“Do I really quit this gig?”: the artist that was almost talked out of joining Eagles
Joining any famous band isn’t something that anyone should take lightly. The idea of adding one’s own stamp to a group that already has massive hits is no easy feat, and when listening through any great album, it can be intimidating knowing that you have to end up putting your signature stamp on every one of those songs. And especially in a band that was as perfectionist as the Eagles could be, most people knew to tread lightly before they put pen to paper on that contract.
But Glenn Frey and Don Henley weren’t simply in the industry to have a great rock and roll band. They had plans to be as big as any other artist that the 1970s could spit out, and by the time that Hotel California arrived, they had put themselves up with the likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd as one of the greatest acts of all time. Their stuff was far more mellow, but it didn’t seem to matter to the massive crowds.
That wasn’t strictly the work of Frey and Henley, either. Every member of the band had to be there to get their momentum flowing, and there’s a good chance that they wouldn’t have been what they are without Joe Walsh. Walsh had already been a wild presence in his solo career, but given how serious they could be, he acted as the comic foil every time they played, usually throwing in some strange solos or giving a tune like ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ the edge it needed.
If anything, Walsh was a breath of fresh air from what Bernie Leadon was playing. There was nothing inherently wrong with Leadon’s playing, but the fact that he was a strict country player wasn’t going to go over well with a band that wanted to move beyond country music into rock territory. Even before Walsh got his foot in the door, Don Felder was already planning out what an edgier guitar tune was supposed to sound like.
When Felder first played with the band, though, he was never asked to join. He was simply one of Leadon’s friends that he invited down for a jam, but as soon as the solo worked itself out on ‘Already Gone’, there was no question that this was more than a session player. Everything he played was necessary for the band, but Felder remembered being told to really consider what he was leaving on the table if he joined.
Right as he was about to jump into the band’s world, Felder remembered Leadon calling him up to see where his head was, saying, “I had heard from Bernie how turbulent this band was. He said there was all this fighting over control and power, all that stuff. ‘Do I really quit this great-paying gig to join a band that might break up?’” When a band was working this well, though, there was no reason not to see what happened.
And while Felder did get some frustrating moments later on when he was cheated out of singing on the song ‘Victim of Love’, he was always one of the band’s greatest strengths when he played a solo. After all, the germ of the idea for ‘Hotel California’ was something that he came up with first, so it’s not like he was some fly-by-night player that was only going to add a decent guitar lick.
But anyone in the band at the time knew that the turbulence came with the territory every time they went onstage. It was easy to forgive a few shows that went sideways, but any band was a five-way marriage in many respects, and Felder was gladly willing to make that commitment.
