September 24, 2024 • 36 mins
On this episode of The Bobbycast, Don Felder, formerly of the Eagles, sat down with Bobby Bones to discuss his life after the band. Don shares the story behind their massive hit, "Hotel California," and how he wrote it. He also goes behind some of the band's biggest hits like "One Of These Nights" and "Take It To The Limit." He also tells us if he accepts free guitars, his music and touring plans for next year and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Actually I saw a trombone player doing the solo for
Hotel California, and trombon is like, this guy is a
great player, but I can't imagine a sewer pipe players
who he's.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Playing no Hotel. So I watched it.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to episode four seventy with Don Felder, formerly of
the Eagles. He spent twenty seven years with the Eagles.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
He's the.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Hotel California. Boom M. I got a text from him
after this. Really yeah. So Don Felder, by the way,
is like as royalty in the history of rock and
roll music. Goes like he's one of those guys. So
I got a message. They were like, hey, Don Felder
would like to have your cell phone number. And I
weigh that out and I go, well, I don't really
(00:55):
give anybody a number, but two, I go, but Don
Felder's never asked. So I was weighing it and I
was like, it's Don Felder. It's not like he's gonna
be hitting me up all the time. He's way cooler
than I am. So he's and I think he was
super cool. So I was like, go ahead and give
him a number, and so he texted me and I
don't think I am uh, you know, by jumping any boundary.
(01:16):
You want to hear what he said. I do want
to hear. Hey, Bobby, don Felder here. Been a little
slow to text, but came home on Sunday. Leave again
very soon. I've done thousands of interviews and I've been
asked some of the same questions thousands of times, but
your questions were so different and unique. I really enjoyed
our chat. Thank you so much for having me on
your podcast. Hope to stop it again next year when
we're on tour. If you ever want to come to
(01:36):
a show, please let me know. We'd love to have
you out and your crew as guests. Next time. I'll
bring a guitar so we could do a little picking
and grinning.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
That's awesome that someone's like, I've an interviewed a bunch
and you're weird. That's how I, in an unhealthy way,
took it at first, But no, it's a compliment. I
loved it. It was super cool to have Don Felder in.
Check his Instagram out Don Felder music again. He spent
twenty seven years with the Eagles. He is on tour
until December. He released a record wrote to forever in
(02:07):
twenty twenty. I don't know. I mean, he's just out.
He's still killing it. He's like funny and with it.
And I don't even know. I guess I didn't know
how old I thought he would be.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Is he seventy?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I think so still looks like a rock star. Yeah,
Like he looks cool, Like he's not trying extra hard
to look cool because that's how it used to look.
He just looks like a cool version of what you
think he would look like now, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Don Felder here, he is formerly of the Eagles. This
was a really cool interview. Dona have about five thousand questions.
(02:40):
So I'm glad that you came in. Been a fan
for a long time, like just of your individual story
and then obviously you're the group story of you with
the Eagles and then post as well. It's like three
different versions. Do you feel like you've lived three different careers?
Because I feel like Eddie and I were talking about
it earlier, we feel like it's like three different version
of an artist. You feel that way about yourself?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I do.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's actually, you know, growing up in Gainesville and being
in an environment that musically doesn't exist. I mean, they
had a white radio station that would only play white
artists on the radio station growing up, But at night
I could dial in WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee, and I
could hear Little Richard screaming tooty fruity, and I could
(03:25):
hear BB King, and I could hear Albert King. So
I'd just beglued that radio. And they had a thing
called Randy's Record mart I don't know ifnybody even remembers that.
If you heard someone on that radio station that you liked,
you could put a dollar or two dollars. I think
it was in an envelope with your return address, and
you could mail it to Reddy's Record mark. Then every
(03:45):
day you'd start checking the mailbox. This is like the
way used to download back in those days. That's funny,
like super'slow Wi Fi. And finally the record would come
with forty five by BB King, and I'd put it
on a turntable and record it on a reel to
reel tape recorder. It's seven and a half inches per second,
(04:06):
and then once it was recorded, I'd slow it down
to three and three quarters so I could hear the motions.
I can hear the notes and the style of the playing. Yeah,
but it's an ocative down, but you can hear the
notes as he's going through it. You figure that out
and then you can put it back up to speed
and try to get your chops.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Up to play it at the same speed he did.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So you know, I got a call the other day,
all about a year ago from the CEO of Gibson
Company and he was at a NAM show down in
Dallas and he says, don you got to hear this
guy play Hotel California solo. I was like, oh, really,
I got to hear it again. I said, okay, put
(04:44):
him on. So this person starts playing and it's just amazing.
He's got a note for note, vibratos in the right place,
the tempos, the harmonies, the whole ending solo is amazing.
I said, who is that and he said it's a.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Ten year old boy.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I went, no, oh kidding, So I said, put him
on the phone. I had him tell me how he
learned that. How did you learn that? I didn't even
have a guitar until I was ten, and this guy's
ripping through hotel he said. I got an iPad and
I went on and watched you playing live, and I
watched your fingers until I could speed it up to
where I could play with He did your version of that.
(05:20):
Just with today's technology, that's right, exactly right. But back
then that was the only way to learn. We didn't
even have a music story Gainsville when we grew up,
so the only way you could learn is by your ear.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So Christapleton's a decent friend of mine, and his song
gets covered all the time. A lot of a songs do,
but like Tennessee Whiskey, which is not his song but
one that he covered and repopular and gets covered all
the time. Are people constantly wanting you to hear covers
of your songs? Like don listen to this? Does that
happen a lot where I's like, listen to this player?
Or not so much anymore, it happens a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Just if I'm going through Instagram or Facebook or something,
there's all your TikTok. There's people that want to show
me that they can play my solo, which is really flattering.
You know, it's not an easy solo by any stretch
of the imagination, but it is flattering for that many
people to try to attempt there's Actually I saw a
trombone player doing the solo for Hotel California on trombone.
(06:14):
I was like, this guy is a great player, but
I can't imagine a sewer pipe player.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Who was playing.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
An hotel.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So I watched it.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Did you write about like when you wrote that We're
on the beach?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Like?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Where did that come to you?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Like that?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Because it wasn't written as part of the whole song, right,
didn't you write the intro to that song just kind
of by itself.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
What happened was I had rented a house on a
beach in Malibu. I had two little kids, one was
about a year old and one was like two and
a half.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And I was sitting on the couch.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It was just a beautiful sunny California day and the
sun was glistening on the surf as it's coming in,
and my kids were in the sand on the swing set,
and so I have this guitar, acoustic guitar, and I'm
just sitting there and I start playing this chord for
great and about three or four times through the progression,
I said I have to go in the back bedroom
and record a little bit of it because if I
(07:06):
don't record it tomorrow, I'll go what was that thing
that was? So I run in a back bedroom record
about I don't know, two or three times through the
verse progression and just put it away. It was actually
my one year old daughter's bedroom was my recording studio,
fact that when she was away playing I could go
in and Mike write demos and stuff anyway, So I
(07:30):
recorded that, and then we started writing song ideas for
the album that was untitled at the time that was
going to be Hotel California. So I wound up writing
sixteen or seventeen complete basic tracks where I would go
in and take an idea like that little progression, and
I'd fill it out and write a chorus part to it,
and I'd play bass on it. And I had a
(07:51):
little rhythm rhythm drum machine called a rhythm ace that
you used to see on piano players and bars that
they could set it to a chachaar send it to
a beat. So I used that, and then I just
overdubbed a bunch of stuff on this little four track
tape recorder three to one, then fill up two more
tracks and bout those three to one, and so it
was mono at the time. As a matter of fact,
(08:13):
I just I should have brought my laptop because I
have a digital copy of it. I could play a
little bit of it, and it sounds I played the
beginning with a twelve string and then these electrics coming
on the solo at the very end is pretty much
like it is on the record, with the except exception
of some walshisms. When Joe and I played together, we
came up with just great, unique stuff. So I put
(08:36):
that idea on a cassette with like fifteen or sixteen
other song ideas. One became Victim of Love, and Henley
liked that one that sounded like a Mexican reggae and
so he was off and running writing lyrics to that
song and came up with the lyric idea and lyrics
for a Hotel California, which was on top of that
music bed. So that's kind of how that all came together.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And I didn't want to get you out right your book.
As soon as it came out, Like the week it
came out, I devoured it like I'm a literal fan.
I knew the story about the beach. I was like,
I don't know, I think it's a Beach, But I
knew because I as soon as that book came out,
I crushed. And it's really one of my favorite like
music bio books ever, and I think it represents again
we're just talking about back in your childhood, like Gainesville, Florida,
(09:20):
what was your environment. What were you surrounded by musically
in Gainesville that even created an interest to want to
hear music that wasn't the typical white music that you
got there, Like where was that coming from? Like that
desire to learn and be around different kinds of music.
There was nothing else to do. There was no internet.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Television had three channels, you know, it's ABC, NBCCBS, and
then they went off the air shortly after Sunset played
The Starspangle by International Anthem.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I was telling one of our people here like I
caught the tail end of that in my life, and
they were like, what the channel would go off? I
was like, yeah, and then I'm gonna show the screen
of his hold. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And there was no really individual entertainment you could do,
so I wound up getting a guitar and just trying
to figure out how it.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Worked and how'd you get the guitar?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
What did they There was a kid that lived across
the street from me, and up in the top of
one of his closets, I saw an acoustic guitar and
it had some broken strings on it. And my brother
and I had just come back down from South Carolina
and my favorite uncle had given us a box of
cherry bombs, and we hit him in the trunk from
my dad. My dad wouldn't let us play with those things.
(10:28):
So when it would rain. We lived on a dirt
road that was crowned and there was a ditch on
both sides of the road for all the Florida run off,
and to get from the road to your house, there
was a big metal culvert that the water would run
through underneath the driveway. So when it was raining and
we would run out with these cherry bombs, light them
and throw them upstream and tie them so they would
(10:49):
float down into that culvert and then boom, blow up,
and everybody would come running out to see what was
going on, and we would be back in the house hiding.
So this kid comes out doing and he says, oh,
it's some of those cherry bombs. And I said, well,
I'll give you a handful of these cherry bombs if
you can get me that guitar that you have. We'll
make a trade. So he runs back to his house,
(11:10):
gets his guitar, brings it over. I give him the
cherry bombs. Fifteen minutes later, cherry bombs are gone. But
I got a guitar. We didn't have any money. That
was the only way we could get started.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Did you have an intro or was it like a
natural knack with learning music or hearing music and being
able to find the notes, and also you have to
learn how to tune a guitar, which is difficult, Like,
how did that education happen with you?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, once I had a guitar, I didn't even know
how to begin, where to begin. So there was a
guy that lived about two or three blocks around the
corner from me that I'd ride by his house on
my bike and I'd see him sitting on his porch
playing guitar. So I went over to his house one
day with that guitar and it was missing two or
three strings, and he said, well, you got to get
(11:58):
some strings for this. I said, well, where do I
get strings? He says, you got to go up to
the drug store. There was no music store, so the
drug store had these black diamond guitar strings, and you
could buy one two or I had to buy three.
So I had to get enough money mow and lawns
and washing my brother's car and stuff to be able
(12:18):
to go out and buy some strings. I took the
strings and the guitar over to this guy's house. He
showed me how to string the guitar and showed me
how to tune it, and then he taught me this
song called Red River Valley, which is like a real
old fashioned country song. And I was off and running.
I had three chords, C, F, and G, and that's
all I needed learning F. That's a hard part. Well,
(12:39):
I was CDG. Yeah, there was no F until later.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
No. I cheated with the four string AF, not the
full bar or anything.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Do you start playing in Gainesville for your friends? When
was the first time you played and got paid?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I think shortly after I got I got a year
or two. I must have been about fourteen or something,
and I think a year or two into those early acoustics,
my dad found a family who had bought a guitar,
a Fender guitar, and a little tweed amp for the girl.
(13:29):
And she complained because she had to cut her nails
and it hurt her fingers because it just lived underneath
their bed. And so he bought it from this family
and brought it home to one day for me, and
I was like.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
My god, this is amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And I was imitating everybody, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Presley, anybody
I could get my hands on to learn their records
and play a lecture guitar. And then I met this
guy named Stephen Stills who was left somewhere in Florida
there was a military academy, like a military school high school,
who had run away from high school.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
And this is way before he was Steven Stills. Like,
you just met that's just as a civilian, regular guy
you meet Steven Stills. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
He and I and Tom Petty and Bernie Ledden all
went to the same high school. So when we were
before we got to high school, he was in Gainesville
and he played in this band with me called the Continentals,
which a continental That thing was like really cool, you know.
So anyway, so we started playing but teen time dances
(14:32):
we wouldn't have really didn't get paid. It was just
for the fun of being on the stage in a
PA and playing and having a good time. But I
think the first time we got played Steven paid, Stephen
and I got in a car and my mom drove
us to this little women's organization tea party where they
have those little finger sandwiches and drink tea and stuff,
and Steven and I would just play acoustic guitar for
(14:53):
these women. I think we got ten dollars or something.
We made five bucks apiece, you know, And from there
it really wasn't ever about the money, to tell you
the truth. It was just the love of playing and
figuring out music and how does this work? And how
do you write songs? And how do you know? I
would get mill Bay guitar books and learn chords from
(15:13):
el Bay and just kind of self educated all the
way along.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
At what point, because you're talking about three absolute hall
of famers, not even just like traditional sense rock and
roll hall of fame, but like the greatest ever do
anything musically with Steven Stills and Tom Petty and yourself.
Do you guys all know you want to do it solo?
Why'd you break up the band like that feels like
a pretty solid band on.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Well, Stephen left as soon as he graduated from high school.
He was one year ahead of me. He left and
moved to California, and I didn't see him until quite
a few years later. I think he graduated in sixty four.
Was it to do music though?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
When he left? Was he like, I'm going to go
do music or was he just moving to California to
see what happened with life?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
He knew that was his destiny. He got out to California.
It wasn't how happening in the Southeast, it wasn't happening
in New York. It was happening in California. So he
was magnificently drawn out to California. And the next time
I heard him was I was laying in bed one
night and the radio was on and I heard for
(16:16):
what It's Worth and I went, God, that voice sounds
really for me. I know who is that? And they
said it was Buffalo's Springfield, And I went and figured
out who Buffalo Springfield was. Was released Stephen. And then
the next time I actually saw him physically, he was
on stage at Woodstock and I was in the crowd,
and I went, that's Stephen still side Woodstock.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So you were there watching, yeah, and you see your
friend on stage nineteen sixty nine Woodstock. That's right, that's crazy.
Was Woodstock for you as a fan? Was it as
like wild and muddy and everything that we see or
did you get the good version of it?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I had enough fourth site to actually have gone to
Woodstock with a guy who owned what it's called now
travel All. It's like the predecessor to a suburban. It
had box doors on the back that open, so we
put a mattress in the back because it's out just
in the middle of nowhere, right, and we brought an
ice chest with drinks and food. And we were got
(17:15):
there a day early, and we backed in so we
could open those doors towards the stage even if it
was pouring rain. We had shelter. We would try a
comfy place to sleeve food with it. And then it
was just great because I saw some of the most important,
I think influential musicians in the history of rock. I
saw Jimmy Hendricks, I saw Carlos Santana, saw Crosby Stills,
(17:39):
Nash and Young Grateful Dad just on an on Jana's
job for three solid days. It was probably the best
music event that ever exploded on the planet. It just
resonated all over the world. And as a matter of fact,
I wrote a song about it on my last record,
about how that event went on to influence decades after
(18:01):
decades after decades of young people that love rock and
roll and wanted to learn to play like that little
ten year old in Texas and became famous decade after
decade after decade.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Is called American rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
That's the title of my last album, And that song
is about being at Woodstock and seeing the beginning of it.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
When you were at Woodstock and you're watching these great
artists and you're inspired, but you were in the midst
of the early part of your music career at the
same time. Did you have a healthy professional jealousy or
would you have been like me about like I should.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Be up there, this sucks? I would say both. It
was dependent on how much I was smoking at the time.
If I was smoking, it was pretty mellow about it.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
See, I think I would have been completely jealous the
whole time. But that's really cool that like you turned
out to be really one of America's great musicians, but
you were also there as a fan, probably at what
was our greatest music event. Yeah, because you have that
perspective of being a fan and watching it as well.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Man, I just think about how uddy it was. And
he was in a freaking suburban. He was covered like
he was a d Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Don.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
So, you know, I always hear about the California sound.
Back then, you talked about that a little bit, and
everyone was going to California to make music. But in
the sixties, you know, you think about California's Beach Boys.
The Beach Boys had the California sound. In the seventies,
you guys had the California sound. Did you ever think
about that?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Well, Yeah, because there was nobody except for Bernie Leaden
that was in the Eagles that was from California. Don
Hinley was from Texas. I was from Florida. Joe Walsh
later joined. I think he was from Detroit or so
Glenn was from Detroit. There was nobody in the band
that had the California sound, but we somehow managed to
be given the title of the new California Sound in
(19:49):
the seventies.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, and you embraced it. You felt like even though
you know, not really a band full of Californians, Like,
would you guys the word California sound?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Well, we were making music in California, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So I do have to say that when the band first,
even before I joined at Bernie Leden was a brilliantly
gifted country musician. He played unbelievable flat top guitar, the best,
one of the best five string banjo players I've ever
seen in my life. He played pedal steel, he played mandolin.
He was just he loved country music. You listen to
(20:26):
those first couple of early records, that's a really heavy
influence coming from Bernie and all of those tracks. Right,
So there was the birth of what I thought was
early country rock music in those tracks. Later, when I
joined the band, everybody wanted to move except for Bernie.
Wanted to move from country rock to more midstream AM
(20:50):
rock and roll radio. And so that's why I was
brought in to kind of put a harder edge on
everything that led it out of country.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
How was it joined a group that was already a group?
What's that dynamic like?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well, it was interesting because Bernie and I had been
friends since high school. We had Bernie replaced Steven Stills
in the Money Quintet when Steve took off, and so
I'd known him for a long time and he had
given me insights into the dynamics in that band in
quite extensive ways about it always felt like a band
(21:24):
that was about to break up. So I had no
idea how long if I joined this band two weeks
from now, somebody's going to quit and take off, And
Bernie eventually did quit during the one of these Nights records.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So do you feel like that helped the creative process
or at least made it a like a quirky creative
process that there was always some sort of tension, Like
was that were you challenging each other creatively because there
was tension or was it just like that's kind of
it's just tough.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I think both. I think there were egos involved. I
think there were song choices involved. I think there was
a battle for who was going to be the front man,
which was really a Glenn Fry originally started being the
front man from the get go. All the songs on
the first record were Glenn Fry songs, big hits, and
(22:17):
then Don Hinley just kind of roared out of the
background off the drums into singing spectacular song like which
he Woman and best of My Love and just great,
great songs. His voice was spectacular. So there was always
that struggle between those two guys, even though they were
writing and collaborating together. I was there not to create friction,
(22:41):
but to help divert whatever their goal was musically directly
because Don Hilly doesn't write music, and Glenn he used
to call himself the claw when he played piano and
was like he could get through it, but he really
wasn't a pianist. And so between Bernie's influence in earlier
on and then when he finally left, and he left
(23:02):
for what I thought was a really good reason, to
tell you the truth, he really wanted to retain the
roots of country in some part of these records, and
they were just where over country, we're going to move
into rock and pop and all this other stuff. And
when Bernie left, they chose to get Joe in which
I love Joe to death. I think he and I
(23:23):
had some of the best times together any time on
the road, And not only that, but the fun we
had already been playing together and TV shows and shows
that we opened for Elton John at Dodger Stadium as
Joe Walsh and Friends, and so he and I had
already been doing that stuff. So when that idea for
(23:44):
Hotel California came up in that little beach house, I said,
I had to make an ending on this that Joe
and I could play on so that we could have
So I played a solo kind of like what I
was going to play, and then i'd play something I
thought Joe would try to sound like Joe, and I
was like simulating that thing at the very end of
(24:05):
the record. It was just always so much fun to
work and play with him, and we inspired each other.
It was like, Okay, you think you can do this,
try this, you know, and okay, Trump, let's put a
squeak on this one, and you know, just try to
That was a very loving, fun creative process. A lot
of times it was over lyrics, and Don Helly is
(24:25):
a brilliant lyricist in my opinion. He just you take
a song like Hotel, and each little line is like
a postcard. It's like a picture of the song on
a dark desert highway. You see it cool in my hair,
you can feel it in your hair, a warm smell.
You can smell khalid As. He just has a way
(24:45):
to draw these little pictures that lead you to a
great chorus, brilliant. He's an English literature major and it
shows and his writing, so I have the utmost respect
for Don and his skills. That way, his voice. I
used to say he could sing the New York Times
telephone book and I love it.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I'll buy it platinum.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
You know, the Bobby Cast will be right back. This
is the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
When did you start to get like free guitars? When
are they like recognized just being awesome and they're like,
we're sending them free stuff? Was it before the Eagles?
Was it with the Eagles? Because now if you're an
artist and you're halfway decent, I mean I get free
guitar sent to me and I'm just we're in a
comedy duo. When did that happen where you started to
get like free guitars all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Well, I really don't accept a lot of stuff that
people give me because they want the brand, my name
sure on their product, so unless I really use the product,
like Gibson guitars. I was just over at the shop
yesterday and hanging out with Cesar and talking about a few.
We're doing a tour next twenty twenty five, and I
(26:00):
like to have new looking guitars that just have these
monster flames so the guitar players can go, wow, look
at that flame on that guitar. It's like flame envy,
you know. It's like you want these guys to just
drool over their guitar. So I'm going to get a
couple of new things from them. But I never really
(26:22):
accept stuff that I don't actually use.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Did they do like endorsement deals back in like the
sixties and seventies for instruments? Would they pay you to
even though you loved it? I just don't know when
that happened, when that culture started. I know the eighties
that started happening a little bit, But like, did you
just find your guitar pay for and you just travel
with it the whole time? That's just it.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
That was a guy down in Texas named Tony Dukes.
This is early seventies, seventy three seventy four, and whatever
town we were playing in, whether it was Dallas or
Houston or Austin, he would show up with a suburban
full of classic guitars old fifty nine less Paul's fifty
two telecasters, fifty seven sts, Gretch's Elvis Presley acoustic guitars,
(27:03):
and just and I'd buy everything he got. And so
he came in one day and he had this fifty
nine less poe, which is my number one less poe now,
and he wanted twelve hundred dollars for it, and I went, geez,
twelve hundred bucks, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So I bought it anyway, and I took it back
to the soundcheck. I was going to play it that
night in the show. Figure back the soundcheck and Glint
I opened the cage and Glin went, wow, that's really great.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Where'd you get that? Said from Tony Dukes? He said,
what'd you pay for it? I went twelve hundred dollars?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
He went cheap, Like, you're an idiot to pay that
much for it. Now, it's probably worth well over a
couple of million dollars just because it's been so documented,
and I think Gibson put out a Don Felder Hotel
caliversion copy of it. They did three hundred and put
it out and sold them. They sold like three days.
They were all gone.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Did you still have the original I do.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, what's is that your number? What's your number? One?
Play guitar? That's like, this is the one? Is it
that one? But I wouldn't travel with that one. I'm
much cost that's too valuable. Like do you have an
A plus guitar? That's like, if I'm playing shows, this
is my comfortable guitar. I like it. This is it
gives you the tone you want.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's funny because I was in my studio just cleaning
up the other day and I keep finding these Less
Paul cases and I opened up there's a ninety four
flame top and oh, I didn't know I had that one.
And the next thing I know, I have seven Sunbursts
Less pauls, all in the nineties and early two thousands,
and you can literally pick them up and they're almost identical.
(28:36):
That's a good thing about Gibson is they're very just
consistent from guitar to guitar guitar and the tones up
are fantastic. So I when we do shows, I have
five different sets of gear that leap frog and get
shipped out to different cities that were going to when
we tour, we carry it all on a semi but
(28:56):
when we do one off stuff like we do a
fair and festival here in a private here at all
up in mon talk and we're down in Atlanta two
days later.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You have to use you know, your guitars.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And stuff and pedals, but to use a lot of
backline stuff for drums and keyboards and bass amps and stuff.
So I have gone through and picked out what I
think are the five my favorite five mess falls and
put them in each one of those rigs.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Were all the tones, because I'm obsessed with guitar tone
and trying to find the exact guitar tone. And sometimes
it's a tone you can never actually find it is
it's the perfect tone doesn't exist for certain things, but
you get as close as you can to it. And
so I'm obsessed with with the tone. And I was
looking at just some of the songs that you had
written and just some of the really famous guitar parts
(29:43):
and licks, and I'll ask about the song and I
wonder was it the original tone that you or did
it change as you were recording for example, one of
these nights, right, So is that the original tone that
you had in mind for that song?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
And did you mostly stay with the same tone that
you would bring it because that was your thing and
you got it.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
The thing about one of these nights that's funny is
because I was a really huge fan of Dave Samborn,
you know, alto sax player, just a fabulous jazz player.
And he and I used to go fishing together when
he lived out in Bliboo. Had take him out. We'd
go fishing and hang out. And so when it came
time to write a solo for that, I thought of
(30:26):
Dave Samborg, What would Dave Samborg play? What burg? It's
a sax solo, It's really what it is. And I
played One of my first bands in New York City
was a jazz rock fusion band and we had a
guy that played soprano sax and his phrasing.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
When you're playing a horn, you have to.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
You have to take a break and put a pause
in your phrasing, where like guys that shred, they just
you know, they just shred.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Don't need to breathe through your hands, that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So I learned to be musically trained from hearing horn
players play. I loved Miles Davis. I drove from Gainesville,
Florida to New York City so I could see Miles
Davis play live with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter,
and Tony Williams. And it was an amazing life changing experience,
(31:19):
just like seeing you know, Woodstock and seeing those guys there,
it was like another level of respect. He came out,
his band's going to.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Doom Doom, Doom doom.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
He's got his back to the audience right and he
stands there and the crowd's just waiting for the first
notes to come out of his horn and he.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Goes ba ba by three notes.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Kenny g could go play a thousand notes and not
have that response, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Take to the limit. So was there ever an acoustic
that turned electric or an electric that turned acoustic from
when you wrote it? Or did it always stay with
how demoitis would be an example of what happens now, right,
Like goy to write a song, they write an acoustic,
it's like, man, we don't want to change it because
we're so in love with the demo. Did that ever happen?
(32:20):
Because that song feels like to me, it could be
done multiple, It could be electric, it could be acoustic.
Talk to me about that song a little bit. Well,
I didn't write Take It to the Limit, none of
the guitar part. Oh the guitar, Yeah, I'm talking about
the guitar parts. I'm only talking about tone. Like I said,
I'm obsessed with tone, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
No, Randy wrote that, and he came in with him
acoustic guitar on it, and I think Glenn wound up
playing piano on it, if I'm not mistaken. And I
picked up a strat, thinking, you know, you can use
the straight out without it being a biting, sustaining thing
and kind of a clear sound to it, and made
up those little guitar approach that are the intro and
(33:01):
the solo and stuff to send that. But Randy really
that was his baby and to hear him sing. Every
night we did a tour and Roy Orbison open for us.
Oh that's cool, and you could be backstage and he
would sing crying and hit that high note at the
end of crying. You go, okay, We're on in seven
minutes like clockwork. Every night the crowd would like just
(33:26):
roar when he hit that high note. So when Randy
came out with take It to the Limit. Sorry, but
we did kind of steal that lick from Roy, and
it worked every night. Every night that his voice was
in good shape, he could sing that high note and
the whole place would just explode.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
What Roy Orbison? Like?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I'm sorry? What was he like?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Roy Orbison? My grandmother was such a huge fan of Roy,
so we listened to him a lot growing up and
also like the Glasses too, But like, how long was
he with you guys opening up? Did you have any
sort of relationship with him?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
I mean he was their only show. Every night you
hung out and talk stuff. As a matter of fact,
his son lives right down the street from my daughter
now that they grew up together, you know, and our
friends did this day and Roy was a really sweet.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Kind of kind person.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
No eagle ego, no attitude, no rock star stuff, just
a really good soul and he made it comfortable and
easy to have relationship with.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
So American rock and roll. It was first new record
in seven years, but it's also now been five years,
so what's so away? I mean, it's about it's a
cycle now, Like is another? What are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Anything?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Were?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I've got ten tracks finished and mastered.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I'm probably gonna record.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
At least two more, if not four more between now
and next spring release that'll be released just before that
twenty twenty five tour that's gonna take place.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
So is that the Rock Legends the Excel twenty five tour?
Is that that should? I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I'm doing that.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yeah, yeah, but that's the same. Tours are a different
thing that that Rock.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Legends tours is just a one week cruise. It's me
and Alice Cooper. I think, Oh that's cool.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
God, gota gotta Yeah, so you're going and doing a
whole tour twenty twenty five. Yeah, what do you start with?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Like, what do you like?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
What's the first song that you do it? That's so
important because everybody's ready to hear those first.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Notes already gone.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
And then what do you end with? Hotel? For sure
that will be awesome. Yeah, listen, don we're massive fans.
Like I said when I heard you can buy and
I devoured your book. It was so wonderfully written and
to get perspective of someone who had a career pre
during and post from what a lot of people know
(35:45):
you from as the Eagles, but you have all these
different lives and all these different versions and you know
musically you're you're such a giant. Like for me, it's
been super cool to spend a few minutes with you,
so we really appreciate it. Oh so glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Thanks for having me, Eddie.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Any final question for don no, don just thank you
and you're awesome. You're awesome. That's our favorite question.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
That's all we want to say.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
You're awesome. There's no question mark on that one. But
we are big fans. And thanks And when are you?
When are you announcing the tour?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Like what a lot of people come up to me
and say I grew up with your music and I
said I did too.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah right, No, No, no promotion to the tour yet,
you don't. You're not saying anything yet the tour five tour, Okay,
it won't be long.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
It'd probably be another two weeks maybe a month before
we actually release dates and.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Have someone send it to me and then we'll we'll
put we'll talk about it, we'll promote it for you
for coming in. That'd be great. Thank you very much.
That was awesome. Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast
production
Actually I saw a trombone player doing the solo for
Hotel California, and trombon is like, this guy is a
great player, but I can't imagine a sewer pipe players
who he's.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Playing no Hotel. So I watched it.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Welcome to episode four seventy with Don Felder, formerly of
the Eagles. He spent twenty seven years with the Eagles.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
He's the.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Hotel California. Boom M. I got a text from him
after this. Really yeah. So Don Felder, by the way,
is like as royalty in the history of rock and
roll music. Goes like he's one of those guys. So
I got a message. They were like, hey, Don Felder
would like to have your cell phone number. And I
weigh that out and I go, well, I don't really
(00:55):
give anybody a number, but two, I go, but Don
Felder's never asked. So I was weighing it and I
was like, it's Don Felder. It's not like he's gonna
be hitting me up all the time. He's way cooler
than I am. So he's and I think he was
super cool. So I was like, go ahead and give
him a number, and so he texted me and I
don't think I am uh, you know, by jumping any boundary.
(01:16):
You want to hear what he said. I do want
to hear. Hey, Bobby, don Felder here. Been a little
slow to text, but came home on Sunday. Leave again
very soon. I've done thousands of interviews and I've been
asked some of the same questions thousands of times, but
your questions were so different and unique. I really enjoyed
our chat. Thank you so much for having me on
your podcast. Hope to stop it again next year when
we're on tour. If you ever want to come to
(01:36):
a show, please let me know. We'd love to have
you out and your crew as guests. Next time. I'll
bring a guitar so we could do a little picking
and grinning.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
That's awesome that someone's like, I've an interviewed a bunch
and you're weird. That's how I, in an unhealthy way,
took it at first, But no, it's a compliment. I
loved it. It was super cool to have Don Felder in.
Check his Instagram out Don Felder music again. He spent
twenty seven years with the Eagles. He is on tour
until December. He released a record wrote to forever in
(02:07):
twenty twenty. I don't know. I mean, he's just out.
He's still killing it. He's like funny and with it.
And I don't even know. I guess I didn't know
how old I thought he would be.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Is he seventy?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I think so still looks like a rock star. Yeah,
Like he looks cool, Like he's not trying extra hard
to look cool because that's how it used to look.
He just looks like a cool version of what you
think he would look like now, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Don Felder here, he is formerly of the Eagles. This
was a really cool interview. Dona have about five thousand questions.
(02:40):
So I'm glad that you came in. Been a fan
for a long time, like just of your individual story
and then obviously you're the group story of you with
the Eagles and then post as well. It's like three
different versions. Do you feel like you've lived three different careers?
Because I feel like Eddie and I were talking about
it earlier, we feel like it's like three different version
of an artist. You feel that way about yourself?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I do.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's actually, you know, growing up in Gainesville and being
in an environment that musically doesn't exist. I mean, they
had a white radio station that would only play white
artists on the radio station growing up, But at night
I could dial in WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee, and I
could hear Little Richard screaming tooty fruity, and I could
(03:25):
hear BB King, and I could hear Albert King. So
I'd just beglued that radio. And they had a thing
called Randy's Record mart I don't know ifnybody even remembers that.
If you heard someone on that radio station that you liked,
you could put a dollar or two dollars. I think
it was in an envelope with your return address, and
you could mail it to Reddy's Record mark. Then every
(03:45):
day you'd start checking the mailbox. This is like the
way used to download back in those days. That's funny,
like super'slow Wi Fi. And finally the record would come
with forty five by BB King, and I'd put it
on a turntable and record it on a reel to
reel tape recorder. It's seven and a half inches per second,
(04:06):
and then once it was recorded, I'd slow it down
to three and three quarters so I could hear the motions.
I can hear the notes and the style of the playing. Yeah,
but it's an ocative down, but you can hear the
notes as he's going through it. You figure that out
and then you can put it back up to speed
and try to get your chops.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Up to play it at the same speed he did.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So you know, I got a call the other day,
all about a year ago from the CEO of Gibson
Company and he was at a NAM show down in
Dallas and he says, don you got to hear this
guy play Hotel California solo. I was like, oh, really,
I got to hear it again. I said, okay, put
(04:44):
him on. So this person starts playing and it's just amazing.
He's got a note for note, vibratos in the right place,
the tempos, the harmonies, the whole ending solo is amazing.
I said, who is that and he said it's a.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Ten year old boy.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I went, no, oh kidding, So I said, put him
on the phone. I had him tell me how he
learned that. How did you learn that? I didn't even
have a guitar until I was ten, and this guy's
ripping through hotel he said. I got an iPad and
I went on and watched you playing live, and I
watched your fingers until I could speed it up to
where I could play with He did your version of that.
(05:20):
Just with today's technology, that's right, exactly right. But back
then that was the only way to learn. We didn't
even have a music story Gainsville when we grew up,
so the only way you could learn is by your ear.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
So Christapleton's a decent friend of mine, and his song
gets covered all the time. A lot of a songs do,
but like Tennessee Whiskey, which is not his song but
one that he covered and repopular and gets covered all
the time. Are people constantly wanting you to hear covers
of your songs? Like don listen to this? Does that
happen a lot where I's like, listen to this player?
Or not so much anymore, it happens a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Just if I'm going through Instagram or Facebook or something,
there's all your TikTok. There's people that want to show
me that they can play my solo, which is really flattering.
You know, it's not an easy solo by any stretch
of the imagination, but it is flattering for that many
people to try to attempt there's Actually I saw a
trombone player doing the solo for Hotel California on trombone.
(06:14):
I was like, this guy is a great player, but
I can't imagine a sewer pipe player.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Who was playing.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
An hotel.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So I watched it.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Did you write about like when you wrote that We're
on the beach?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Like?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Where did that come to you?
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Like that?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Because it wasn't written as part of the whole song, right,
didn't you write the intro to that song just kind
of by itself.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
What happened was I had rented a house on a
beach in Malibu. I had two little kids, one was
about a year old and one was like two and
a half.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And I was sitting on the couch.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
It was just a beautiful sunny California day and the
sun was glistening on the surf as it's coming in,
and my kids were in the sand on the swing set,
and so I have this guitar, acoustic guitar, and I'm
just sitting there and I start playing this chord for
great and about three or four times through the progression,
I said I have to go in the back bedroom
and record a little bit of it because if I
(07:06):
don't record it tomorrow, I'll go what was that thing
that was? So I run in a back bedroom record
about I don't know, two or three times through the
verse progression and just put it away. It was actually
my one year old daughter's bedroom was my recording studio,
fact that when she was away playing I could go
in and Mike write demos and stuff anyway, So I
(07:30):
recorded that, and then we started writing song ideas for
the album that was untitled at the time that was
going to be Hotel California. So I wound up writing
sixteen or seventeen complete basic tracks where I would go
in and take an idea like that little progression, and
I'd fill it out and write a chorus part to it,
and I'd play bass on it. And I had a
(07:51):
little rhythm rhythm drum machine called a rhythm ace that
you used to see on piano players and bars that
they could set it to a chachaar send it to
a beat. So I used that, and then I just
overdubbed a bunch of stuff on this little four track
tape recorder three to one, then fill up two more
tracks and bout those three to one, and so it
was mono at the time. As a matter of fact,
(08:13):
I just I should have brought my laptop because I
have a digital copy of it. I could play a
little bit of it, and it sounds I played the
beginning with a twelve string and then these electrics coming
on the solo at the very end is pretty much
like it is on the record, with the except exception
of some walshisms. When Joe and I played together, we
came up with just great, unique stuff. So I put
(08:36):
that idea on a cassette with like fifteen or sixteen
other song ideas. One became Victim of Love, and Henley
liked that one that sounded like a Mexican reggae and
so he was off and running writing lyrics to that
song and came up with the lyric idea and lyrics
for a Hotel California, which was on top of that
music bed. So that's kind of how that all came together.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And I didn't want to get you out right your book.
As soon as it came out, Like the week it
came out, I devoured it like I'm a literal fan.
I knew the story about the beach. I was like,
I don't know, I think it's a Beach, But I
knew because I as soon as that book came out,
I crushed. And it's really one of my favorite like
music bio books ever, and I think it represents again
we're just talking about back in your childhood, like Gainesville, Florida,
(09:20):
what was your environment. What were you surrounded by musically
in Gainesville that even created an interest to want to
hear music that wasn't the typical white music that you
got there, Like where was that coming from? Like that
desire to learn and be around different kinds of music.
There was nothing else to do. There was no internet.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Television had three channels, you know, it's ABC, NBCCBS, and
then they went off the air shortly after Sunset played
The Starspangle by International Anthem.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I was telling one of our people here like I
caught the tail end of that in my life, and
they were like, what the channel would go off? I
was like, yeah, and then I'm gonna show the screen
of his hold. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And there was no really individual entertainment you could do,
so I wound up getting a guitar and just trying
to figure out how it.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Worked and how'd you get the guitar?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
What did they There was a kid that lived across
the street from me, and up in the top of
one of his closets, I saw an acoustic guitar and
it had some broken strings on it. And my brother
and I had just come back down from South Carolina
and my favorite uncle had given us a box of
cherry bombs, and we hit him in the trunk from
my dad. My dad wouldn't let us play with those things.
(10:28):
So when it would rain. We lived on a dirt
road that was crowned and there was a ditch on
both sides of the road for all the Florida run off,
and to get from the road to your house, there
was a big metal culvert that the water would run
through underneath the driveway. So when it was raining and
we would run out with these cherry bombs, light them
and throw them upstream and tie them so they would
(10:49):
float down into that culvert and then boom, blow up,
and everybody would come running out to see what was
going on, and we would be back in the house hiding.
So this kid comes out doing and he says, oh,
it's some of those cherry bombs. And I said, well,
I'll give you a handful of these cherry bombs if
you can get me that guitar that you have. We'll
make a trade. So he runs back to his house,
(11:10):
gets his guitar, brings it over. I give him the
cherry bombs. Fifteen minutes later, cherry bombs are gone. But
I got a guitar. We didn't have any money. That
was the only way we could get started.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Did you have an intro or was it like a
natural knack with learning music or hearing music and being
able to find the notes, and also you have to
learn how to tune a guitar, which is difficult, Like,
how did that education happen with you?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, once I had a guitar, I didn't even know
how to begin, where to begin. So there was a
guy that lived about two or three blocks around the
corner from me that I'd ride by his house on
my bike and I'd see him sitting on his porch
playing guitar. So I went over to his house one
day with that guitar and it was missing two or
three strings, and he said, well, you got to get
(11:58):
some strings for this. I said, well, where do I
get strings? He says, you got to go up to
the drug store. There was no music store, so the
drug store had these black diamond guitar strings, and you
could buy one two or I had to buy three.
So I had to get enough money mow and lawns
and washing my brother's car and stuff to be able
(12:18):
to go out and buy some strings. I took the
strings and the guitar over to this guy's house. He
showed me how to string the guitar and showed me
how to tune it, and then he taught me this
song called Red River Valley, which is like a real
old fashioned country song. And I was off and running.
I had three chords, C, F, and G, and that's
all I needed learning F. That's a hard part. Well,
(12:39):
I was CDG. Yeah, there was no F until later.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
No. I cheated with the four string AF, not the
full bar or anything.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Do you start playing in Gainesville for your friends? When
was the first time you played and got paid?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I think shortly after I got I got a year
or two. I must have been about fourteen or something,
and I think a year or two into those early acoustics,
my dad found a family who had bought a guitar,
a Fender guitar, and a little tweed amp for the girl.
(13:29):
And she complained because she had to cut her nails
and it hurt her fingers because it just lived underneath
their bed. And so he bought it from this family
and brought it home to one day for me, and
I was like.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
My god, this is amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
And I was imitating everybody, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Presley, anybody
I could get my hands on to learn their records
and play a lecture guitar. And then I met this
guy named Stephen Stills who was left somewhere in Florida
there was a military academy, like a military school high school,
who had run away from high school.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
And this is way before he was Steven Stills. Like,
you just met that's just as a civilian, regular guy
you meet Steven Stills. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
He and I and Tom Petty and Bernie Ledden all
went to the same high school. So when we were
before we got to high school, he was in Gainesville
and he played in this band with me called the Continentals,
which a continental That thing was like really cool, you know.
So anyway, so we started playing but teen time dances
(14:32):
we wouldn't have really didn't get paid. It was just
for the fun of being on the stage in a
PA and playing and having a good time. But I
think the first time we got played Steven paid, Stephen
and I got in a car and my mom drove
us to this little women's organization tea party where they
have those little finger sandwiches and drink tea and stuff,
and Steven and I would just play acoustic guitar for
(14:53):
these women. I think we got ten dollars or something.
We made five bucks apiece, you know, And from there
it really wasn't ever about the money, to tell you
the truth. It was just the love of playing and
figuring out music and how does this work? And how
do you write songs? And how do you know? I
would get mill Bay guitar books and learn chords from
(15:13):
el Bay and just kind of self educated all the
way along.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
At what point, because you're talking about three absolute hall
of famers, not even just like traditional sense rock and
roll hall of fame, but like the greatest ever do
anything musically with Steven Stills and Tom Petty and yourself.
Do you guys all know you want to do it solo?
Why'd you break up the band like that feels like
a pretty solid band on.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Well, Stephen left as soon as he graduated from high school.
He was one year ahead of me. He left and
moved to California, and I didn't see him until quite
a few years later. I think he graduated in sixty four.
Was it to do music though?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
When he left? Was he like, I'm going to go
do music or was he just moving to California to
see what happened with life?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
He knew that was his destiny. He got out to California.
It wasn't how happening in the Southeast, it wasn't happening
in New York. It was happening in California. So he
was magnificently drawn out to California. And the next time
I heard him was I was laying in bed one
night and the radio was on and I heard for
(16:16):
what It's Worth and I went, God, that voice sounds
really for me. I know who is that? And they
said it was Buffalo's Springfield, And I went and figured
out who Buffalo Springfield was. Was released Stephen. And then
the next time I actually saw him physically, he was
on stage at Woodstock and I was in the crowd,
and I went, that's Stephen still side Woodstock.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So you were there watching, yeah, and you see your
friend on stage nineteen sixty nine Woodstock. That's right, that's crazy.
Was Woodstock for you as a fan? Was it as
like wild and muddy and everything that we see or
did you get the good version of it?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I had enough fourth site to actually have gone to
Woodstock with a guy who owned what it's called now
travel All. It's like the predecessor to a suburban. It
had box doors on the back that open, so we
put a mattress in the back because it's out just
in the middle of nowhere, right, and we brought an
ice chest with drinks and food. And we were got
(17:15):
there a day early, and we backed in so we
could open those doors towards the stage even if it
was pouring rain. We had shelter. We would try a
comfy place to sleeve food with it. And then it
was just great because I saw some of the most important,
I think influential musicians in the history of rock. I
saw Jimmy Hendricks, I saw Carlos Santana, saw Crosby Stills,
(17:39):
Nash and Young Grateful Dad just on an on Jana's
job for three solid days. It was probably the best
music event that ever exploded on the planet. It just
resonated all over the world. And as a matter of fact,
I wrote a song about it on my last record,
about how that event went on to influence decades after
(18:01):
decades after decades of young people that love rock and
roll and wanted to learn to play like that little
ten year old in Texas and became famous decade after
decade after decade.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Is called American rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
That's the title of my last album, And that song
is about being at Woodstock and seeing the beginning of it.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
When you were at Woodstock and you're watching these great
artists and you're inspired, but you were in the midst
of the early part of your music career at the
same time. Did you have a healthy professional jealousy or
would you have been like me about like I should.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Be up there, this sucks? I would say both. It
was dependent on how much I was smoking at the time.
If I was smoking, it was pretty mellow about it.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
See, I think I would have been completely jealous the
whole time. But that's really cool that like you turned
out to be really one of America's great musicians, but
you were also there as a fan, probably at what
was our greatest music event. Yeah, because you have that
perspective of being a fan and watching it as well.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Man, I just think about how uddy it was. And
he was in a freaking suburban. He was covered like
he was a d Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Don.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
So, you know, I always hear about the California sound.
Back then, you talked about that a little bit, and
everyone was going to California to make music. But in
the sixties, you know, you think about California's Beach Boys.
The Beach Boys had the California sound. In the seventies,
you guys had the California sound. Did you ever think
about that?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Well, Yeah, because there was nobody except for Bernie Leaden
that was in the Eagles that was from California. Don
Hinley was from Texas. I was from Florida. Joe Walsh
later joined. I think he was from Detroit or so
Glenn was from Detroit. There was nobody in the band
that had the California sound, but we somehow managed to
be given the title of the new California Sound in
(19:49):
the seventies.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, and you embraced it. You felt like even though
you know, not really a band full of Californians, Like,
would you guys the word California sound?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Well, we were making music in California, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So I do have to say that when the band first,
even before I joined at Bernie Leden was a brilliantly
gifted country musician. He played unbelievable flat top guitar, the best,
one of the best five string banjo players I've ever
seen in my life. He played pedal steel, he played mandolin.
He was just he loved country music. You listen to
(20:26):
those first couple of early records, that's a really heavy
influence coming from Bernie and all of those tracks. Right,
So there was the birth of what I thought was
early country rock music in those tracks. Later, when I
joined the band, everybody wanted to move except for Bernie.
Wanted to move from country rock to more midstream AM
(20:50):
rock and roll radio. And so that's why I was
brought in to kind of put a harder edge on
everything that led it out of country.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
How was it joined a group that was already a group?
What's that dynamic like?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Well, it was interesting because Bernie and I had been
friends since high school. We had Bernie replaced Steven Stills
in the Money Quintet when Steve took off, and so
I'd known him for a long time and he had
given me insights into the dynamics in that band in
quite extensive ways about it always felt like a band
(21:24):
that was about to break up. So I had no
idea how long if I joined this band two weeks
from now, somebody's going to quit and take off, And
Bernie eventually did quit during the one of these Nights records.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
So do you feel like that helped the creative process
or at least made it a like a quirky creative
process that there was always some sort of tension, Like
was that were you challenging each other creatively because there
was tension or was it just like that's kind of
it's just tough.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I think both. I think there were egos involved. I
think there were song choices involved. I think there was
a battle for who was going to be the front man,
which was really a Glenn Fry originally started being the
front man from the get go. All the songs on
the first record were Glenn Fry songs, big hits, and
(22:17):
then Don Hinley just kind of roared out of the
background off the drums into singing spectacular song like which
he Woman and best of My Love and just great,
great songs. His voice was spectacular. So there was always
that struggle between those two guys, even though they were
writing and collaborating together. I was there not to create friction,
(22:41):
but to help divert whatever their goal was musically directly
because Don Hilly doesn't write music, and Glenn he used
to call himself the claw when he played piano and
was like he could get through it, but he really
wasn't a pianist. And so between Bernie's influence in earlier
on and then when he finally left, and he left
(23:02):
for what I thought was a really good reason, to
tell you the truth, he really wanted to retain the
roots of country in some part of these records, and
they were just where over country, we're going to move
into rock and pop and all this other stuff. And
when Bernie left, they chose to get Joe in which
I love Joe to death. I think he and I
(23:23):
had some of the best times together any time on
the road, And not only that, but the fun we
had already been playing together and TV shows and shows
that we opened for Elton John at Dodger Stadium as
Joe Walsh and Friends, and so he and I had
already been doing that stuff. So when that idea for
(23:44):
Hotel California came up in that little beach house, I said,
I had to make an ending on this that Joe
and I could play on so that we could have
So I played a solo kind of like what I
was going to play, and then i'd play something I
thought Joe would try to sound like Joe, and I
was like simulating that thing at the very end of
(24:05):
the record. It was just always so much fun to
work and play with him, and we inspired each other.
It was like, Okay, you think you can do this,
try this, you know, and okay, Trump, let's put a
squeak on this one, and you know, just try to
That was a very loving, fun creative process. A lot
of times it was over lyrics, and Don Helly is
(24:25):
a brilliant lyricist in my opinion. He just you take
a song like Hotel, and each little line is like
a postcard. It's like a picture of the song on
a dark desert highway. You see it cool in my hair,
you can feel it in your hair, a warm smell.
You can smell khalid As. He just has a way
(24:45):
to draw these little pictures that lead you to a
great chorus, brilliant. He's an English literature major and it
shows and his writing, so I have the utmost respect
for Don and his skills. That way, his voice. I
used to say he could sing the New York Times
telephone book and I love it.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I'll buy it platinum.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
You know, the Bobby Cast will be right back. This
is the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
When did you start to get like free guitars? When
are they like recognized just being awesome and they're like,
we're sending them free stuff? Was it before the Eagles?
Was it with the Eagles? Because now if you're an
artist and you're halfway decent, I mean I get free
guitar sent to me and I'm just we're in a
comedy duo. When did that happen where you started to
get like free guitars all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Well, I really don't accept a lot of stuff that
people give me because they want the brand, my name
sure on their product, so unless I really use the product,
like Gibson guitars. I was just over at the shop
yesterday and hanging out with Cesar and talking about a few.
We're doing a tour next twenty twenty five, and I
(26:00):
like to have new looking guitars that just have these
monster flames so the guitar players can go, wow, look
at that flame on that guitar. It's like flame envy,
you know. It's like you want these guys to just
drool over their guitar. So I'm going to get a
couple of new things from them. But I never really
(26:22):
accept stuff that I don't actually use.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Did they do like endorsement deals back in like the
sixties and seventies for instruments? Would they pay you to
even though you loved it? I just don't know when
that happened, when that culture started. I know the eighties
that started happening a little bit, But like, did you
just find your guitar pay for and you just travel
with it the whole time? That's just it.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
That was a guy down in Texas named Tony Dukes.
This is early seventies, seventy three seventy four, and whatever
town we were playing in, whether it was Dallas or
Houston or Austin, he would show up with a suburban
full of classic guitars old fifty nine less Paul's fifty
two telecasters, fifty seven sts, Gretch's Elvis Presley acoustic guitars,
(27:03):
and just and I'd buy everything he got. And so
he came in one day and he had this fifty
nine less poe, which is my number one less poe now,
and he wanted twelve hundred dollars for it, and I went, geez,
twelve hundred bucks, are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So I bought it anyway, and I took it back
to the soundcheck. I was going to play it that
night in the show. Figure back the soundcheck and Glint
I opened the cage and Glin went, wow, that's really great.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Where'd you get that? Said from Tony Dukes? He said,
what'd you pay for it? I went twelve hundred dollars?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
He went cheap, Like, you're an idiot to pay that
much for it. Now, it's probably worth well over a
couple of million dollars just because it's been so documented,
and I think Gibson put out a Don Felder Hotel
caliversion copy of it. They did three hundred and put
it out and sold them. They sold like three days.
They were all gone.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Did you still have the original I do.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, what's is that your number? What's your number? One?
Play guitar? That's like, this is the one? Is it
that one? But I wouldn't travel with that one. I'm
much cost that's too valuable. Like do you have an
A plus guitar? That's like, if I'm playing shows, this
is my comfortable guitar. I like it. This is it
gives you the tone you want.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
It's funny because I was in my studio just cleaning
up the other day and I keep finding these Less
Paul cases and I opened up there's a ninety four
flame top and oh, I didn't know I had that one.
And the next thing I know, I have seven Sunbursts
Less pauls, all in the nineties and early two thousands,
and you can literally pick them up and they're almost identical.
(28:36):
That's a good thing about Gibson is they're very just
consistent from guitar to guitar guitar and the tones up
are fantastic. So I when we do shows, I have
five different sets of gear that leap frog and get
shipped out to different cities that were going to when
we tour, we carry it all on a semi but
(28:56):
when we do one off stuff like we do a
fair and festival here in a private here at all
up in mon talk and we're down in Atlanta two
days later.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You have to use you know, your guitars.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And stuff and pedals, but to use a lot of
backline stuff for drums and keyboards and bass amps and stuff.
So I have gone through and picked out what I
think are the five my favorite five mess falls and
put them in each one of those rigs.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Were all the tones, because I'm obsessed with guitar tone
and trying to find the exact guitar tone. And sometimes
it's a tone you can never actually find it is
it's the perfect tone doesn't exist for certain things, but
you get as close as you can to it. And
so I'm obsessed with with the tone. And I was
looking at just some of the songs that you had
written and just some of the really famous guitar parts
(29:43):
and licks, and I'll ask about the song and I
wonder was it the original tone that you or did
it change as you were recording for example, one of
these nights, right, So is that the original tone that
you had in mind for that song?
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
And did you mostly stay with the same tone that
you would bring it because that was your thing and
you got it.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
The thing about one of these nights that's funny is
because I was a really huge fan of Dave Samborn,
you know, alto sax player, just a fabulous jazz player.
And he and I used to go fishing together when
he lived out in Bliboo. Had take him out. We'd
go fishing and hang out. And so when it came
time to write a solo for that, I thought of
(30:26):
Dave Samborg, What would Dave Samborg play? What burg? It's
a sax solo, It's really what it is. And I
played One of my first bands in New York City
was a jazz rock fusion band and we had a
guy that played soprano sax and his phrasing.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
When you're playing a horn, you have to.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
You have to take a break and put a pause
in your phrasing, where like guys that shred, they just
you know, they just shred.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Don't need to breathe through your hands, that's right.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
So I learned to be musically trained from hearing horn
players play. I loved Miles Davis. I drove from Gainesville,
Florida to New York City so I could see Miles
Davis play live with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter,
and Tony Williams. And it was an amazing life changing experience,
(31:19):
just like seeing you know, Woodstock and seeing those guys there,
it was like another level of respect. He came out,
his band's going to.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Doom Doom, Doom doom.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
He's got his back to the audience right and he
stands there and the crowd's just waiting for the first
notes to come out of his horn and he.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Goes ba ba by three notes.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Kenny g could go play a thousand notes and not
have that response, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Take to the limit. So was there ever an acoustic
that turned electric or an electric that turned acoustic from
when you wrote it? Or did it always stay with
how demoitis would be an example of what happens now, right,
Like goy to write a song, they write an acoustic,
it's like, man, we don't want to change it because
we're so in love with the demo. Did that ever happen?
(32:20):
Because that song feels like to me, it could be
done multiple, It could be electric, it could be acoustic.
Talk to me about that song a little bit. Well,
I didn't write Take It to the Limit, none of
the guitar part. Oh the guitar, Yeah, I'm talking about
the guitar parts. I'm only talking about tone. Like I said,
I'm obsessed with tone, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
No, Randy wrote that, and he came in with him
acoustic guitar on it, and I think Glenn wound up
playing piano on it, if I'm not mistaken. And I
picked up a strat, thinking, you know, you can use
the straight out without it being a biting, sustaining thing
and kind of a clear sound to it, and made
up those little guitar approach that are the intro and
(33:01):
the solo and stuff to send that. But Randy really
that was his baby and to hear him sing. Every
night we did a tour and Roy Orbison open for us.
Oh that's cool, and you could be backstage and he
would sing crying and hit that high note at the
end of crying. You go, okay, We're on in seven
minutes like clockwork. Every night the crowd would like just
(33:26):
roar when he hit that high note. So when Randy
came out with take It to the Limit. Sorry, but
we did kind of steal that lick from Roy, and
it worked every night. Every night that his voice was
in good shape, he could sing that high note and
the whole place would just explode.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
What Roy Orbison? Like?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I'm sorry? What was he like?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Roy Orbison? My grandmother was such a huge fan of Roy,
so we listened to him a lot growing up and
also like the Glasses too, But like, how long was
he with you guys opening up? Did you have any
sort of relationship with him?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:57):
I mean he was their only show. Every night you
hung out and talk stuff. As a matter of fact,
his son lives right down the street from my daughter
now that they grew up together, you know, and our
friends did this day and Roy was a really sweet.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Kind of kind person.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
No eagle ego, no attitude, no rock star stuff, just
a really good soul and he made it comfortable and
easy to have relationship with.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
So American rock and roll. It was first new record
in seven years, but it's also now been five years,
so what's so away? I mean, it's about it's a
cycle now, Like is another? What are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Anything?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Were?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
I've got ten tracks finished and mastered.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I'm probably gonna record.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
At least two more, if not four more between now
and next spring release that'll be released just before that
twenty twenty five tour that's gonna take place.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
So is that the Rock Legends the Excel twenty five tour?
Is that that should? I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I'm doing that.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Yeah, yeah, but that's the same. Tours are a different
thing that that Rock.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Legends tours is just a one week cruise. It's me
and Alice Cooper. I think, Oh that's cool.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
God, gota gotta Yeah, so you're going and doing a
whole tour twenty twenty five. Yeah, what do you start with?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Like, what do you like?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
What's the first song that you do it? That's so
important because everybody's ready to hear those first.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Notes already gone.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
And then what do you end with? Hotel? For sure
that will be awesome. Yeah, listen, don we're massive fans.
Like I said when I heard you can buy and
I devoured your book. It was so wonderfully written and
to get perspective of someone who had a career pre
during and post from what a lot of people know
(35:45):
you from as the Eagles, but you have all these
different lives and all these different versions and you know
musically you're you're such a giant. Like for me, it's
been super cool to spend a few minutes with you,
so we really appreciate it. Oh so glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Thanks for having me, Eddie.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Any final question for don no, don just thank you
and you're awesome. You're awesome. That's our favorite question.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
That's all we want to say.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
You're awesome. There's no question mark on that one. But
we are big fans. And thanks And when are you?
When are you announcing the tour?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Like what a lot of people come up to me
and say I grew up with your music and I
said I did too.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah right, No, No, no promotion to the tour yet,
you don't. You're not saying anything yet the tour five tour, Okay,
it won't be long.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
It'd probably be another two weeks maybe a month before
we actually release dates and.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Have someone send it to me and then we'll we'll
put we'll talk about it, we'll promote it for you
for coming in. That'd be great. Thank you very much.
That was awesome. Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast
production
Host
Bobby Bones
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