In 1976, The Eagles released one of the best guitar songs – and, in turn, one of the best guitar solos – ever committed to tape when they dropped Hotel California. A few years later, plans for a spiritual sequel were in motion – but they never came to pass.
Instead, that song, which had been mooted as a follow-up to Hotel California, found life outside the confines of The Eagles – and ended up as the theme song for an animated feature film five years later.
Speaking in the new issue of Guitarist, Eagles guitarist Don Felder addressed rumors that his solo hit Heavy Metal had originally been conceived as a song for the band, confirming it had been intended to be another excuse for him and Joe Walsh to let loose on some “dazzling” guitar work befitting a Hotel California sequel.
“It was going to be a follow-up on The Long Run to Hotel California,” he states. “It had a real kind of heavy hand to it and I wrote it so that Joe [Walsh] and I could play even harder than we did, or edgier than we did on Hotel, against each other.
“It had harmony parts, trading-off solos and a much harder rock edge. We went in and recorded the basic track for The Long Run but never got around to finishing the lyrics.”
The track went unfinished, but Felder would bring it out of its early retirement a few years later when he got tapped to write a song for animated sci-fi feature film Heavy Metal. He had the perfect song in mind for the gig.
“We had a basic track, but it just died in the Eagles’ vault until I got a call years later about doing a song for the Heavy Metal movie,” he continues.
“Without the title Heavy Metal, that song could have, and should have, in my opinion, been finished on an Eagles record with Joe and I following up on Hotel with some dazzling guitar solos and stuff.
“It didn’t happen, we just didn’t have time,” Felder continues of Heavy Metal’s fate. “We had a tour booked and planned, and we were just dying to get through this record [The Long Run], the final mixes, cleaning up vocals, mastering, artwork.
“We just didn’t have time to do everything we needed to do. There were a lot of dropped ideas along the way, but I took the idea and turned it into Heavy Metal.”
Back in 2021, Walsh discussed the makings of Hotel California, revealing the iconic lead lines were not pre-planned – and were instead entirely improvised.
Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the latest issue of Guitarist, which also includes an interview with Mark Knopfler and his former guitar tech – who discusses why he convinced Knopfler to swap Strats for Les Pauls.
