“I don’t want to disappoint anybody”: Why Don Felder refuses to improvise when playing the Hotel California solo
Is there any guitar solo in existence more iconic than Hotel California?
Sure, there are certainly some strong contenders, but Don Felder’s outro solo on the title track from the Eagles’ landmark 1976 album of the same name will go down in history as one of the greatest lead guitar moments ever committed to record.
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And as such, Don Felder makes sure to treat the solo with the utmost respect when performing the track live, in that he’ll never deviate from the notes on the record as an obligation to fans.
“I’ve played it so many times – like, every show I’ve played as a solo artist I have played Hotel California,” Felder tells Ultimate Classic Rock in a new interview. He notes how he continuously practices Hotel California despite playing it hundreds of times over the last five decades.
“The one thing I do at every show, before I go on stage, is work on Hotel California because I don’t want to disappoint anybody,” he explains. “Everybody knows every note in that solo, and I’m afraid if I started jamming on it people would go, ‘What is he doing? That’s wrong! That’s not the solo! Is he having a moment? Or maybe he’s just too old to remember it?”
“I think people want to hear it as they remember it from 50 years ago. So I do my best to play that, and it really takes the most amount of intense concentration to execute that solo over and over and over and over. You never want to just go on autopilot with it.”
Of course, Hotel California remains the Eagles most defining song, and is a staple of the band’s live show to this day. For his big moment each set, Don Felder uses his trusty Gibson EDS-1275 double neck guitar, as he has for decades.
Eagles continue to perform, and have just announced a new run of dates for their massive residency at the Las Vegas Sphere.
In September last year, Don Felder spoke about Heavy Metal (Takin’ a Ride), his 1981 solo track he re-recorded for his album The Vault – Fifty Years of Music. While the track ultimately became one of his solo songs, he had initially envisioned it as the ultimate guitar showdown between him and bandmate Joe Walsh – one that would even eclipse their twin leads on Hotel California.
“It was going to be a follow-up on The Long Run,” he said. “It had a real kind of heavy hand to it and I wrote it so that Joe and I could play even harder than we did – or edgier than we did – on Hotel California, against each other. It had harmony parts, trading-off solos and a much harder rock edge.”
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