We recorded it, and I had to sit in Miami and play exactly what was on the demo. So we had to call my housekeeper in Malibu, who took the cassette, put it in a blaster and played it with the phone held up to the blaster. "When we were in the studio, Joe and I started jamming, and Don said, 'No, no, stop! It's not right.' I said, 'What do you mean it's not right?' And he said, 'No, no, you've got to play it just like the demo.' Only problem was, I did that demo a year earlier I couldn't even remember what was on it. I used a different amp so it sounded like a different guy, the way Joe might play it, and then I'd pick up my guitar to do the answer to that - so I emulated what the whole idea would be. When I wrote the ending, I recorded my guitar parts on a Les Paul and I played Joe's answers on a Strat. In fact, when we were doing the guitar parts at Criteria Studios in Miami, I thought that Joe and I would just plug in our guitars - I'd play some licks and he'd play some licks, and we'd just trade off each other. That was there, and all the way down to most of the guitar parts on the ending. On your original demo, did you have the 12-string intro? Every once in a while, you start to go, 'Is this all a bunch of wasted time, all the years we've sat in bars and turned into parties?' So the concept came out of that framework." When you get into the Hotel California and you have a hit, you're the new kid in town, and then once you have a great deal of success in the business, you start living life in the fast lane. "Don came up with the concept for Hotel California, and once we had that foundation for the album, a lot of other songs came about.
Hotel california hell freeze over movie#
The closer and closer you get, you start seeing all of these images, and these things pounded into our heads: the stars on Hollywood Boulevard, movie stars, palm trees, beaches and girls in bikinis. And as you drive in through the desert at night, you can see the glow of Los Angeles from a hundred miles away. So everybody had driven into Los Angeles on what used to be Route 66. Bernie was originally from San Diego, but he wasn't in the band ant that point. With Hotel California, I wrote all the music underneath it, and Don, Glenn and I would talk about concepts for the lyrics. I did this with the songs for Hotel California, and I said, 'If there's anything you like on these cassettes and you want to finish writing, let's do that.' Henley said, 'I like that song that sounds like a Mexican reggae or Bolero.' So he liked the one that became Hotel California, and he also liked Victim Of Love. "I would write track ideas - introductions, verses, choruses, solos - and I'd put them on a cassette and give them to Don and Glenn.
If he hears something, he'll write a melody or he might work with you on finishing it. Just write progressions and put them on a cassette. But he told me when I first joined the band, if you want to write songs with Henley, just give him music pads. That's how I met the Eagles, through Bernie. "Bernie Leadon, who had been an original founding member of the band, and I were in a high school band together in Gainesville, Florida. He can't pick up a guitar and write chord progressions he can't sit at a piano and write music underneath him. "The one thing about Don Henley is, he's a great singer, great lyricist and a great songwriter, but he doesn't play anything. Sometimes I'd sing a melody, and other times I'd just give them the track. I had a little Teac four-track tape recorder, and I'd go in and make these tracks. "No, actually, for every project we worked on, every album, I submitted song ideas, and in the case of Hotel California, the album, I'd say I turned in 15 or 16 ideas. How well were the songs you wrote received in the Eagles? Was it hard getting compositions by Don Henley and Glenn Frey?