(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sat 6 September 2025 18:00, UK
Every single band breakup is going to have a bunch of raw wounds. Not every group is meant to go the distance until the end of time, but for as much as the Eagles needed to let go of Don Felder, the guitarist was willing to set the record straight on what was really going on behind the scenes while he was with them.
Then again, it’s not like Felder didn’t have the chops to work with the Eagles. He was all over the neck from the minute that he laid down his first guitar solo on the track ‘Already Gone’, and whenever listening to their greatest moments on record, it usually comes from him delivering a kickass guitar solo or harmonising with Joe Walsh. But Felder was far from the journeyman that many people saw him as.
He was as much a songwriter as any other member of the group, and regardless of who was singing, no one could deny that he had a hand in their biggest hits. His bassline at the beginning of ‘One of These Nights’ is what helps set the mood before the rest of the band comes in, and while Don Henley should get credit for creating an entire musical world on ‘Hotel California’, Felder was the one who came up with the descending guitar figure that Henley based the entire song around.
But when looking at the documentary History of the Eagles, Henley and Glenn Frey saw Felder becoming more and more greedy when it came to songwriting. Aside from wanting to sing a lot more on their records, one of the main reasons why he was let go a second time after their reunion had more to do with his contractual disputes, with the guitarist claiming that he deserved a larger cut than what he ended up getting.
While Henley claimed that Felder tried to seize control of the band’s affairs back in the 1990s, the guitarist said that nothing was further from the truth, saying, “It’s just not accurate. I never challenged control of the band. Basically, all I did was start asking questions. [Earlier] I just stayed out of it. But in the ‘90s, when we resumed and Don and Glenn literally seized power, and through greed and power just kind of started taking control of the whole thing, making all the decisions without even consulting or a phone call or what used to be a band meeting.”
It’s a fair complaint at the end of the day. Felder had already gone through his fair share of personal disagreements with Frey that ended with them nearly coming to blows onstage, but the real gut-punch for him was knowing that a lot more money was potentially on the table when looking at all of the co-writes that he had throughout the band’s career.
On the other hand, both Frey and Henley bring up a good point in the documentary as well. They could acknowledge that Felder brought some great ideas to the table, but given the amount of work that both of them had done in their solo careers to keep the band’s name alive, it wasn’t like Felder was even matching what Joe Walsh was doing whenever he put out his solo material.
Although the band were happy to remember the good times when they first reunited, Felder’s claims that he was cheated out of money only served to remind people of the kind of animal the band had become. They could make fantastic songs together, but after a while, any great band can find themselves becoming more of a business than the band of brothers that they started out as.
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