Don Felder spent an hour with Howard Stern on Thursday paying out on his former band the Eagles. But so what' (to quote a Joe Walsh album title).
Felder was promoting his book `Heaven and Hell: My Life In The Eagles` that is a pretty accurate account of the history of the Eagles, according to insiders. But so what if a rock band took drugs and had sex and lots of alcohol' Since when is it a surprise when a rock band acts like a rock band' That`s not news. That`s just how it is in the music biz.Felder talked about how the band evolved into “the Don Henley show” and how he and Joe were not allowed to dance on stage because it took the cameras off Henley and Frey. “Joe and I used to dance on stage during `All She Wants To Do Is Dance` and we would get together and play the guitars and dance and just try and ham around on the camera and Henley would say he didn`t like the camera on us,” he said. “So we were a distraction from the Don Henley show so were started standing almost with our feet nailed down to the floor on that.”
In talking about the Henley and Frey egos, as an example he said “I was castigated one night for wearing the wrong coloured shoes on stage”.
“The issues came down to greed, power and control. He said” but again, so what' That goes on every single day in most corporations, and the Eagles are a billion dollar corporation.
Felder also claimed to be CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of the Eagles Corporation but was not told how much money the company was making. He says he was fired for asking questions. “I started asking questions and started getting these kind of sandbag answers and as CFO I thought that I should have the right to at least see what`s going on,” he said.
He did say that there is nothing new about being screwed in the music industry but it was being screwed by his own band-mates that hurt. “The irony was that Don Henley was a spokesperson for the Coalition of Artists Rights, which is a bit hypocritical,” he said.
Felder spoke out-of-school about Joe Walsh`s deal with the album, suggesting on-air that Walsh was just a paid employee of the band. Apart from the fact that its none of his business, again, so what' Joe to this day still has his own solo career. He puts out his solo albums and recently also resurrected his old band James Gang. Being an “employee” of the Eagles isn`t a bad `other` job to have. He isn`t in prison in the band. He has had a successful and long career outside of the band as well.
When asked about his opinion of the new album `Long Road Out Of Eden`, Felder came across as just bitter. “I was really shocked and disappointed that they have, in my opinion, one of the greatest rock and roll guitar players alive today in Walsh and you just don`t hear him on the record at all. There is no Joe Walsh.” When a caller commented that “it sounds like a shitty country record” Felder immediately agreed. “Yes, it does. It sounds like a Nashville produced record,” he said.
He did say after Stern asked, “so you are not thrilled with the new Eagles album”, “no, but I`m a little biased”.
Felder tells all in the book `Heaven and Hell: My Life In The Eagles` which has finally been released in the United States after being available around the world from last year.
