The Eagles

[My Alter Ego]

Howard Stern interview with Don Felder promoting his book
"Heaven and Hell, My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001)"
Language and Subject Matter are of an adult nature so be prewarned.

Although Felder is fair game and good natured in this interview, he does paint a rather distasteful picture of Glenn Frey and Don Henley, he doesn't pull punches for his own short comings in that era either.

Felder was brought in to 'rock' up the Eagles, take them away from the pure country that Bernie Leadon was taking them. Good back stories to the Eagles of that era, how Felder, who claims to have written "Hotel California" was horrified when it was picked as the single as well as the name of the album. It didn't fit the 'radio friendly' format of the 3 minute song with a 30 sec intro at the beginning, time for the DJ to make his intro at the beginning of the song.

Felder grew up in a very musical community, knew Steven Stills and the Allman Brothers in his teens and even instructed a young Tom Petty on playing the guitar

Wow! Just got around to watching the vids you posted, Tusk. This was hugely interesting, in a sad way. Felder comes off as a pretty decent guy, all the while owning his mistakes.

For some reason, when the Eagles seemed to be going different ways, I'd always assumed that it was Frey's ego that was the root cause, albeit I was aware of the Henley/Frey "rift." What a shame! Such an amazing collection of talent! (Athough I suppose a similar thing could be said about four lads from "across the pond.")

That said, I disliked Hotel from the outset. It was just so monotonous -- and far, far too long to be that repetitious and tedious. And then, it was so ubiquitous. That's a bad combination for me.

But it was interesting to listen to Don Felder's side of the story. I hope his CD does fairly well.