The Eagles has been the home to a handful of guitar greats – but the introduction of one such player into the mix helped spell the end for one of the band’s founding members.
The mid-1970s was a transitional period for the Eagles, who, after dropping their first two records – Eagles and Desperado – began to embrace a harder-leaning rock edge in a quest to be the biggest band on the planet.
“Felder was a really great guitar player, but when he joined, I could see the writing on the wall for me,” Leadon remembered in the new issue of Guitar World. “I thought, if I’m going to leave, better that a friend of mine gets the gig.”
Felder’s appointment coincided with the Eagles wanting to push their rock sound to the limit. And, speaking to Guitar World, Henley and producer Billy Szymczyk recalled how it led to Leadon’s departure.
“None of it sat well with Bernie,” Szymczyk says of the band’s new direction. “The further we went into rock, the less he liked it.”
Leadon stuck around for 1975’s One of These Nights, but it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing in the studio.
The friction between Leadon and the band was apparent. Szymczyk recalls asking Leadon one day what he thought of a take of One of These Nights. Leadon replied, “I think I’m going to go surfing.”
Things famously came to a head between Leadon and the band when, while backstage one night at the Orange Bowl in 1975, Leadon poured a beer over Glenn Frey’s head and walked out.
In the wake of Leadon’s departure, the Eagles hired Joe Walsh. He was, as both Henley and Szymczyk admit, a far better fit for the band, and the perfect companion for Felder’s high-octane rock style.
“For starters, things got louder,” Henley says of Walsh’s appointment. “Joe, being a bona fide rock ’n’ roll guitar slinger, was the perfect foil for Don Felder. They propelled one another in a friendly-but-competitive sort of way. We had upped our horsepower.
“This is not to take anything away from Bernie, who was – and still is – a highly skilled musician.”
“As we got into Hotel California, it was like, ‘This is a match made in heaven,’” Szymczyk adds. “The friction with Bernie was gone, and it was replaced with somebody that could just blister with a forceful edge.”
Head over to Magazines Direct to subscribe to Guitar World. The latest issue features a deep dive into 50 years of the Eagles, as well as interviews with Michael Angelo Batio and Jerry Cantrell.
