{"id":8021,"date":"2012-11-11T17:07:11","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T00:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=8021"},"modified":"2012-11-11T17:07:25","modified_gmt":"2012-11-12T00:07:25","slug":"don-felder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/11\/don-felder\/","title":{"rendered":"DON FELDER"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

DON FELDER<\/strong><\/h1>\n

With his first solo project in decades, a former Eagle soars again \u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n

It\u2019s 9 a.m. on the west coast and Don Felder is a bit drowsy. \u201cToo early,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll let you know how I\u2019m doing after\u00a0my second cup of tea.\u201d\u00a0Tea? A far cry from the indulgent excesses of his near three-decade rock star tenure with the Eagles\u2014the band that brought him fame, fortune and no shortage of conflict prior to his abrupt termination in 2001. That was a difficult time for Felder, who composed the music to the group\u2019s classic smash \u201cHotel California.\u201d \u201cEverything I knew just changed,\u201d he says. \u201cMy career, my friends\u2014or the people I thought were my friends\u2014and\u00a0my marriage, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next few years Felder endured a protracted legal battle over royalties and an extensive period of meditation and reflection, culminating with his revealing 2008 best-selling book, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974 \u2013 2001)<\/em>. \u201cOnce I was in the Eagles, I was \u2018drugged\u2019\u2014not \u2018dragged\u2019\u2014into all sorts of promiscuity and drugs and everything,\u201d Felder recalls. \u201cI realized how that had influenced my life, separated me from the morals and ethics I was raised with.\u00a0I wanted to understand what took me from being raised dirt-poor to being a\u00a0multimillionaire, and from the values of the\u00a0church to a life of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually Felder turned to music again, recording songs borne from his experiences and performing with a band that includes his son Cody on percussion and daughter Leah on backup vocals. \u201cI\u2019d be in the studio for three or four days and then go right back on the road, so production time was limited,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d be writing lyrics on airplanes and figuring out guitar parts between gigs. The whole process stretched over two or three years. But it was cathartic to take those life episodes, write them into songs and play them for people who might relate to those feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

His efforts yielded Road to Forever<\/em>, Felder\u2019s first solo album in 30 years and only his second career solo effort. While the songs are emotive and reflective, Felder, 65, still brings the razor-sharp guitar licks he contributed to the Eagles. He also enlisted an all-star supporting cast, including Tommy Shaw, Steve Lukather, David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills. It was a reunion of sorts for Felder and Stills, who played together as teenagers with the Continentals in Gainesville, Fla.\u2014a group that also included future Eagles bandmate Bernie Leadon.<\/p>\n

Felder has learned much from his years with the Eagles. \u201cThere were five guys who could all write and sing and play,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you get that much talent and that many egos, there\u2019s bound to be conflict. So I always took a great deal of that contentiousness with a grain of salt. Instead of digging in and fighting for something, I\u2019d back off and make concessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of those disputes were for the best of the band\u2014for the best record, the best songs, the best singing,\u201d he continues. \u201cWhen the motivation was to avoid mediocrity, it raised the bar. In trying to continue to raise that bar higher, the band reached a point that Glenn [Frey] called the \u2018hardening of the artistry\u2019\u2014where it\u2019s hard to rise above what you\u2019ve accomplished and make that leap of faith to write, play or be creative. Once I left the band and didn\u2019t have the restriction to write for a specific cast of characters, I found I could write and play to my strengths.\u201d<\/p>\n

These days Felder is happy to focus on himself, and plans to keep touring. \u201cI\u2019ve been out on the road for the last six or seven years on and off, and now with the release of this record, I\u2019ll be pretty much working through next summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Lee Zimmerman<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DON FELDER With his first solo project in decades, a former Eagle soars again \u00a0 It\u2019s 9 a.m. on the west coast and Don Felder is a bit drowsy. \u201cToo early,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ll let you know how I\u2019m doing after\u00a0my second cup of tea.\u201d\u00a0Tea? A far cry from the indulgent excesses of his near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[5415,4120,5410,4121,5411,5412,5077,5414,1707,5413],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8021"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8025,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021\/revisions\/8025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}