The Long Run
Guitar Player, 1994
Alan DiPerna
 

In the midst of a sprawling Los Angeles rehearsal complex stands a cluster of trailers housed within are the Eagles, who have assembled here in preparation for their much-publicized reunion world tour. There’s one trailer per Eagles and each one is exactly identical in size and design --just the sort of separate-but-equal democracy you’d expect from a band notorious for its tense personality clashes and protracted artistic feuding.

In the trailer nearest the sound stage, Don Felder is on the phone. He’s talking to one of many guitar manufacturers who are vying to have him play their wares on his band’s highly visible trek around the globe: “Yeah, I really liked that last one you sent me...kind of like an explorer, but brighter, you know? Can you send another one of those?”

For a man of 47 and the father of college age kids, Felder looks good. His hair is graying but it’s still quite luxuriant, falling forward over his brow like a high stretch of California surf. He’s got an infections, insinuating laugh, the sort of laugh that grows slowly from a wheeze to a roar, drawing you into the joke, making you a conspirator in whatever bit of lore Felder happens to be spinning at the moment.

Don Felder is the Eagles’ secret weapon, their most often overlooked asset. He’s the guy who played that searing guitar solo on “On of These Nights.” He’s the one who wrote the music to “Hotel California,” with its sinfully caloric layers of guitar harmonies, and who played the first part of the legendary solo so often--and mistakenly--attributed entirely to Joe Walsh. Felder was a key figure in the Eagle’s transition from the soft-edged country rock of their first two albums to the harder-edged sound that brought the band its greatest success. He’s an impressively well-rounded musician. During the current Eagles tour he is holding down pedal steel and mandolin duties while also adding his fair share to the guitar work of Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey.

The guitarist is clearly excited about the tour and about the Eagles; forthcoming studio album. He proudly announces that they’ve already got four tunes in the can, including one called “Learn to Be Still,” that Henley co-wrote with Tom Petty drummer Stan Lynch. And Felder seems especially fond of the Eagles’ recently taped special edition of MTV’s “Unplugged.”

“It was the weirdest experience. When the five of us get together and play those songs, it’s like nothing’s changed. Like the Eagles never stopped working together. You’re up there, and with the exception of being able to see the first two or three rows of the audience, everything is all black around you. It’s like being in a vacuum--a time warp. And I had the sense that you could take that little time capsule and shove it 20 years in either direction--forward or back--and I’d still be up there, playing those songs. It was a very unusual sensation: like deja-vu and days yet to view.”

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus noted that you can never step in the same river twice. And the Eagles have been as changeable and free-flowing as any river. Band members have come and gone and the group has altered its artistic course on several occasions, moving in harmony with the prevailing musical landscape. The Seventies have gone and returned again with a vengeance. People and times may change, but Don Felder has never been the kind of guy who’s afraid to get his feet wet.

Tell me the story of “Hotel California.” The song that is arguably the Eagles’ biggest hit originated with you, didn’t it?

Yes. I had just leased this house out on the beach at Malibu--I guess it was around ‘74 or ‘75. I remember sitting in the living room, with the doors all wide open, on a spectacular July day. I had a bathing suit on and I was sitting on this couch, soaking wet, thinking the world is a wonderful place to be. I had this acoustic 12-string and I started tinkling around with it, and those “Hotel California” chords just kind of oozed out. Every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great plops into your lap. I had a Teac four-track set up in one of the back bedrooms and I ran back there to put this idea down before I forgot it. I had one of those old rhythm ace things that Roland or somebody made. I remember it was set to play this cha cha beat, so I started it p, set the right tempo and played the 12-string on top of it. I didn’t do any more to it then because I was also working on “Victim of Love” at the same time. I had about six or eight song ideas I was working up. But a few days later I went back and listened to that 12-string thing with the cha cha beat, and it sounded pretty unique. So I came up with a bass line. A few days later I added some electric guitars. Everything was getting mixed down to mono, ping-ponging back and forth on this little four track. Finally I wound up with a cassette that had just about the entire arrangement that appears on the record, verbatim, with the exception of a few Joe Walsh licks on the end. All the harmony guitar stuff was there as was my solo on the end.

At what point did Henley and Frey get involved in the writing?

When I gave Henley the cassette, it had eight or 10 different song ideas. He came back and said (imitating Henley), “I really love this one track on your tape. The one that sounds like a matador or something...like you’re in Mexico.” We worked it all up and went into the studio and recorded it. When I wrote the song, it was in E minor--just regular, open, normal chords, in standard tuning. And we recorded it the first time in E minor. We made this killer track. All the electric guitars were big and fat and the 12-string was nice and full. Then Henley comes back a week later and says, “It’s in the wrong key.” So I say, “Well what do you need? D? F sharp?

Hoping you could varispeed the tape.

Right. But he said, “No.” So I at down with him and started to figure out the key, and it turned out it had to be in B Minor! So out comes the capo and it goes way up on the seventh fret to get the thing into B minor. We re-recorded the song in B minor and all of a sudden the guitar sounds really small and the whole track just shrinks! “Oh no!!! What happened?” We decided it just wasn’t as good as the first track. So we went back and tried it again in B minor. This was our third recording. Luckily, we came up with a better version in B minor.

Did you stay with the capo scenario for that third recording?

Oh, I had to, yeah. I recorded the acoustic guitar on that track through a Leslie. They took a D.I. out of the console with a mic on it and a stereo Leslie, so you get this swirly kind of effect. Then I went back in and did most of the guitars, except for the stuff where Joe and I set up on two stools and ran the harmony parts down.

There are two sets of harmony guitar parts on the record: one that comes in at the end of the first verse and then an “answer” harmony that enters at the end of the second verse.

You know it well! Yeah, Joe and I set up and did those together. It was a lot of fun working out all the little details.

What about the solo section in the end? Who has the first solo?

I do. Then it’s Joe. Then we trade lines and then we go into the lead harmonies. But it works the other way on the acoustic version we just did. I let Joe have the first solo.

When you play the song live, do you still have to capo up for the 12-string part?

Yeah. I have a doubleneck Gibson--a six string and a 12 string--that I use to cover all my parts live. So on the 12-string neck I capo at the seventh fret. And it sounds okay. You know, even on the record, maybe because I’ve been hearing it for 20 years, that part sounds all right to me now. But it’s not as nice as the E minor version. Even when we finished “Hotel California” I wasn’t convinced that it should be a single. I thought it was okay as an album piece because all those guitars were a lot of fun. But when Henley said, “I think it should be our single,” I said, “Are you kidding? The song is six minutes and change. They’re not going to play anything over three minutes-30 seconds on the radio. Here we’ve got something that’s twice their usual program length. It starts off quiet and it’s got this quiet breakdown in the middle...” I was very skeptical, but I just yielded to the wisdom of Guano, which is Henley’s nickname.

Guano!!!???

Yeah, the Sonic Bat. He can detect anything that’s even microtonally out of tune. He’s got the Sonic Bat Radar. (Guano means “bat dung” in Spanish--GW ED.)

Did he come up with the entire lyrical concept for “Hotel California”
right away?

Pretty much, yeah. I think he and Glenn had this idea--kind of the fantasy of California. It’s supposed to be kind of a microcosm of the world. But I wouldn’t want to speak for them. The line, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave,” was based on Jackson Browne’s first wife, who committed suicide. In other words, you can check out--die--but you’re still in the cosmos somewhere. You’re not going to get out of that karmic phase of it. The way Glenn and Don tend to work together is Glenn is great at conceptualizing. He’ll say, “I can see this guy driving in the desert at night, and you can see the lights of LA, way off on the horizon...” Henley gets the picture and goes from there. HE was an English literature major. He writes really great prose. He can take those little snapshots and put them into just two or three lines and it’s just...wow! I try and do the same thing with a lick here and there.

What was your musical background like when you joined the Eagles? Did you come more from the country/bluegrass side of things, or more the rock side?

Well, I should take you back a step and say that I grew up in Gainesville, Florida, which was a very small town then. And there were a lot of people living there at the time who went on to be successful musicians. Stephen Stills and I had a band together when we were 14. We made records. WE went around in the back of people’s pickup trucks and station wagons, playing at radio stations.

What was that band called?

The Continentals. Really cool, eh? Then Bernie Leadon moved to Gainesville for his junior and senior years in high school Bernie came from a heavy country music background. He didn’t even own an electric guitar when I met him. And I knew every Elvis Presley lick! I had really gotten into rock and roll and r&b, tryin’ to listen to WKLAC late at night when all the horrible white stations went off the air. You could hear people like B.B. King! Which is where my roots are, really.

So Bernie and I actually put together two bands, which we finally merged into one. One band was sort of a fraternity/high school prom dance band which played the Daytona strip along with the Allman Brothers, who were the Allman Joys at the a time. Butch Trucks also had a three-piece band. And little Tommy Petty, who was just a snot-nosed kid, had his band going down there. All of us in that area kind of knew each other.

Bernie and I also had a bluegrass band. Bernie was already a master at all that stuff--a killer five-string banjo player. I wound up learning how to play mandolin and flat-top acoustic guitar. Reciprocally, I took Bernie to the music store, bought him a Gretsch electric guitar and taught him rock and roll. So way back in high school we were kind of laying the groundwork for what we’d be doing together in the Eagles, mixing country and rock.

We went our separate ways after high school, though. He went to LA and I wound up in New York, where I had a jazz-rock-fusion band. And all the time Bernie kept calling me, saying “You ought to move out to LA.” But it seemed so far away and the whole psychedelic thing out there seemed a little too strange for me. But then Stephen Stills happened with his band and Bernie fell into some things so I said, “Well okay, I’ll go to LA.” So by the time I got to LA., I had a background in almost everything: country, rock, jazz...I’d even played gigs at Holiday Inns with a gut string guitar, playing movie themes.

So you and Bernie were old friends. But how well did you know the other guys in the Eagles when you were called in to play slide on “Good Day in Hell,” your very first session with the band in 1974?

When I was living in New York, I’d go jam with them when they came through town. I’d built a relationship with them in the days when they were still kind of a small band playing 2000 to 2500 seat halls. It wasn’t like sitting in with the Rolling Stones. So when they were doing On The Border , Glenn recalled that I played a little slide and they asked me to come play on “Good Day In Hell.” The next day they called and asked me to join the band. And I said, “Well, I don’t know...” Cause every time I talked to Bernie, it sounded like the band had just broken up. And I didn’t want to join a band that was going to break up every day. (laughs) I mean I was very excited about their offer. But it felt like I was joining a band that was crumbling apart.

So it never felt like the Eagles were a rock-solid thing that would go on forever.

No. To this day it doesn’t feel like that. That’s just the nature of this beast.

Once you did join, there were three guitar players in the band: Glenn, Bernie and you. What was your approach to devising arrangements for all those guitars?

Well, the arrangements were already pretty complex, and the band was having a hard time reproducing them live. There was a lot of bluegrass stuff on the first few records and Bernie obviously couldn’t cover all of the instruments live. So when he played banjo, I would play mandolin. Or when he played pedal steel, I’d play flat--top acoustic--just like we used to do in high school. Even on the more rock-oriented studio material, the would double or triple track Glenn or Bernie’s parts. If you listen to those early parts, Bernie played a B-string-bender, Tele-type thing and Glenn played his harmony lead parts on top of that. And somebody needed to take on of those three or four parts on stage in order to make it sound like the record. It’s difficult to play “Already Gone” without three guitar parts. And one of the successes of this band in performance is that we sound exactly like the record--the vocal harmonies, the guitars, everything.

Did all that guitar work tend to be cut live-in-the-studio? Like “Take it Easy,” for example--those dueling, intertwining leads...

A lot of it was done live: I think we overdubbed only a couple of little things on that one. In fact, a lot of our tracks were cut live. We just set up and played.

What do you recall about coming up with those interlocking rhythm guitar parts on “One of These Nights?”

That was a unique situation. I added those parts after the record was done. It was originally a piano-based song, and we cut it with Glenn playing piano; he also did the harmony guitar parts in the beginning. But the song just didn’t groove, so Bill Szymczyk figured out how we could make the thing scream a little. We added a couple of rhythm guitar parts. And I’ll never forget doing the solo for that song. Don and Glenn were at a radio interview. They were going to call into the studio, live, from whatever radio station they were at, and Szymczyk and I were supposed to do this phone interview and then play them the solo we’d recorded, live-on-air. So Szymczyk and I really set them up. We recorded a solo that started out like the one on the record, but halfway through, inserted two or three out of tune notes and a couple of mistakes. As the solo progressed, it just got worse and worse. (laughs wildly). And then we recorded the real one--the one on the record. But when Glenn and Don called, we played them the dud solo. It started off and they’re saying, “Hey, that sounds good.” And as soon as they finished those first couple of comments you could start hearing these, mmm, errant notes. And the next thing you know, everybody’s laughing. That’s one of the things I remember most about that solo.

It’s an interesting solo. Do you remember what inspired it?

Every time I write a solo, I think I’m a sax player. Horn players have to be melodic. One member of that jazz fusion band I had in New York played soprano sax really well. We actually worked up some solos that we played in unison, which really helped my sense of phrasing and soloing. And since “One of These Nights” is kind of a rock version of an r&b style song, I figured the solo should sound like a sax. And since we didn't have a sax player...I just did my best on guitar.

How did Bernie Leadon’s departure from the Eagles in 1975 affect the group’s guitar sound and overall approach.

When Bernie left, he bequeathed me the ...burden (laughs)...of maintaining both h the things he did: the country/bluegrass side and the rock side. At the same time, all through On The Border, One of These Nights and Hotel California, I was trying to push the band a little bit way from that very light, delicate, early acoustic material and into a sound that was more radio-playable. Stuff that could fill up larger venues and sell massive amounts of tickets. You know, more rock and roll. And everybody jumped on it. That’s kind of where Glenn wanted to go. And Henley, he could sing the New York phone book and sell a million records, so he was really interested in that that too.

So it made a lot of sense to choose a real rock player like Joe Walsh as Bernie’s replacement.

Yes. Even prior to Bernie’s official departure, Joe started getting involved in the band the same way I did, by coming around and hanging out, playing slide at rehearsals and screwing around. So when Bernie gave notice that he was leaving, Joe was the prime candidate to replace him.

At the time, it surprised a lot of people to hear that Joe Walsh was joining the Eagles. He had a pretty solid solo career. And he had established himself wit h the James Gang as a real rock guy. Joe Walsh and the Eagles just seemed like a very unlikely combination in 1975.

Yeah, well, Irving Azoff managed Joe and he managed us. Joe was always around. He opened some shows for us. We got to be friends. You know, I went our and did a couple of solo things wit him. We did an album together and a TV show. Kind of (breaks into the Rodgers and Hammerstein tune) “Getting to know you, getting to know all about you....” Because that was the key: how well could Joe and I work together? The answer, it turned out ,was really well. It’s a delight to play with that guy. I’ve always really enjoyed that. I’ve missed it.

On songs written solely by Henley and Frey, how much were the other band members involved in the actual, “hashing it out” creative process?

I’d say not so much in the composition of the lyrics, melody or even the chord charts, but definitely in the arrangements. It’s like Don and Glenn would set the table: “Here’s the song, here are the lyrics. Now you bring something to the party.” And everybody would add their insights, whether it was a solo or a pedal steel part, that would bring the song alive.

Did the band ever become enmeshed in Don and Glenn’s famous creative feuds?

You know, the feuds that took place in the band were never based on individual egos. They were always conflicts over what was right for the material, or the best artistic approach to something. The feuds grew out of a concern for the quality of what was being produced. I think that was part of the strain--the criteria we set for what we were trying to achieve created a mountain that was difficult to climb. Even though we created the mountain ourselves! And I think that’s why records ended up taking two years to make. It took a lot of coating for everyone’s nerves to go through that level of creative struggle.

There was a three-year period between Hotel California and The Long Run, during which you changed bass players.

We pleaded and pleaded with Randy not to leave the band. But he just felt it was time for him to attend to his personal life--mainly his family. His kids were in their teens and they had literally grown up with their father gone all the time, first wit the Rick Nelson band, then Poco, then the Eagles. He just reached a point where his heart told him to stop. We pleaded with him to continue and offered to change our schedule and do less work, but in the end he did what he had to do.

How did Timothy B. Schmit’s arrival change things?

Well, Timothy had replaced Randy in Poco when Randy left Poco to join the Eagles. And when Randy’s departure from the Eagles was announced we said, “Okay, let’s list on one finger all the people that we know who can sing that high and play bass that well. Mmm, who might that be?” Timothy was the only logical choice. And he brought a great personality into the band.

Let’s take a giant step forward in time. What led to this reunion of the Eagles?

It’s not a reunion of the Eagles. It’s a resumption. I only use that word because that’s the one Henley and Frey have selected. And it really offers a pleasant perspective on what’s happening--that this isn’t a one-time-get together tour as much as it is a resumption of this group of people writing and recording together.

What directed led to this resumption was doing the Travis Tritt video. That was the first time we all actually got together and played. It was like. “Can we all stand together in the same room and smile and play, and have a good time? Or is it going to be too strange?” And it turned out to be great fun, like a high school rock band getting back together for a 20-year reunion and playing “Louie Louie.” I think we only played “Take it Easy” once or twice. We just played a bunch of old songs and jammed and it was a lot of fun. It had the kind of innocence that we had back when we just played and wrote songs without the pressure of having to top our last 20-million-selling album.

So all the less pleasant aspects of the Eagles’ past history were just so much water under the bridge?

Nobody really harbored any personal resentments. It was more a matter of not wanting to step back into the intensity of what would be demanded of us as the eagles. But we’ve stepped back in, and here we are working on three projects at the same time. We’re trying to finish the television show that we videotaped for MTV. We’re in the studio writing and recording.

So far, we’ve finished four new studio tracks for a new album. And we have a world tour starting in eight days. So it’s like, “Aaaggghhh, we’ve done it to ourselves again!” But we’re having a good time--laughing, and trying to take it with a lot more grace than we did last time. If we pace ourselves better this time than we did last time, we’ll be all right.

Is it true that there was a planned Eagles’ reunion that didn’t work out?

Yes. I would say that from the day we put this band on hold, everybody in the back of their minds knew how wonderful it would be to play together again. Don and Joe and Timothy and I have all stayed in contact. And finally, about two and a half years ago, it reached a point where everybody was talking to everybody else again. Don and Glenn had reconciled a few differences and wound up writing some songs together and were actually in the studio for three weeks. But nothing really came of it. The cosmos just weren’t in proper alignment for it to happen at that time. Either emotionally or musically, it just wasn’t right.

Would you say now is the right time? There has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in the Seventies and “Classic Rock” has never been more popular.

I couldn’t tell you. I don’t know how it all came together in the first place. I don’t know what caused it to break up. I don’t know why we’re together again right now. I just know I’m really enjoying it. I suppose it’s nice to be a classic.

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