Don Felder Explains How the Eagles Wrote ‘Hotel California’

(Photo by Frank Hoensch/Redferns)

Don Felder recently recalled how “Hotel California” almost failed to be created.

In an episode of Gear Factor, co-writer Don Felder discussed how the iconic song came to be. “I had made a tape of about 15 or 16 song ideas, one of which was my demo of ‘Hotel California’ that I had made in my back bedroom with an acoustic 12-string, me playing bass and a Roland drum machine, trying to simulate a guitar part between Joe [Walsh] and I, with me playing the main part,” he explained. “Basically the whole concept of the song came out of that demo musically.”

“Joe and I are sitting in the studio, two guitars, going at each other, trading off, and Henley comes walking in and says, ‘Stop, what are you doing? That’s not right,’” he continued. “I said, ‘What do you mean, that’s not right?’ He’s like, ‘You’ve got to play it just like the demo.’ He’d been listening to the demo over and over for over a year now. I just thought, ‘I don’t know what I played. I just made that up.’ He’s like, ‘We’ve got to get that so you can learn it.’”

Read the full story on Loudwire.