio and we transferred
them from cassette machines and AD app machines to digital
in pro tools, And in the process of listening to
some of those tapes, I went, yeah, Gum, that was
a great idea. The first demo ever made for the
Eagles was a slide guitar track, and it was on
there and I went, dah, comes, that's a good slide part.
(01:04):
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 industry over fifty years.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
So if somebody wants to go listen to the slide
guitar that you tried out for the Eagles with, is
the story behind that? First of all, did you just
bring a piece of a song in?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
No.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
First of all, Dwayne Aldman taught me how to play
slide in Gainesvillejush when I was about seventeen eighteen something
like that, and I was hanging out with the Eagles
backstage because Bernie Ledend 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 him. They were opening for Yes,
(01:57):
So 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 and
(02:17):
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 (02:34):
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 (02:49):
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 from a
little dirt road and 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.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So I really took the first year of separation, did
a lot of self expiration about it and understanding so
that I could let it go. I didn't want to
drag any regrets or animosity or any of that stuff
forward or in my life. Life's too short to be bitter.
It's better to straighten things up and move forward.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That's beautiful, Don, It 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 rays you were leaving.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
No, Joe used to do that when he got really angry.
He would grab a guitar and smash it, you know, backstage. Uh,
And so I grabbed one of my guitars after that
on stage bicker and smashed it and got in the
car and left. We were just burned to a crisp
after being in the studio and on the road NonStop
(04:07):
for like a year and a half, two years, we
were just toast.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, I mean, I saw that documentary they worked, you guys.
I mean that was a different kind of there was
a different kind of touring.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Calling the mail there, but I mean very successful. One
hundred and fifty million records later, it's kind of worth.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It, huh. Absolutely, yeah, So we're lucky enough.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Don Felder's coming to the Northeast is Sarahcuse Bridgeport, Guilford,
New Hampshire. So what show are you bringing our way
this summer?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Done well? We have a fantastic headline with Sticks and
Kevin Cronin from Mario and myself. It's gonna 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 or have
(04:56):
a nice Graham finale with everybody on the stage. You
don't know, that might be some 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 or brothers
(05:18):
on tour.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
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 (05:27):
That's great to hell the nice.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Guy he is knowing, Kevin, he heard me say that earlier.
He's copied How old were you?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
How old are you in Gainesville? When's you and young
Tom Petty sitting around playing guitar? You're teaching the guitar?
How old were you guys then?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
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 led and
Steven Still's Petty brothers from Daytona Beach and Leonard Skinner
and Jacksonville. That so many people that grew up in
(06:05):
that north 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
(06:27):
point and playing high school proms and fraternity party all
the way to the Rock.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
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 (06:44):
Thank you, Don.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Please come out 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. I
appreciate it being honest man.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Thank you sir.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
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, Thank you for
taking the time to have me on board. 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 2 (00:17):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, I did, you know. I walked back into the
storage 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. And I
had no idea what was on those tape So I
(00:42):
brought them over to my new studio and we transferred
them from cassette machines and AD app machines to digital
in pro tools, And in the process of listening to
some of those tapes, I went, yeah, Gum, that was
a great idea. The first demo ever made for the
Eagles was a slide guitar track, and it was on
there and I went, dah, comes, that's a good slide part.
(01:04):
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 industry over fifty years.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
So if somebody wants to go listen to the slide
guitar that you tried out for the Eagles with, is
the story behind that? First of all, did you just
bring a piece of a song in?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
No.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
First of all, Dwayne Aldman taught me how to play
slide in Gainesvillejush when I was about seventeen eighteen something
like that, and I was hanging out with the Eagles
backstage because Bernie Ledend 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 him. They were opening for Yes,
(01:57):
So 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 and
(02:17):
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 (02:34):
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 (02:49):
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 from a
little dirt road and 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.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So I really took the first year of separation, did
a lot of self expiration about it and understanding so
that I could let it go. I didn't want to
drag any regrets or animosity or any of that stuff
forward or in my life. Life's too short to be bitter.
It's better to straighten things up and move forward.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
That's beautiful, Don, It 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 rays you were leaving.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
No, Joe used to do that when he got really angry.
He would grab a guitar and smash it, you know, backstage. Uh,
And so I grabbed one of my guitars after that
on stage bicker and smashed it and got in the
car and left. We were just burned to a crisp
after being in the studio and on the road NonStop
(04:07):
for like a year and a half, two years, we
were just toast.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Well, I mean, I saw that documentary they worked, you guys.
I mean that was a different kind of there was
a different kind of touring.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Calling the mail there, but I mean very successful. One
hundred and fifty million records later, it's kind of worth.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It, huh. Absolutely, yeah, So we're lucky enough.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
Don Felder's coming to the Northeast is Sarahcuse Bridgeport, Guilford,
New Hampshire. So what show are you bringing our way
this summer?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Done well? We have a fantastic headline with Sticks and
Kevin Cronin from Mario and myself. It's gonna 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 or have
(04:56):
a nice Graham finale with everybody on the stage. You
don't know, that might be some 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 or brothers
(05:18):
on tour.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
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 (05:27):
That's great to hell the nice.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Guy he is knowing, Kevin, he heard me say that earlier.
He's copied How old were you?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
How old are you in Gainesville? When's you and young
Tom Petty sitting around playing guitar? You're teaching the guitar?
How old were you guys then?
Speaker 1 (05:43):
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 led and
Steven Still's Petty brothers from Daytona Beach and Leonard Skinner
and Jacksonville. That so many people that grew up in
(06:05):
that north 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
(06:27):
point and playing high school proms and fraternity party all
the way to the Rock.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
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 (06:44):
Thank you, Don.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Please come out 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. I
appreciate it being honest man.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Thank you sir.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
It's Don Felder. Picks one of six
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