Don Felder says he played up to 14 different guitar parts on the Eagles' 1977 single hit “Hotel California” using both six- and 12-string guitars. But determining how to re-create the song live left him scratching his head.
The obvious solution was to play a Gibson EDS-1275 double-neck, the same model Jimmy Page used to bring “Stairway to Heaven” to the stage.
But even then, he says, the instrument required modifications to meet his needs.
“I played so many guitar tracks on that song, I think 13 to 14 guitar parts total. So, when it came time to play it live, we were stuck with the question of how do I play the 12-string and the six-string throughout the song,” Felder tells Gibson Gazette.
“At first, we thought maybe I put a 12-string acoustic on a stand [in playing position] and have a six-string Les Paul behind my back. I could reach over and play the 12-string, and then when the six-string was needed, I could step away and pull it up from behind my back.
“But I just knew the first time I was a little off balance, the guitar on the stand would fall face down, and then what do you do? Stop the song?”
Since it was such a hit, "Hotel California" quickly became a highlight of the Eagles' sets. Felder needed a foolproof plan, so he sent his tech out to find a double-neck. He returned with the Olympic White Gibson EDS-1275 that has been in Felder's guitar arsenal ever since.
But it needed one extra mod in order to authentically replicate the density and diversity of the song’s studio version.
Felder had used his 1959 Les Paul Standard for several of the guitar layers when recording it at Miaimi's Criteria Studios, . The guitar was plugged into a 1950s Fender Tweed Deluxe combo amp and Echoplex electric tape delay. Crucially, the 12-string went through a rotating Leslie speaker. So he leaned on a country guitar hero for the answer.
“Since the 12-string needed to come out of a Leslie, and the six-string out of a regular amp, the idea of two outputs came from when I saw Chet Atkins play,” he details. “He had split a pickup, allowing him to play two songs at once. So I took that concept, and instead of splitting the pickup, I put in a second output jack, and split the output switch between the necks.
![Eagles - Hotel California (Live 1977) (Official Video) [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/09839DpTctU/maxresdefault.jpg)
“So the Gibson doubleneck I play is not an off-the-shelf model,” Felder reveals. “I have to have them modified, where the switch is switching between the outputs of the two necks. Thankfully, the idea worked out pretty well!”
A peek at the image below gives the game away. There are two inputs clearly visible on the body of he guitar, with two cables running from them to their respective amps.
Felder, who has recovered after being rushed off stage back in February, is back with The Vault — Fifty Years of Music, his new solo album that draws inspiration from rediscovered demos from the Eagles' glory days.
Some of the ideas date back as far as 1974, the year he joined the band. But The Vault isn’t solely a nostalgia trip.
“I didn’t want it to sound like a bunch of old songs,” he tells Guitar Player. “It’s not old songs. The only one that sounds particularly dated, and I did that deliberately, is ‘All the Girls Love to Dance.’ It was written and developed in the mid ’80s, so I wanted to represent that time period. But the rest I think feel pretty current.”
He’s also revealed the unlikely influence behind his standout “One of These Nights” guitar solo, and reflected on his early days, including the time a young, budding artist called Tom Petty asked him for guitar lessons.
